Knights, Hags and Gender Role Reversal

After Monday's class, it was interesting to see that there was a lengthy discussion regarding who benefited and who sacrificed at the end of the Wife of Bath's Tale. Though the overall consensus of the discussion was that the only true "loser" throughout the tale was the woman raped by the knight at the beginning, I believe that the true defeat came in a complete distruction of stereotypical gender roles in medieval society. Chaucer successfuly flipped the power roles between genders, and showed a world opposite to the one he was living in.

Obviously, it is clear that throughout the tale the women are in control. The knight (A knight of King Arthur, nonetheless), shatters the masculine, honorable mold that he is assigned and rapes a woman. As a result, he is placed on trial and it seems he is guaranteed execution for disgracing the role of the knight in King Arthur's kingdom. However, in what is an uncommon move, Arthur succumbs to his wife and allows her to decide the punishment for one of Arthur's knights. Thus, the Queen sends the knight on his mission. What motivation does Arthur have to transfer control to his wife? I'm still unsure the answer to that question.

The tale progresses, and after no success on finding the answer to what women want the knight meets the "olde wyf". After doing some research, I've learned that this knight meets hag situation has appeared numerous times in medieval literature*. According to Susan Carter, a knights have had to hook up with hideous women a couple of times in order to be victorious. It's kind of like slaying a dragon, except the dragon is a seriously busted lady.

The knight is generally rewared in a way that returns him to the prestigious level of a knight, but Chaucer's tale varies in that at the end of the tale, the knight has surrendered his will and his body to a woman. Whether she's ugly or hot, and whether he's happy or not, the knight has relenquished all control to his lady. So to recap: in the universe created by the Wife of Bath, King Arthur lets his queen do the decision making, and a knight's primary duty is to his wife. Not only that, but Arthur and the knight seem pretty cool with this. Sure, the knight is a little apprehensive when his wife is gross, but when all is said and done, he couldn't be happier.

All the talk of who made the sacrifices in the Wife of Bath's Tale seems pretty futile. People changed and gave up certain aspects of their lives, but in the end everyone was better for it. Although I think that the Wife of Bath is saying a world ran by women is a better one, I don't think Chaucer thinks so as well. I believe he was just posing an alternate control of power between genders. To me, it doesn't seem like the Wife of Bath's world is any better or worse than the accepted norm; it's just different.

* Carter, Suan. "Coupling the Beastly Bride and the Hunted Hunter". The Chaucer Review 37.4 (2003): 329-345.