It has been said that art or fiction is the reflection of reality and is a mirror to be held up so that a society may view itself. Sometimes this mirror is a distortion of what is true, and sometimes it accurately depicts the complexities of the society that produced the piece of fiction. This paper will use excerpts from The Book of Margery Kempe to argue whether Geoffrey Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale is an accurate reflection of a woman's power and choices during the Middle Ages.
According to Elaine Power, people in medieval society did not have the lifestyle choices available to them that they do now. Depending on one's class, much of life was taken up with either the struggle to obtain very basic needs, acquiring more goods in an effort to stay ahead, or acquiring more power in order to remain in power. A woman had even fewer choices and was usually consigned to marriage at an early age and bearing children for her husband while running the household until either she died, was widowed, or was past childbearing age. Depending on her circumstances, however, she could, with the blessing of her husband or family, start a business or be in charge of her own projects in the community and have power in making her own choices up to a point (Power 15). Exceptions to this seem to be when a woman was either a maiden or a widow in the middle to upper classes. Then she could also own land and represent herself legally. Loss of power occurred when a woman married and she gave over her property to her husband. Two major lifestyle choices outside of marriage included entering the Church or becoming a prostitute. Generally, however, the number of choices a person had was directly connected to the amount of power they had in society (Power 25).
In Geoffrey Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale, the Wife of Bath is depicted as a lusty, energetic woman who has been married (and widowed) five times, "as thre men were goode, and two were badde" ...