Women In The Wife Of Bath's Tale

How are men and women depicted in The Tale of Genji, The Lays, and The Wife of Bath’s Tale? As our textbook has suggested that literary works what we are examining in this week module were written in the era where genuine love was something unrelated to marriage. According to Gallagher, “Arranged marriages were often concluded not for reasons of the heart but for economic, political, or other utilitarian ends” (6.3). Thus, men and women were often trapped in loveless marriages. In The Tale of Genji, men seem to be portrayed as dominant, self-centered, obsessed with woman’s physical beauty and have double standards. In the context of the story, after a man is left by a woman, he can do certain things such as becoming a monk “There is nothing

He pledged to do whatever this mysterious lady wanted when he said “... there is nothing you could order that I would not do to the best of my ability, be it utterly foolish or wise” (6.4.). The women are looked at their other beauty – emphases are more on the appearance than who they really are inside, mysterious, wealthy, and powerful. It seems to me that they - especially queen - depicted to be superficial and vengeful. This can be seen “the queen got angry, she was furious, and spoke without thinking”

When comparing relationships between men and women depicted in these three literary works and comparing them to rules and guidelines in The Art of Courtly Love, it seems that in some ways they do match up, whereas in some ways they differ. For example, “No one can be bound by a double love” however, they had husbands, wives, lovers and concubines at the same time. On the other hand, “Nothing forbids one woman being loved by two men or one man by two women” seems to be right in the alley with the readings. All three literary works seem to depict the struggle between genders. However, as Marcia Adair in The Young and the Restless pointed out that it is hard to interpret these historical love stories without looking at them through the lens of modern day perspectives. We need to take into consideration the time, culture, and society they were written in (6.12). These literary works are primarily concerned with love, courtship, affection, and desire. These themes are timeless and ever-popular because no matter which century we live in, we all have a desire to love and to be