Topic: Sept. 6 Responses (1 of 1), Read 19 times
Conf: Gender in Medieval Europe (Chaucer)
From: Cory Doppelt crdoppe@ilstu.edu
Date: Monday, September 05, 2005 09:07 PM
1)Chaucer's Prioress and Wife of Bath
Chaucer’s Prioress and Wife of Bath seemed to think the same way but acted very differently. They are both very
“sexy” and see themselves as objects of the other sex’s eye. They liked to wear fancy tailored hats to show their
wealth. Prioress, who was a nun, liked to show off with her tight clothes and jewelry. Chaucer’s Prioress also happened
to be a virgin so she was more of a tease to guys. Wife of Bath wore spurred shoes and provocative clothes too. She
had 5 husbands and many young male students on the side. Wife of Bath got her wealth by marrying older men and
then cashing in when they died. They both had the same view of virginity but because Chaucer’s Prioress was in the
church, she could not voice or act on those views. Something Wife of Bath definitely took advantage of.
Reference:
Canterbury Tales: "General Prologue."
2) Wife of Bath's stance on virginity
Wife of Bath was very adamant in her stance with virginity. As discussed in class, she doesn’t think virginity is for
everyone. That she believes God put us here with sex organs for a reason, to use them. Wife of Bath uses a lot of
references to back up her reasoning. She says that the Bible stats that men had more than one wife. She replies with,
why cant I? Chaucer pokes fun at her because of her French because it doesn’t have a Parisian accent. But most
importantly because she still tries to reason that marrying more than one person is what God wanted. But she claims
that no where in the Bible does it stat how many spouses a person can have. But according to the Scripture, it is wrong
to have sex with more than just your spouse. She misinterprets it as long as she has 5 spouses, its okay to have sex
with all of them.
It is hard to take St. Jerome’s side of the argument because he has never been married and doesn’t know what it is
like. But on the other side, it is hard to take Wife of Bath’s side when she is committing adultery with all of her
husbands. So in my opinion it does affect her credibility.
Reference:
Canterbury Tales
3)
As you discussed in class, a Knight comes, on a horse, across a beautiful woman. He jumped off the horse and raped
her. He was taken to King Arthur’s Court and they decided that his punishment will be a decapitation. There’s uproar
from the ladies in the crowd to change the punishment. The ladies do not want to sacrifice the Knight because he is
very handsome. So the court decides to give him one more chance, but in one year and one day the Knight has to
come back and tell the court what women want and he will be able to live. So after a year he has come across a bunch
of different answers but doesn’t have a definite one for the King. On his way to the court to turn himself in, he runs into
an old hag. He asked her if she knew what women want. She says she did but will only say if he promises to marry her
after. Reluctantly the Knight agrees and finds out that woman want to “be in charge of their husbands and lovers.” The
court accepts the answer and then the Knight married the ugly woman who gave him the answer. Only to later find out
that the old hag is a beautiful woman and the Knight lives happily ever after.
I think it is very unrealistic because I don’t think the Knight learned anything. He committed a sin and in the end got
rewarded for it? How will that help and more importantly, how is a raping a “fairy tale”?
The Wife of Bath said that women want to be “secretive and discrete.” But she is anything but secretive in this tale. She
over exaggerates all her stories and is unfaithful. Acting in the exact opposite way of what she says.
Reference:
Canterbury Tales: Wife of Bath's Tale and General Prologue
4)
Pope John Paul II agrees that sex in marriage is not a sin. Unlike St. Jerome, who doesn’t make much sense, didn’t
seem to realize that the only way for man to reproduce would be for a woman to lose her virginity. He even thinks that
women should not have an impure thought. That just seems ridiculous now a day. At least Pope John Paul II
recognizes that people were put on earth with sex organs and that if a woman is going to lose her virginity, she should
do it doing marriage. Wife of Bath sees virginity a bit more loosely. As stated before, she believes God gave us sex
organs because he wanted us to use them. That virginity is up to the women to decide when she wants to lose it.
Between all three of these opinions I think that Pope John Paul is most like what people go by today. In my opinion, he
is the only one that doesn’t contradict himself in what he says.
6)
I am not very religious so I have never read the Bible all the way through, but I was wondering of all the things in the
bible that would have loop holes, (like how man was created, etc) why is virginity such a big controversy in the church?
Why do they care what a woman does with her body or vice versa? Are they jealous that women like Wife of Bath can
get anyone she chooses?
Also I was wondering about is did anyone really believe St. Jerome? I mean if no women ever had sex how would
anyone, including himself, ever be created? It doesn’t make much sense to me how he could write that and actually
believe that women were never meant to experience pleasure.