In The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale, women are depicted as the ones with power in a marital relationship. Wife of bath is boastful about this. Her five husbands give “hir lond and hir tresoor; (their land and their treasure ;)” (204) to their wife while she offers nothing. She could do anything as she wished and her husbands have no control over any of that. She acquires the authority and freedom with her speech. When she speaks, she makes her husband feel obligated to do whatever she wants.
In the tale the wife of bath tells, the knight says, "Wommen desiren to have sovereynetee As wel over hir housbond as hir love, And for to been in maistrie hym above. ("Women desire to have sovereignty As well over her husband as her love, And to be in mastery above him.)” (1038, 1039, 1040) He gets this answer from an old and ugly lady promising that he would do anything to compensate her. He ended up marrying her who all she wants is to be his love. This gets interesting when she asks him to choose between an old and ugly wife and a beautiful young wife and he lets her choose whatever pleases her. She happily chooses to be beautiful and young and they live happily ever after. So, the lesson here would be that if you give your wife authority you will be happy. In this story, the old lady, like the wife of bath, gets a husband, wins his love and gains authority over the relationship all with nothing else but her speech.
The power that women have is in their words. They talk wisely so that what they say becomes a benefit for them. This is the only way that they can win men but it is also the most powerful way. Women can have mastery over their husbands for this ability.
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