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Implied within this maxim is the crux of Dame Alys’ economic discourse—she has commodified herself. Scholars have often commented on the peculiar nature of the Wife of Bath’s appropriation of economic discourse. Sheila Delany observes,

… the Wife of Bath has thoroughly internalized the economic function of the bourgeoisie in reducing quintessentially human activity—love and sexuality—to commercial enterprise. She understands that as a woman she is both merchant and commodity: her youth and beauty the initial capital investment, her age—the depreciation of the commodity—a condition against which she must accumulate profit as exploitatively as possible (78).

Delany further argues that the Wife’s “internalization” is a method of emancipation, though not a complete one: “Alice can inherit land and exchange in business, but she can exercise no control over the disposition of her body” (78). From this assertion we can see that such a position seems a problematic stance for Dame Alys to hold, if she must lose sovereignty over her body in order to overcome masculine power. It does not seem that there is any advantage to be had in defining herself as a mere commodity in an open market. Yet, if we examine the sexual metaphors employed in other parts of The Canterbury Tales, the Wife’s choice seems more prudent.

In the Prologue to the Miller’s Tale, Robyn the miller makes what might be considered a very crude comment—

I have a wyf, pardee, as wel as thow;

Yet nolde I, for the oxen in my plough,

Take upon me moore than ynogh (11. 3158-59).

Here, the Miller employs the metaphor of a woman being a fallow field that a man must ‘till’ with his “plough”. The metaphor is also at work in the Miller’s Tale itself. After that fateful ‘kiss’, Absolon returns to Alisoun’s window with plans to exact his revenge. He plans to ‘plough’ Alisoun with a hot “kultour”—a rather hideous symbolic rape. We can see that the discourse of agriculture—especially the rather destructive image of tilling and plowing—is used to as a means of asserting power over women. After being ‘framed’ by such language, women become the fertile soil in which the seed of misogyny can grow.

In order to counter this discourse, the Wife of Bath forms her own discourse based in the language of mercantile economics. Marxist critic Laurie Finke observes that the order of medieval society “was coming into conflict with an emergent hegemony in which wealth was based not on land, as in feudalism, but on money” (175). The Wife of Bath, as a member of this emerging economic group, is astute enough to realize that this “hegemony” does not fit into the traditional social order of the Three Estates. Therefore, it can provide her with a discursive space in which to read against misogynist discourse. Working within this early form of capitalism, which subsequently outmoded feudalism, gives the Wife of Bath a competitive edge in the market, so to speak.

Dame Alys puts her theories into practice with her first three husbands, with profitable results. She states,

They had me yeven hir lond and hir tressoor;

Me neded nat do lenger diligence

To wynne hir love, or doon hem reverence….

But sithI hadde hem hooly in myn hond,

And sith they hadde me yeven al hir lond,

What sholde I taken keep heem for to plese,

But it were for my profit and myn ese? (ll. 204-214)

As soon as the transaction is complete, the Wife reports that she no longer needed to try to win their love. She has all the initial capital she requires and sets out immediately to convert her husbands’ agronomic wealth into her “profit” which is her “ese” [pleasure]. Once stripped of their land-based power, the Wife has successfully managed to blunt the ‘ploughs’ of her old but good husbands. Hence she can jibe, “As helpe me God, I laughe whan I thynke,/ How pitously a-nyght I made hem swynke!” (ll. 201-2). It seems that there is an advantage for the Wife in the world of sexual economics. Indeed, she has gained economic power through her wealth. Also, it seems that Delany’s argument that the Wife of Bath “can exercise no control over the disposition of her body” is questionable, since that Wife herself explains “Why should I bother to please them, unless it were for my profit and pleasure?” (ll. 213-14). It is her choice—the Wife holds her husbands “hooly in [hire] hond” (l. 211). Indeed, she is more of a physical threat to her husbands than vice versa. Having overcome this obstacle, Dame Alys need only deal with the clerks and their discourse.

From the outset, the Wife of Bath expresses suspicion toward the textual ‘authority’ wielded by the clerks. Her first line of action is to explain her own reading of the biblical tenant which states that “God bad us for to wexe and multiplye” (1. 28). It is a special reading that the Wife applies, as Finke notes, because the Wife of Bath has no children to speak of and may indeed be barren. It would seem that she is not fulfilling the objective of the God’s commandment. However, Finke asserts that the Wife’s goal is “’breeding’ capital”, not children. Within the realm of agricultural misogynist discourse, the production of children is the perpetuation of patriarchy. Yet, in the Wife of Bath’s marketplace discourse, the production of pleasure is the goal. Thus, in order to promote her unorthodox reading of biblical texts, the Wife rereads/rewrites the texts of authority, according to her own experience.

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[ originally posted on Sunday, April 25th, 2004 at 10:51 pm and is filed under Everything, Media, On Texts, Papers. ]