The Canterbury Tales: The Wife of Bath's Prologue Women and Femininity Quotes Page 4

The idea that deceit, weeping, and spinning were the tools natural to womankind is not original to the Wife of Bath, but was a common maxim at this time period. Deceit is definitely a morally reprehensible tool, but since the other two tools, weeping and spinning, seem feeble in comparison, the deceit women use almost begins to seem justified. If those were your only tools, which one would you use?

Here the Wife strategically uses antifeminist sentiment to get the upper hand in her relationship. Antifeminist discourse holds that women lack reason. Therefore, says the Wife, the man ought to give way first in any argument, since it's impossible for the woman to be made to see reason.

The Wife's claim that lecherous men know that a woman who's been drinking is unable to resist sex is a sobering attestation to the prevalence of sexual assault in the Wife's experience.