Canturbury Tales

Term Paper

Marriages Canterbury Tales






Throughout Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the marriages in the stories are as different and as intertwined as the pilgrims themselves who told of these tales. The diversity amongst the marriages was well illustrated by the following tales, The Wife of Bath, Alisoun’s departure from the standard beliefs, whose principle was that the wife should rule the husband for a happy marriage. The Clerk, Walter, showed the accepted and traditional view of the husband as the master over the wife. The Merchant as depicted by January showed personal bitterness towards women and in the Franklin’s Tale, Arveragus and Dorigen idealized mutual love and honor between husband and wife.
The Wife of Bath. “Of husbands at church door have I had five” (311), “welcome the sixth whenever come he shall” (312). Alisoun was thought to be a loose woman, almost trampish but her feelings were so, “I am free to wed, in God’s name, where it pleases me...