Women's Equality In The Canterbury Tales

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March 8, 2017: International Women’s Day. This day signified another step in the women’s equality movement that has been a large part of history, which has now substantially grown to the point of women having nearly the same amount of equality as men. However, back in medieval times, this was not the case whatsoever. Women were subservient to men and were seen simply as one to marry, to bear children, and to watch over the household and children. Geoffrey Chaucer, the author of The Canterbury Tales, provides an example of opposition to this common belief towards women. His tales that most notably deal with this concept of powerful women are The Miller and The Wife of Bath, using the characters Alison and the old lady to express his beliefs. …show more content…

The last scene in the end of the Wife of Bath’s tale when the knight “leave[s] to [her] wise governance the measure,” (line 1230) can be seen as a strategic move by the knight, rather than a true sacrifice of his male dominance to put the lady in power. By learning what women want the most, the knight uses this gain of knowledge to his advantage by granting the lady what she wants the most, in hope of benefitting from his seemingly good deed. This interpretation implies that women are easily manipulated, and that men will always have sovereignty in a relationship whether it’s nonchalantly or not. However, this understanding of the text tries too hard to twist it into an invalid statement. The knight is not being manipulative here, but rather he did learn something through his journey and proved to be surprised when “in utter joy he took her in his arms” (line 1250), after she gave him both options. His act of giving his wife the choice was truly genuine, and gave the woman more

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