Marriage is not just a concept or a word to throw around. It is a feeling of love along with a public symbol of two people becoming one. Colossians 3:14: “And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” Two people bonded for life, after a few words and the exchanging of rings. The dictionary defines marriage as “the legally or formally recognized union of a man and a woman as partners in a relationship” (New Oxford American Dictionary). As the years have gone by, the world has taken the concept of marriage and slowly distorted the true meaning of what it means to love someone. The Wife of Bath Tale, found in the compilation of the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer demonstrates a picture of what marriage looked like back in the Middle Ages. We are going to examine different passages in the text and compare and contrast it to the modern day imagery of marriage. Although the conception of marriage was twisted to a mere word in the Middle Ages, we are able to look back in history’s tales and events to find some truths and lies to what real love and devotion was in the Middle Ages and continued on to modern day.
First off, we need to understand what real love is. Love can be easily defined by some as an intense feeling, sexual attachment, or deep affection for a person. But, is that the true meaning? Just some feeling that we throw around at whoever shows interest in us? What does it mean to be fully devoted to your spouse? All these questions are asked when it comes to marriage. From a biblical perspective, true love is described through the verses 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.” So according to the Bible, real love can be displayed through a series of qualities and characteristics in a person. Of course, this comes along with the right mindset and morally good intentions. It all boils down to putting someone before your own self.
In Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” love and marriage are the main issues being questioned. To summarize the story, the isle of Great Britain was ruled by the Great King Arthur, a land that used to be teeming with fairytale creatures. Taken over by friars and others who showed disrespect towards women and sexually abused and raped them, the island slowly became a horror. In light of this, King Arthur’s court held many beautiful women, one of whom a young knight was taken to. He overcame to his own sensual lust and raped the girl, falling to his own temptations. It was decreed that the knight be put to death until the King’s wife interceded on his behalf with due to a special quest. Arthur agreed, in respect to his wife and let the man go. The challenge was this: if the knight could find out what women most desired and bring the answer back to the King, he would walk away, his life spared. So, the young knight ventures out, seeking and asking every group of women he came upon, only to receive many but all different answers. Disheartened, the knight begins the journey home, hopeless. He came upon one last group of women and decided it couldn’t hurt to pose the question one more time. An ugly woman promises the knight she could help him, only to pledge his life to her when all was said and done. Desperate, the knight agrees and brings her before the court. The woman tells the court that women most desire to have power over their husbands. The court agrees with this answer and the knight’s life is spared. The ugly old woman then proposes her and the knight get married and the knight is horrified but concedes. The knight is dismal, sulking about his situation until his new wife poses a piercing question: would he rather her be disloyal and beautiful or loyal and ugly? After contemplating, the knight responds honestly and replied that he believes whatever she thinks is best is the correct answer. This answer pleased her and in turn she transformed in beauty and grace. The two then lived happily and had a long marriage.
This text poses many lies and some truths about what is said about marriage and true love. One of the first problems we can see is how marriage and love were displayed in the Middle Ages, when the Canterbury Tales were written. Because of how women were viewed and treated in the Middle Ages, this story was written to make a point and to speak to the public about these problems. Marriage back then was very different from how it is nowadays. Free will to marry was rare in the Middle Ages and arranged marriages ruled the countries. Real love was not even a serious thought when marriage was considered. One of the first problems we can see with this is the disrespect towards women in general. As in the story of “The Wife of Bath,” when the women were raped and sexually abused, it was because of the sense of disrespect and contempt for who and what women were. Their bodies were used for pleasure and no recognition towards real love was shown by the men in the Middle Ages. Free will was a rarity and true love was hard to find. Women were simply used to reproduce and help around the house. Georges Duby wrote in his book Medieval Marriage: two models from twelfth-century France, “’The two models’ of Duby’s subtitle refer to competing ecclesiastical and secular conceptions of marriage… In neither model, however, do women play much of a role. In the aristocratic model, they are merely vessels for the transmission of seed from one generation of males to the next, or objects to be disposed of by a father or seigneur for political advantage.” As we can see, women played absolutely no important part in the men of the Middle Ages lives.
Another problem about love that we can see in the text of “The Wife of Bath” is the multiple women’s answer to what they desired most in the world. Now, from a worldly perspective, yes, it will ultimately be women’s desire to rule over their spouses. It was written in the Bible that when Adam and Eve sinned, darkness was brought into the world and evil now had a grip on the human race. Genesis 3:16 says, “Then he said to the woman, “I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy, and in pain you will give birth. And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you.” This part in the tale was partly true to the fact that the real desire of women was to have power over their husbands, but it is not what they were made to want before the Fall. As mentioned before, real love is characterized through the qualities God gave to humans in the beginning. It is patient, kind, not jealous, or boastful, or proud, and keeps no record of wrong. It is loving someone more than yourself and putting their needs before your own. The text provides an image of how the shaken and blurred mindset of women in the Middle Ages believed love and devotion really was.
At the same time, this story provides a certain accuracy to what love is. Towards the end of the story we see the ugly, old woman present a question to her new husband: would he rather her be disloyal and beautiful or loyal and ugly? This question could also be said simpler: loyal or disloyal? Any man would want his wife to be loyal to him and only him. But, because of what women were seen as and used for in the Middle Ages, beauty played a huge part in whether or not a man would want them or not. During these times in the Middle Ages, people were desperate to have a land ruled by a strong government and stability for their families. But, any attempt at this failed because of the corruption going on in the culture at the time. John W. Baldwin wrote in The Scholastic Culture of the Middle Ages, “In a letter written during one of the brighter periods even Innocent III deplored the “dissensions and wars… devastations of towns, destructions of castles, burning of villages, oppressions of the poor, persecution of churches, men slain and made captive, injuries, violence and rapine.” It is possible that when “The Wife of Bath” was written it was published during this time when terror was rampant across the land.
Something hidden in the text that might’ve not been caught is the adage beauty is found from within. When the knight came upon the ugly woman in the tale who offered up her help, he was hesitant due to her looks. When they two wed, the knight dreaded his life ahead with the ugly hag. She revealed to him that looks weren’t everything and that loyalty proved her love to him rather than her looks. This goes back to what the root of true love is and how marriage functions between two people. Marriage is held together by an unbreakable bond between two people who no matter what happens, will love and care for each other “till death do them part.” The speaker, before telling the tale, (the Wife of Bath) claimed to be an expert on the subject of marriage, as she had been in several relationships. Using biblical doctrine as backup, she explains that it is women’s purpose to procreate. Explaining that her gifts were in beauty and sexual prowess, the speaker admitted that she would use those things to get what she wanted from the men she was with. In other words, controlling or having the desire to overpower her counterpart. This is a twisted view of what marriage was and continues to be at times today, a love that is purely for pleasure or self-preservation. So coming back to the story, loyalty was the moral of the tale, a characteristic of true love.
Much changed over the years, but in some ways, the modern ages are not much different from the middle ages. “In today’s society it goes without saying that, in a relationship, we expect to love and be loved in return, especially before committing to marriage. Love is considered essential in creating a successful and enduring relationship, but was insignificant in Medieval marriage contracts. Today we see most lackluster marriages coming to an end with a divorce rate in the United States of almost 50% (Worldwide Divorce Statistics). However, it is made apparent through literature that in medieval times loveless marriages were common, and love usually existed outside of marriage” (Modern vs. Medieval Marriage). Real and genuine love is getting harder to find nowadays. Marriages are being torn apart because couples will rush into a relationship and make rash decisions based on false feelings. Whilst marriage in the Middle Ages was for mostly procreation and pleasure, marriage in the modern days is by simple and short relationships looking for something deeper. Whether in modern or middle ages, no marriage can succeed without understanding what it means to love genuinely.
To have a real understanding about how marriage can do well is to have a biblical perspective on love. Both The Wife of Bath examples of marriage and modern day marriage have some things in common: mistrust and miscommunication. Malachi 2:14-15: “But you say, ‘Why does he not?’ Because the LORD was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.” The concept of marriage in The Wife of Bath was a skewed and distorted image of what it really is, not something to bind two in a burden bearing relationship but a freeing display of what God has created man and women to be a part of. Also, as those who believe that this is God’s plan have and turn to a stronger structure of biblical principles to help their marriage. That is one of the problems we see in modern day, couples who are led astray and base their relationship on false pretenses. “God did not create marriage just to give us a pleasant means of repopulating the world and providing a steady societal institution to raise children. He planted marriage among humans as yet another signpost pointing to His own eternal, spiritual existence” (God’s Design for Marriage).
In conclusion, although the conception of marriage was twisted to a mere word in the Middle Ages, we were able to look back in history’s tales and events to find some truths and lies to what real love and devotion was in the Middle Ages and how it continued on to modern day. We were able to see that if the real definition of love is understood, one is able to pursue a relationship worthy of having. We saw that the problems in the Middle and Modern Ages were due to a warped view of how proper marriage and love should be played out. Different events helped this view grow, including the dark times the people in the Middle Ages were subject to. We were also able to see a certain truth to what those who understood what it meant to love and be loved. The fact that superficial beauty wasn’t the only factor that should be included when one married was seen throughout The Wife of Bath Tale. Finally, we were able to see that “Scripture teaches that marriage is ordained by God and part of His original design for us as well as a foreshadowing of our eternal relationship with Him” (God’s Design for Marriage).