The Canterbury Tales: The Wife of Bath's Prologue Power Quotes Page 1
Citations follow this format: (Line). We used the line numbering found on Librarius's online edition.
| Quote #1 Th'Apostel, whan he speketh of maydenhede, |
By portraying Paul and other men who counsel women to be virgins as respectful of women's judement, the Wife of Bath makes them into the spiritual version of the kind of husband she'd like to have – one who gives her "maistrye" over her own body and mind.
| Quote #2 An housbonde I wol have, I wol nat lette, |
The Wife creatively interprets the idea of the marriage debt, in which a husband and wife owe one another sex, to cast her husband as debtor. Yet she plays upon the way predatory lending gives the creditor mastery over the debtor to suggest that, as debtor, her husband is also her slave. In her hands, the marriage debt goes from a reciprocal duty between husband and wife to a tool of power for her.
| Quote #3 I have the power duringe al my lyf |
What the Wife chooses to leave out of her interpretation of scripture here is that Paul ("the' Apostel") said that husbands and wives have power over one another's bodies, not just the wife over the husband's. This is not the first or the last time the Wife makes her argument through selective repetition of someone else's statements.
