Essay on Element of Power in "Wife of Bath"

The prologue to The Wife of Bath is about power. The Wife goes through many explanations of how and why she strove to gain power from each of her five husbands. Each husband is described to have served her, and she enjoyed that position of power over them, as she describes throughout the prologue.

Starting at line 116 on page 187, she talks about how it is the power of how she was created that allows her to use her reproductive organs in the manner that she does. This connects with power, because she is establishing the fact that she knows better than others about what humans were meant to do, and what they were not. She then goes on to say "In marriage I'll use my equipment as freely as my maker sent it." (Chaucer, 188) Here she is again establishing the power that she is inferring was given to her by God.

When the Wife goes into talking about her husband being her "debtor and my slave" she is definitely showing how powerful she was with her husband. (Chaucer, 188) She then goes as far to say that "I have the power over his own body and not he" which confirms that she controlled her husband. (Chaucer, 188) On page 191, the Wife talks about how she "made them work at night" as if they were her property. This shows that she was really in control of them, and the way that she goes about describing it makes it appear that she is somewhat proud of what she did.

Each husband seems to be only a source of gaining property, wealth, and their love, before she simply gives up and stops loving them because she has everything that she could possibly want. This is proven when she says "They had given me their land and their treasure; I no longer needed to be diligent to win their love..." (Chaucer, 191) This also shows her as very shallow and materialistic. This may be in a way be Chaucer arguing that this is what girls try to do with their husbands and then when they do they stop loving them. "I governed them" the Wife says, and that statement right their makes the husbands appear to be her servants and the Wife the Queen. (Chaucer, 192).

The wife also talks about how the women don't want their husband to be watching everything they do, and they want to be free. Basically she is saying that woman do not want husbands to have any power over them when she says "We don't love a man who carefully watches where we go; we want to be at large." (Chaucer 197) The reason that they do not want a husband watching them is because they want to be able to have power over the husband and not the opposite. This is a conflict with the fifth husband. But it is clearly seen how the Wife turns the tables on the fellow, and gets him to give her "control of house and land; and also his tongue and hand..." (Chaucer 218) This shows her complete control over him, as they never argue again because she completely controlled him. Possibly the argument that is being made her is that the arguments are a struggle for power, and when both accept that the other holds the power, in the Wife's words, "after that day we never argued." (Chaucer 218)

On page 194, the Wife continuously goes through what other wives say, and discredits them with her "You say..." etc. The fact that she is doing this seems to point to a power struggle between the Wife's views, and what the traditional thoughts are by other wives. The Wife is discrediting them, in order to gain more power for herself by saying "old barrel full of lies." (Chaucer, 196)

The power struggle that is evident throughout the piece is one between man and wife and the beliefs that each holds. I think that basically the Wife is showing how marriages are a power struggle, and the wife wants to be in power also. She discredits the traditional views of other wives in order to show them how powerful she is. If the husband gives in, then the wife will be happy, but also use her power to take everything from him, including him making his own decisions. This is the view of marriage that the wife depicts throughout the piece.