Dr. Newson/Powell
Civ Semester 1
2 November 2020
To Not Trust a Woman
The Wife of Bath is criticized for her actions, though it may be based on her gender.
During this historical time period women were not seen as dominant in their household or in
politics. The Wife of the bath married numerous times and used her household to gain power.
She claimed she was not wrong due to her marrying lawfully and righteously. The Wiife of Bath
cold be seen as a modern day feminist or as an illwilled woman who was in the wrong. Many
works have string differing opinions where she is in the wrong. The Wife of Bath is thought to be
unreliable, not listened to due to her gender, and incorrect with the bible.
D.W Fritz is the author of The Animus Possessed Wife of Bath. He portrays the Wife of
Bath as an ill feeling woman who uses men. He bases his theory off of the psychological
foundation of the “wife’s warring self”. He states that he will “try to show that the wife is
preoccupied with mastery in marriage because she cannot consciously assimilate the animus of
the unconscious”. Fritz’s theory is that the Wife of Bath focuses her energy on marriage because
she can not handle the fact that she will not be able to have the power that the man has. While he
does think she will never have the full power a man does, he also states that she is aware of the
power she does have. He portrays her as a woman who uses what she has to gain money, a good
social appearance, and to inflate her own ego. The Wife of Bath is not a modern day strong
individual, she still depends on a man for her power, she uses her body to dominate over men.
The Wife of Bath justifies her several marriages from Soloman, saying he had more than one
wife and he was still named holy. The Wife of Bath’s largest claim was that she is not unholy, she
married each time after being widowed. Fritz claims that this argument is not relevant. The main
point in a man and wife getting together is to have children, and she at age forty has no children.
Her reasoning is not fully holy, she has no children and uses a man for her own power. Fritz
debunks her entire claim and names her unreliable; an animus ridden wife who is “over
energetic, ruthless, and brutal”. Her claim is not fully debunked, she did not have children out of
ill will but the simple fact that she may not have been able to. Debunking a woman of something
she may not be able to control does not make her animus minded.
H.Marshall Leicester Jr. writes “Of a Fire in the Dark: Public and Private Feminism in
the Wife of Bath’s Tale.” in which he challenges what Fritz has once said. Leicester states that in
both the public world and story telling male dominance in the world view and the Wife of Bath
challenges that herself. The Wife of Bath is not telling an immoral story of herself but rather a
