Some thoughts on women in the middle ages

I took some pieces from the sites that I found the most interesting, and just commented on them:

One of the sources I found interesting was a site that one of my classmates, Catherine O., had posted on her blog. Here's the site: http://www.lepg.org/herstory.htm

(1) "As always, a woman's life experience varied by social class. Among the nobility, a woman's chief duty was to make dynastic marriages, serving as the vehicle for her family's political and social ambitions. Marriage for a woman of this class was as much her job as the command of troops was her brother's, and such women often married young"

• As far as dynastic marriages go, the Wife of Bath has a dynasty in the quantity of marriages she's had in her life. but not really in the continuation of her blood, lineage.  I'm not sure where the Wife is placed in the social classes in Medieval England, but I'm pretty sure she was upper-middle class.  This is probably only because she married young, and married to help the family w/ funds.
  

(2) "Widows "stepping in" to take over their late husbands' businesses were sometimes a source of resentment to journeymen who could not buy or inherit a business and become a master of their guild themselves. When a woman married, she was choosing a trade as well as a husband"

• This is important to the Wife because her partner totally guided the "business" part of the relationship.  Later on in her prolouge to the tale, she will tell us her statuses in her marriages, and what her husband's statuses were.
  

(3) "Marriage was often delayed among the non-noble classes, as a woman could not marry until she and her prospective husband could afford to establish themselves and set up a houshold. This meant that the man needed some land to farm or mastership in a trade, and the woman needed a dowry. This was usually her share of the family inheritence, as well as her own earnings. Because land mostly descended in the male line, a daughter's share was in movable goods and money and went with her on her marriage."

• If this is true, then the Wife of Bath was part of the "noble" class, since her marriage was definitely not delayed in her lifetime.  Her family probably had found the right man for her (but in actuality, for themselves) to marry at the time.  It's interesting, though, that the daughter's share of money and goods was hers, and was not "shared" with the husband.  That gives the wife/daughter of the family great independence, I think, because she can manage and use her own money and goods.
  

(4) "Marriage was not a sentimental affair, although certainly love among courting couples was normal. Marriage was a means of productivity: of crops, goods, and children for the future."

• This statement from the source is opposite to the Wife of Bath's situation. At first, she was in the marriage for goods and money, but I think after her first few marriages, she wanted the sentiment, the romance, that "normal" marriages at the time seemed to lack.
  

I must have been hungry, but...

Another website i found was foods from Chaucer's time. Although it had nothing to do with women in the middle ages, it still can be associated with the Wife of bath:
Here's the site: http://www.godecookery.com/chaucer/chfoodb.htm

• "Bacon, Bacoun Bacon: less like our modern variety and more like cured ham; pork; smoked pork; a side of pork; not fresh meat. Its use in Chaucer is mainly with those who can't afford or find fresh meat.":
  

"The Wife of Bath uses "bacon" as a term for "old men," in which she never finds delight"

"And yet in bacon hadde I nevere delit." - The Wife of Bath's Tale
"The bacon was nat fet for hem, I trowe." - The Wife of Bath's Tale

I think that this is quite funny, since the Wife cannot find a new husband, but is looking for a new one. He cannot be "bacon" (old meat, not fresh) like the rest of the men out there, he has to be select choice! Picky woman, but she knows what she wants!

Medieval Diagnosis:  Bi-polar Disorder (?...)

Truth and fiction
Within the imagined (by Chaucer) world of the Canterbury pilgrims, we meet various characters who present their "own" fictions. In each case, the tale is in some way a reflection of the teller, and vice versa. While Chaucer portrays the pilgrims initially in set pieces in the General Prologue, we learn more about them as they tell their tales, express opinions and trade insults, as characters speak of themselves. The Wife's prologue is by far the longest in the whole work (two other pilgrims only - the Pardoner and the Canon's Yeoman - are given fairly lengthy prologues). She reveals herself, in the volume of what she says, more fully than any other pilgrim, but its confused nature and lack of coherence make her self-portrait less clear-cut than, say, the Pardoner's. Moreover, her account reveals a discrepancy between what we suspect to be the case, and what she wants her hearers to think of her. Her desire to wield sovereignty leads her to claim she has gained it more fully than warranted by the evidence she lets slip.

Where Chaucer allows most characters a single opening (in their tales) to express a view, the Wife has two: first, her argument from real, lived experience, then in the model case in her story. One presents compelling evidence, the other a clear narrative demonstration - autobiography and fiction together allow the Wife to state her case more forcefully than either alone could do.

• This section from a website that Dr. Godfrey gave us to get us started off reflects what we were talking about in our most recent class.  What does the Wife want us to think of her?  A good woman with straight morals and values backed up by the Word of God, or a double-faced woman who leads two lives -- one of promiscuity/sexual desires and a woman who knows her boundaries in that and is a good person?