Love_and_Marriage_in_the_Canterbury_Tales

Love and Marriage in The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer’s masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, is a fourteenth-century collection of romantic, farcical, and moralistic stories. Each of these characteristics presents a unique perspective about love and when considered together, offer a wide lens on relationships. Undoubtedly, through the centuries, Readers of The Canterbury Tales have concluded that marriage is a very controversial topic. Chaucer’s contradictory approach to intimate relations is clearly exemplified in a comparison of The Wife of Bath’s Tale and The Reeve’s Tale. By including these two contrasting fictions, Chaucer explores the differences between male dominant relationships and partnerships of equal balance. The Reeve fundamentaly believes that love in marriage is unimportant. In his tale, “old Reeve” describes all heterosexual relationships as male dominant. The first relationship depicted in this tale, is between a miller and his wife. In this duo, the miller decides everything and does not give any room for his mate’s thoughts or opinions. The second partnerships are paired between the scholars, John and Alan, and the miller’s wife and daughter. John and Alan trickily seduce these female characters, again treating women like objects. The Reeve’s story is a chaotic farce that leaves a simmering sense of defilement and distancing for the miller and his family. This is not a group that shows any positive emotional connection towards one another. Poignantly, the only tenderness depicted in this story is between the daughter and her seducer, Alan. They speak sweetly to one another and the she is devastated when Alan leaves. “ ‘And dearest heart, God have you in his keeping!’ And with that word she almost burst out weeping.” (116). The daughter says this as Alan departs from her bed. The poor girl seems desperate for intimacy and kindness, in any form. There are two main lessons that The Reeve teaches from his tale. First, that all relationships must be male dominant because women are not trustworthy, which is evidenced by the wife and daughter being so easily seduced by the two scholars. The second lesson The Reeve teaches is that women do not compare to men as human beings. He feels that women ought to be treated as objects because they are inferior and therefore completely dependent on men. Although The Reeve looks at marriage as a master-object relationship, The Wife of Bath has an entirely different viewpoint. She believes that a relationship of equality, based on love, is the key to a true partnership. The Wife of Bath clearly expresses her opinion that a balance of power in a male-female relationship is the key to happiness. She educates the reader on her perspective through presenting several different relationships in her story. The Wife of Bath first describes an extremely unbalanced relationship between a knight and a maiden that ends badly for both characters. The knight rapes the girl and is therefore sent to the king to be punished. This first example shows that a skewed relationship does only harm. The second relationship is between the king and queen. Unlike the knight and maiden’s relationship, the king and queen share an equal balance of power. The king wants to kill the knight, however the queen pleads with her husband to let the knight go on a quest instead and finally the king agrees. “But that the queen,…, implored the king to exercise his grace so ceaselessly, he gave the queen the case and granted her his life, and she could choose whether to show him mercy or refuse.” (282). The quest is to discover what in the world women want most. The Wife of Bath immediately shows the reader that the king and queen’s marriage is a loving one, by highlighting their shared decision making process. The third relationship presented is between the knight and the old woman. As the knight goes on his quest to find “what women want most,” he meets an old woman who tells him that she will reveal what women want most but, in return, he must be with her forever. The knight considers his options, death or marrying an ugly old woman. Out of desperation, he quickly agrees to the woman’s proposal. The old woman tells him that what women want most is to have control of their relationships. She then tells him that she can either be ugly and loyal or beautiful and untrustworthy. At this point the knight’s character appears to have undergone a transformation. His life has been at the mercy of women for a year and he now owes his very existence to both the queen and the old woman. With his newly found respect for the female gender, he tells the old woman that she should chose, giving her what all women want, a chance to be in control. “My lady and my love, my dearest wife, I leave the matter to your wise decision. You make the choice yourself, for the provision of what may be agreeable and rich in honour to us both, I don’t care which.” (291). She then decides to become beautiful and remain loyal and they share an equal relationship, which posseses great love. As The Wife of Bath illustrates her ideas about love, she also teaches the reader lessons about how partners can accumulate that level of affection. As shown in the knight’s relationship with the girl he rapes, treating women like objects will never result in stability or love. She teaches that the only way to achieve a satisfying relationship is by letting women have an equal say, “cut short the lives of those who won’t be governed by their wives.” (292). This is shown through the King and Queen’s relationship. Marriages containing a balance of male-female authority are the only ones that will ever posses love and therefore keep both partners eternally happy. For instance, the knight and old woman’s relationship is balanced in power and therefore, they stay happy together forever. The Reeve’s Tale and The Wife of Bath’s Tale each express two different ideas of love and marriage. The Reeve believes in male dominant relationships, whereas The Wife of Bath believes in equal partnerships where both men and women are able to have an opinion. Through these two tales, the theme of love and marriage is presented from two different vantage points. Although the Canterbury Tales were written seven centuries ago, it is astounding to see that Chaucer’s interpretation of male-female relationships remain just as salient for readers of today as for those of the Medieval ages.