she desires most is being more powerful than her husband. In a relationship, she wants to be the dominant of the two, the one who is in control and takes the decisions in the relationships. This is shown in her tale when no women in the assembly disagreed with the knight’s reply (and certainly not the old hag). There is another example of the desire for power of the women in a relationship. The old hag, after marrying the knight, gives him the choice of which women he rather have. The knight leaves the decision up to the old lady and is rewarded. The wife of bath desires to have a husband that is meek, young and fresh in bed. This desire also leads her to become envious of her charters in her tale. The Wife of Bath is jealous of the old hag in her tale because the old lady has the power in the story. However in the wife of baths true life, she didn’t always have control in her relationship with her fifth husband. The wife of bath was married five times and is looking for a sixth husband. She used the church as a way to meet men not as a place of worship. Pilgrimage provided her with the opportunity for traveling as well as meeting new people. Her journeys are hard and dangerous, which show the reader that she is a robust and adventitious woman. Clothing is a way of characterizing her, which is used a lot. The Wife of Bath’s personality is mainly defined through her clothes and their color. She is said to wear clothes that show her as rich, passionate, and worldly. In her prologue she also refers to her gaps between her teeth a sign of her amorous nature. She is also described as having broad hips and a rubicund face. When Chaucer emphasis these details, it tells us a lot about how he wishes us to evaluate her. Chaucer clearly loved her vigorous, extrovert and sociable nature. The wife of Bath is not characterized through her profession, because it is of no importance in her case, although it is mentioned that she is a...
