In Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, a reader is introduced to a rather bizarre and heterogeneous group of people leaving for a pilgrimage. The Wife of Bath is the most interesting and lively character of the group. Her "Prologue" and "Tale" provide readers with a moral lesson as well as comic relief. The Wife's "Prologue" serves as an overture to her "Tale", in which she states a very important point regarding the nature of women and their most sacred desires. According to this character, women desire sovereignty, or power, over their men most in the world. This wish seems to be most appropriate for women of the time period in which Chaucer lived. However, women today no longer wish to dominate their men - sovereignty of women over men is not relevant in the twenty-first century. The reason is that women are no longer deprived of power and freedom.

According to the Wife of Bath, sovereignty, or power, over their husbands is what women desire most in their lives:

			Wommen desire to have sovereinetee
			As wel over hir housbonde as hir love
			And for to been in maistrye him above (1044-1046).

However, which powers exactly is the Wife of Bath talking about? It seems that materialistic power is what Alisoun means - women wish to control their husbands' estates and other economic holdings. In her "Prologue" the Wife of Bath describes her last, fifth, marriage to Janekin. After a huge fight with him, caused by Alisoun's ripping pages out of his book of wicked wives, Janekin grants her the control over the house and the land, what makes her very happy, and she treats her husband with kindness from then on:

			He yaf me al the bridel in myn hand,
			To han the governance of hous and land...
			After that day we hadde nevere debat.
			God help me so, I was to him as kinde
			As any wif from Denmark unto Inde...(819-820, 828-830).

Therefore, according to the "Wife of Bath's Prologue," economic power over their husbands is what women wished to have.

However, later, in her "Tale" the Wife of Bath presents another opinion - women wish to have emotional power over their husbands as well. The fact that the hag is able to decide for herself whether to turn into a beautiful wife or to remain in her present state, manifests her power over the husband. It is up to her whether to make the knight the happiest men on earth or to make him miserable for as long as she lives:

			My lady and my love, and wif so dere,
			I putte me in youre wise governaunce:
			Cheseth yourself which may be most plesaunce
			And most honour to you and me also.
			I do no fors the wheither of the two,
			For as you liketh it suffiseth me (1236-1241).

Having materialistic power is not the only way women wanted to dominate their husbands. According to Chaucer, women wished to be able to control not only the pockets of their husbands, but the emotional aspects of the marriage as well.

Considering the time in which the action of the tale takes place, it is not surprising that supremacy over their husbands was what women wanted, since they were generally deprived of any kind of freedom, whether intellectual or physical. Good wives were those who remained at home, cooking, laundering, giving birth and raising children. In her "Mirrors of a Collective Past: Re-considering Images of Medieval Women" Martha W. Driver describes the role of women in medieval England in the following way: "The domestic side of life - that is, housework, food preparation, childbirth, and cloth-making - is readily associated with medieval women." Therefore, the "Wife of Bath's Prologue" and her "Tale" emerge as manifestations of women's hidden desires and their true nature.

Also, in time when men thought, and even wrote of women as evil or wicked, it is not all surprising that women wished nothing else but to control their husbands. Through her "Prologue" and the "Tale" the Wife of Bath says that it is time for women to show what they want. It is time for the lion to draw a picture:

			Who painted the leon, tel me who?
			By God, if wommen hadden written stories,
			As clerkes han within hir oratories,
			They wolde han written of men more wikkednesse
			Than al the merk of Adam may redresse (698 - 702).

Yet, today the idea of women dominating their men is no longer as important for women as it was centuries ago. And the reason for that is that women are no longer deprived of freedoms, which used to be limited only to men. Today, women may marry whoever they wish. Their fathers no longer need to find husbands for their daughters. Women can receive education, which allows them to enter the workforce of their choice. Finally, women don't have to raise their children alone, while their men drink in taverns or visit other women. Although some fathers today still lead those idle lives, mostly men equally participate in the raising of children. Modern society allows women to control their lives and even encourages them to participate in public life. There are many examples such as Princess Diana, Mother Theresa and other women, of those who actively participated in public life and had a great impact on humanity.

Through the character of the Wife of Bath, in The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer presents a radical idea of women dominating their men. From the point of view of a twenty-first century person it is understandable why having power over their husbands would be on the wish list of a Chaucerian woman. The lack of power caused sentiments of this kind to grow in the minds of medieval women. However, women today no longer wish to dominate their husbands. Equality, love, appreciation and respect show up much more often on the wish lists of modern women.

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H.Abrams. New York: W.W.Norton & Company, Inc., 2000. 215-313.

Driver, Martha W. "Mirrors of a Collective Past: Re-considering Images of Medieval Women." Women and the Book: Assessing the Visual Evidence. Ed. Jane H.M.Taylor and Lesley Smith. London: The British Library, 1996. 80-81.