The Canterbury Tales contains many short stories in which are told from many different people who are on a pilgrimage to Saint Thomas Becket. In the tale, we are introduced to Alison, or also known as The Wife of Bath. In the Canterbury Tales, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue illustrates the story of Alison and give the reader a brief overview of her life. In the prologue, she states that she had her first marriage at the age of twelve and since then has married five times. At this age, she was too young to be having a huge commitment which affected her life.
In Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue,” The Wife of Bath’s early marriage in her childhood contributed to her making life changing decisions that ultimately damaged her mental state of mind. In the prologue, The Wife of Bath’s poor decisions are a direct result of her actions at a young age. Ever “since [she] was twelve years old” she has had “five husbands at the church door,” therefore she did not live a normal childhood like the rest of the children her age, causing her to mature quickly and adapt to being an “adult” (Chaucer 258).
What exactly was she thinking to make her think that at the age of twelve, that it was okay to marry? As the reader, we can predict that the reason she married so young was due to her age. Her being so young, she did not think of the consequences that would follow with the decisions she was making. In addition to her age, she did not have an authority figure to steer her into the right path and keep the Wife of Bath from making poor decisions. Her lack of authority in her life impacted her mental state of mind because she did not have anybody to tell her that the decisions she was making were going to affect her.
127 our experts are availableright now
In addition, when The Wife of Bath got married at the age of twelve, she is still discovering herself and figuring out who she wanted to be. In an article by Jennifer Nagyn, she says that marrying at the age of twenty four “was not the smartest idea” because she had “yet to figure out who [she] was or what [she] wanted in life”, making her regret some of her life choices (Nagy 1). Both of these experiences are similar to each other because in both, they are discovering different parts of themselves and what is most important in their life.
One similarity that both these women share is that they were naive at a young age which caused them to be submissive to their partner. Just like how The Wife of Bath was submissive to her partner in return for sex, Jennifer Nyga “…was perfectly happy to let [her ex] take control of [her] life,” which created dilemmas in both situations (Nagy 1). The decisions that both these women were making at such a young age contributed to the lack of authority they both had. In a similar quote, this article says that “In what respects she is to submit to her husband,” which can be compared to the previous quote (Alcott 1).
Although one can argue that The Wife of Bath has grown in the course of her relationship experiences and learned from each marriage, she is still discovering herself in every marriage. Since she had to grow up fast at a young age, she never had the time to actually figure herself out and what she wanted to do with her life, which is now catching up to her. Therefore marrying at a young age does not give one enough time to figure out what they want to do with their life and what things they want to value.
Furthermore, marrying at a young age could create psychological problems and can leave a lasting impact on one’s mental state of mind. In an article by Vogue, they interviewed Trevicia Williams, who says “that she was fourteen years old when her mother forced her to marry a twenty-six year old man,” which is even crazy to picture (Belanger 1).
Just imagine a young and innocent girl who has nothing in her power to stop a marriage from happening, is forced to marry a man who she does not even love. Sounds crazy, but it does happen. In her story, she vividly remembers “…[her] mother was [at school] to pick her up for [a] marriage that [her mother] had arranged…”, which as a result, scarred her for the rest of her life (Belanger 1). According to a study by pediatrics, some more problems that could result from young marriages “…are more likely to develop a psychiatric disorder…” rather than an adult marrying at a reasonable age (Belanger 1). As you can tell from the study, women who marry at a young age like The Wife of Bath could result with potential mental health issues.
This also resulted from the lack of authority that The Wife of Bath was receiving, which led her to take matters into her own hands. Using this study, we could predict that the Wife of Bath may be dealing with mental health issues of herself, thus explaining why she is the way she is and could explain her subconscious. Although she did make “reckless” decisions like marrying at the age of twelve and getting sex in return for something else, this tells the reader that maybe it wasn’t her making those decisions, but her past and subconscious that led her to the character that she is in The Canterbury Tales. To add to the statement, “child [marriages] undermines girls health… and puts them at a higher risk for abuse…” because they are exposed to something they have never encountered (Loaiza, Wong 1). At the time, The Wife of Bath was twelve years old and is considered a child in which she resulted in her being mentally abused by the the actions she did growing up.
To summarize, marrying at a young age could potentially develop psychological problems that can strain a person’s mental health. Likewise, in today’s society, we can relate to the Wife of Bath’s prologue situation and apply it to our society. Many Americans are getting married at a young age, which as stated earlier, can result in some negative setbacks. Without anyone telling you not to do something, one feels the urge to do it anyway like The Wife of Bath. She did not have anybody to stop her from making unfortunate choices, which resulted to her marrying five men throughout her lifetime. In today’s society, many people do not look down upon early marriages rather back in the Middle Ages, women were looked down upon for marrying at such a young age. If we put The Wife of Bath’s first marriage in a different perspective, the death expectancy was at the age of forty.
So if she got married at the age of twelve, it actually was a reasonable time for her to get married because the life expectancy was so low. If we look at it from our perspective, it seems so young because our life expectancy is around the age of seventy through eighty. We as the reader read it as “too young” because in our society, it would be considered too young to marry . In conclusion, The Wife of Bath’s lack of authority, caused her to make her own decisions, which ultimately did mess with her mental health and made the reader question why she acts the way she does.
We psychoanalyzed The Wife of Bath’s first marriage and tied it back to the way she acts in The Wife of Bath’s Prologue. From what we analyzed, we can tell that early marriage led her to make poor decision that affected her life. In addition, her early marriage caused her to put a pause on her trying to find herself and figuring out what she wanted to do with her life. Although some people might disagree with the statement that was previously stated, all the evidence draws back to the idea that her lack of authority in her early life and most of her adult life, caused her to make careless decisions that would impact her life forever.
