h the aim of procreating. The sexual act, even in marriage, was considered to be accompanied by lust and sin unless performed solely for the purpose of procreating. All sorts of prohibitions were placed on the sexual act, even within marriage. Women were singled out for particular blame and were targeted by the church with particular harshness. Women had been treated as property by the Saxons, and now she was also treated as the source of all sexual evil. It was argued that sexual guilt really pertained to women because they tempted men, who would otherwise have remained pure. By the Middle Ages, married women ceased even to have a legal existence. Unmarried women had certain legal rights and could dispose of their own property on reaching their majority, but married women were only shadows of their husbands. The very being or legal existence of the woman was suspended during the marriage, which was why a man could not grant anything to his wife or enter into any covenant with her. To do so would presuppose her separate existence (Whittock 120-121).
It was in this atmosphere that the marriage debate was conducted, and as noted, the Prologue and Tale of the Wife of Bath fits into this large framework as its beginning. Elements of the marriage debate were derived by Chaucer from French sources, notably a travel book, Le roman de carat by Renclus de Moiliens, and Le miroir de mariage by Deschamps (Braddy 133). The debate takes place as follows: The Wife of Bath first explains her philosophy of life. She is herself in favor of marriage so long as the wife is the ruler of the home. The story she tells carries this discussion forward with the same theme. Her hero sets out to discover what it is that women desire most and returns with the answer--women want to be the master's over their husbands. The Clerk is upset by what she has said and by the way she uses authorities to prove her words. Her last husband was, like the ...