The Virtues of Wifely Sovereignty in Chaucers The Wife of Baths Tale and The Millers Tale essays

The Virtues of Wifely Sovereignty in Chaucers The Wife of Baths Tale and The Millers Tale essays Both a womans desire for sovereignty in marriage, as well as the moral and logical correctness of female supremacy in matrimony are two themes that pervade and define Geoffrey Chaucers Canterbury Tales. The following essay will explore within The Wife of Baths Tale and the Millers Tale the notion of female sovereignty in marriage and its moral implications. The Wife of Baths Tale in most respects exemplifies the quintessential Arthurian Romance-it features as its protagonist a knight, it revolves around a specific quest that knight must undergo, and it features a milieu that alternates between a court of nobles and an enigmatic forest. Via its central characters; the rapist knight, the Queen of England, and the mysterious old wife, The Wife of Baths Tale makes two fundamental assertions regarding a womans sovereignty in marriage: first, that all women desire it, and second, that it is a necessary condition for a harmonious nuptial union. Not soon after the tale commences and the protagonist knight stands before the British high court in judgment after having heinously ravished a virgin maiden, the reader (or listener, as the tales were meant to be transmitted orally) encounters a prime example of a woman possessing sovereignty in marriage over her mate. The King of England has judiciously granted sovereignty to his queen, thus it i s she who is eventually charged with deciding the condemned knights fate: So long they prayed the king of his grace Till he his life him granted in the place, And gave him to the queen, all at her will To choose whether she would him save or spill (Chaucer The Wife of Baths Tale). Ultimately, the wise queen sends the knight on a quest he must complete to her satisfaction if his life is to be spared-he must journey abroad and return in a years time with the ans...