‘oon of us two moste bowen douteless’. Discuss the significance of ‘maistrie’ in The Wife of Bath’s Prologue.
In The Wife of Bath’s Prologue by Geoffrey Chaucer, “Maistrie” is a recurring theme throughout the novel, as the Wife narrates to other pilgrims her previous experiences with husbands. “Maistrie” for the Wife of Bath is control within the married state. The Wife of Bath feels that “maistrie” should belong solely to the woman, and uses her own life as an example of how it should work. “Oon of us two moste bowen, doutelees” she says in her prologue that men inevitably concede total “maistrie” to the women in their lives. The wife is able to successfully do this by manipulating her husbands and often lying in exchange for their total submission. This is particularly significant to the protagonist as she is able obtain land, property and wealth from her first three husbands. By doing this it could be suggested that the wife breaks female archetypes; she is able to out-smarten her husbands as well as challenge views held within the medieval era i.e. the acceptance and endorsement of patriarchy.
Early in the prologue the Wife makes it clear that she seeks domination over her husbands, rather than equality “As housbonde I wol have, I wol nat lette, which shal be bothe my detour and my thral”. While this has its material rewards for the wife; property and money. More importantly, it is significant as the Wife defies female stereotypes held among the Middle Ages. Women were thought to be subservient to men, Chaucer depicts the Wife to appear both calculated and intelligent, and particularly when achieving ‘maisterie’ over her most educated husband-Jankyn. The reader learns Jankyn is a well-educated, attended Oxford University and is now a clerk. This suggests the Wife also seeks to challenge the ideas of clerks; who in the Middle Ages were typically an anti-feminist body. This is represented through Jankyn who Phillip Allen describes as “the representation of...