The Wife of Bath is not the traditional bride or wife, but is one of the more engaging characters of the Canterbury Tales. It is the controversy of her speech that makes her an interesting female character as evident in her habit of using the Bible to justify her marital beliefs and practices. Early on she mentions that "God bad us for to wexe and multiplye," therefore she is in line with God's command, for marriage leads to reproduction; therefore, multiple marriages might equate many children (28). The Wife also goes on to say that a man as holy as Abraham could not be in the wrong by having multiple wives; therefore, she is not (55). In Genesis, Abraham is said to have children with Sarah, Hagar, and Keturah and possibly more. There is some debate as to whether or not he was married to Hagar, but did have multiple wives.
An interesting connection to this comical justification of her lifestyle is church corruption of the Middle Ages. The Wife uses biblical knowledge while the Church used biblical authority to justify actions that are or may not have been in line with biblical principles. From the presentation on politics we learned of the opportunities for people to rise in the social structure of the Middle Ages due to the Plague. Many clergy were also lost to the Plague meaning that those less able or deserving rose in the ranks of the churches. One example of the corruption that arose from this shift in clergy was the practice of pilgrimages. The Church promised people forgiveness of sins through participation in a pilgrimage to a holy site, such as the pilgrimage the characters of the Canterbury Tales are on.
Click here to learn a bit about the corruption of the Church.
Corruption in the Church will be something that Diane and I will be discussing in our presentation this week. For this reason, there are not the most glowing descriptions of most of the clergy in Tales! Stay Tuned!
ReplyDeleteI think you had a really interesting point with the wife of bath using religion as a tool. In my British Literature class, there has been a lot of discussion on our blog, about the Wife of Bath using sex as a weapon, but I think I overlooked her using scripture from the Bible that way too. I think it's interesting how she used the versus to gain control of what she could in her own life. The Wife of Bath was a funny character, but I found it easy that you saw he actions as a statement on the church's corruption as well.
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