Feminism in Literature: Defying Male Patriarchy in The Wife of Baths Prologue by Geoffrey Chaucer
This paper will analyze Chaucers The Wife of Baths Prologue as an educated woman who knows her Bible, but she also knows through experience how men behave in a society that allowed men to deviate from marriage vows without penalty. By allowing herself to validate her own sexual liberation through the Bible, surely, we see a modern woman that is able to defy the male patriarchal society in medieval England. Through her beauty, education, and experience she represents an independent woman within the severe limitations of English patriarchal society.