The Equality of Women in Chaucers Wife of Bath essays

The Equality of Women in Chaucers Wife of Bath essays The Equality of Women in Chaucers Wife of Bath There have been many different interpretations of what Geoffrey Chaucer stood for, but one of the most argued is that of the equality of women. As seen in several of Chaucers works, this is especially exhibited in the Canterbury Tales. Although some scholars debate that he was only writing down what he saw in his present society, others insist that he was very much an advocate for the equality of women. With his character the Wife of Bath, Chaucer is able to show how Renaissance women lived under the submission of men before and during marriage, where they stood after marriage, and how that they dreamed for the equality of women. The women that lived during the Renaissance Period were principally submissive under men. According to Margaret Hallissy, Whatever her estate, woman needs rules. She needs them because she is fallen, fallen through Eve, whose punishment was to be subordinate to her husband, as are all her daughters to their husbands in their turn, to the end of time (9).This statement shows the attitude toward women during the Renaissance time period. Women were to do what they were told and if they did not then the man could punish them just as God punishes man. The Wife of Bath talks about this happening in her fifth marriage when she tears out pages from her husband's book. She said that he struck her so hard on the side of the head that she lost the hearing in that ear (Chaucer, 213). Chaucer also displayed the subjugation of women even before this when the Wife of Bath was talking about her first marriage which took place at the age of twelve years old. She did not have a choice in the matter of marriage. She was married at the age of twelve because that was what she was told to do by her father. She left home and became a wife. The only equality that women had in this time was in sexuality within the marria...