Feminism in the Middle Ages: Wife of Bath cont.

Wife of Bath (WOB) is a wonderfully fantastic example of how women talking about their own sexual lives is one of the most shocking things to readers/audiences/general public/society ever sometimes. I like to attack why sex is so taboo in many of my philosophical-based questions in the course and in many of my writings, so WOB gets to be a prime example.

First, we're seeing a woman who is middle-aged: let me just say, wow.

Another topic on sex that we could talk about, being the female sex, is the idea that a middle aged woman sounds frightening. Isn't the first thing one uneducated person on the topic of Wife of Bath think of when hearing "middle-aged wife of Bath" be old hag?

Why was my first thought reading the prologue and story that she probably looked like a hag for the first little bit?

I think it's because we have a cultural issue with women aging in the United States and hearing anything other than a young, bubbly woman is just so abstract to our beauty standards that we are immediately faced with ugly. And age is not ugly, it's actually so natural and gorgeous and a part of life--but society (at least in the U.S.) has made it not so gorgeous.

Moving forward, the WOB also has had five marriages. All that she seemed to have chosen for herself/chosen to be a part of. Although she didn't have the best husband a couple times, she only has nice things to say about all five marriages. This also implies that one, our WOB is using the sanctity of marriage to have sex in Christian pressures. She is enjoying herself being married multiple times, she mentions it a lot. The Christian church she is a part of does not seem to think that is a good thing.

Depending on the denomination does have an impact, we do have the good ol' Catholics who believe sex should only be for attempting to reproduce (I'm a Catholic from a very large Catholic family, by the way).

Other Christian doctrines don't really frown upon sex as long as it's within wedlock--it didn't even have to be consensual! As long as the two people were married, it was okay!

Yet we're cringing at the idea that this one woman has entered into five marriages, willingly, to enjoy herself and her partners.

WOB even mentions that one of the husbands cheated on her--we don't get any indication that she has ever gone outside her marriages to have sex. She is following the rules of her society.

Yet it's weird that she has sex? That she likes sex? That sex is just so normal for her and her wants? Like, why? There's no reason that should be odd.

The other portion of Wife of Bath that I found intriguing is that she questions why it's weird that she likes sex but men aren't questioned for liking sex. It's also interesting that she's questioned about five marriages, and even told that the fifth one (I believe) doesn't technically count for her church but if she were a man, that wouldn't be an issue.

It's refreshing to one, see a woman in a male field and two, see that same woman question why it's different for her to experience those things but not any man ever. It is normalized, even now, that men experience multiple marriages but it's weird that women do?

There's just a major question between the sexuality of women and the equality of such between the two assigned sexes.