“Wynne whoso may, for al is for to selle:” Sexual Economics and Female Authority in The Wife of Bath’s Prologue
By Meghan Cole
ecloga, Vol. 7 (2009)
Introduction: Chaucer’s inimitable Wife of Bath stands out as one of the most analyzed literary characters of all time, in part because of her existence outside of any defined medieval cultural classification, and in part as an archetype of a rising social tradition. As a widowed member of the growing bourgeois class and a participant in the thriving English cloth-making industry, she enjoys privileges of independence and economic self-sufficiency not available to the majority of female citizens at the time. The concepts of trade and exchange were nearly omni-present in medieval society, and Alison’s successful entrepreneurial endeavors reflect similar opportunities granted by the constructed economics of sex. A substantial and complex relationship between the sexual or physical, the economic, and marital and sexual authority exists in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue. The Wife utilizes the contextual presence of exchange processes in medieval society and specifically in the rising merchant class to enact a system of sexual exchange, or sexual economics. The control of this system results in her marital authority, financial profit, and subsequently, her social independence.
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The intricate relationship between sex, money, and power is similarly seen in the progression of the Wife of Bath’s marriages and her economic and authoritative positioning therein. In her first three marriages, beginning at the age of twelve, the Wife enjoys sexual dominance over significantly older, wealthy spouses. The Wife has thoroughly reaped the rewards of these unions through the enactment of and subsequent domination over a sexual economy. By alternately exerting and retracting her sexuality she has attained complete control over her husbands’ wealth and properties. The social and economic independence permitted by her financial status allows the Wife to approach her next marriages with a decidedly less mercenary outlook. Priscilla Martin outlines the evolution perfectly: “The first three marriages have nothing to recommend them but financial advancement, the fourth and fifth are stirring personal relationships”. Alison’s insatiable sexuality, driven by the desire to achieve physical and economic authority, is tempered as she seeks an emotional balance instead. However, the Wife does not enjoy the same level of conjugal authority in her latter two marriages that she did in her first three unions, wherein “her ‘sexual economics’ extract[ed] wealth from her husbands in exchange for domestic peace”. The drive to achieve a balance of physiological materials, wealth, and power similarly creates the functional mechanics of the marriage. The absence of a dominant sexual figure in her fourth marriage and the inversion of her carefully constructed system of exchange in her fifth marriage dismantle the Wife’s authority and independence.
By Meghan Cole
ecloga, Vol. 7 (2009)
Introduction: Chaucer’s inimitable Wife of Bath stands out as one of the most analyzed literary characters of all time, in part because of her existence outside of any defined medieval cultural classification, and in part as an archetype of a rising social tradition. As a widowed member of the growing bourgeois class and a participant in the thriving English cloth-making industry, she enjoys privileges of independence and economic self-sufficiency not available to the majority of female citizens at the time. The concepts of trade and exchange were nearly omni-present in medieval society, and Alison’s successful entrepreneurial endeavors reflect similar opportunities granted by the constructed economics of sex. A substantial and complex relationship between the sexual or physical, the economic, and marital and sexual authority exists in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue. The Wife utilizes the contextual presence of exchange processes in medieval society and specifically in the rising merchant class to enact a system of sexual exchange, or sexual economics. The control of this system results in her marital authority, financial profit, and subsequently, her social independence.
The intricate relationship between sex, money, and power is similarly seen in the progression of the Wife of Bath’s marriages and her economic and authoritative positioning therein. In her first three marriages, beginning at the age of twelve, the Wife enjoys sexual dominance over significantly older, wealthy spouses. The Wife has thoroughly reaped the rewards of these unions through the enactment of and subsequent domination over a sexual economy. By alternately exerting and retracting her sexuality she has attained complete control over her husbands’ wealth and properties. The social and economic independence permitted by her financial status allows the Wife to approach her next marriages with a decidedly less mercenary outlook. Priscilla Martin outlines the evolution perfectly: “The first three marriages have nothing to recommend them but financial advancement, the fourth and fifth are stirring personal relationships”. Alison’s insatiable sexuality, driven by the desire to achieve physical and economic authority, is tempered as she seeks an emotional balance instead. However, the Wife does not enjoy the same level of conjugal authority in her latter two marriages that she did in her first three unions, wherein “her ‘sexual economics’ extract[ed] wealth from her husbands in exchange for domestic peace”. The drive to achieve a balance of physiological materials, wealth, and power similarly creates the functional mechanics of the marriage. The absence of a dominant sexual figure in her fourth marriage and the inversion of her carefully constructed system of exchange in her fifth marriage dismantle the Wife’s authority and independence.
Click here to read this article from the University of Strathclyde
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