Sunday, November 25, 2012

According to the Wife of Bath, what complaints do men have about their wives?

To find the answer to this, I think that you need to look
in the Prologue to the Wife of Bath's tale.  In the prologue, she talks about things
that her husband would say about wives.  The basic idea was that wives were faithless
and treacherous and were too quick to hurt men if they possibly
could.


For example, her husband talked about various women
who had killed their husbands.  He even mentioned ones who would sleep with another man
while their husband's corpse lay there on the floor.  He seemed to think that this was
the sort of faithless behavior women would engage in.  Here's a quote about
that:



Of wives
of later date he also read,
How some had slain their husbands in their
bed
And let their lovers shag them all the night
While corpses lay
upon the floor upright.
And some had driven nails into the
brain(60)
While husbands slept and in such wise were slain.
And some
had given them poison in their
drink.



In addition to this,
her husband also talked about women as being terrible nags who would make their
husbands' lives a living hell.  He talked about them being contrary and always wanting
to fight with their husbands without any good reason for doing so.  Here's a quote about
that:


readability="15">

Better,’ he said, ‘your habitation
be
With lion wild or dragon foul,’ said he,
‘Than with a woman who
will nag and chide.’
‘Better,’ he said, ‘on the housetop abide
Than
with a brawling wife down in the house;(70)
Such are so wicked and
contrarious
They hate the thing their husband loves, for
aye.’


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