"Contracts, Activist Feminism, and the Wife of Bath's Tale"
Lipton, Emma. “Contracts, Activist Feminism, and the Wife of Bath’s Tale.” Chaucer Review, vol. 54, no.3, July 2019, pp. 335–351. EBSCOhost, doi:10.5325/chaucerrev
Emma Lipton’s argument in this article is about seeing an updated version of law through the feminine judge and jury that promotes social change in “The Wife of Bath’s Tale.” The tale opens with a knight almost being put to death for rape when the queen interjects and gives him a task to find what women truly desire. In this moment, Lipton points out that the knight is being judged by a woman and instead of death, she is reeducating him on how to treat a woman instead of just killing him. This is the first example Lipton uses to show the social change that is happening in the tale. Lipton also points out that the tale has a series of contracts, starting first with the contract between the queen and the knight. The knight then has a contract with the old woman then a marriage vow. The knight learns through the women and the contracts how to behave with women thus showing that this tale is about social change and reeducation.
- Montana Richards
