In the prologue Allison relates facts of her life. She lets us know from the very beginning that she has had five husbands and the way she gained the power over them. She claims to have experiences enough to be an expert. She does not see anything wrong in having five husbands and to support her point of view she makes references to King Salomon, who had several wives (line 35-36 ‘Lo, here the wise kyng, daun Salomon; I trowe he hadde wyves mo than oon’).
And also in order to defend her position she names the figure of Jesus, St. Paul and the Bible, claiming that God instructed to set out and multiply (line 28: ‘God bad us for to wexe and multiplye), because there would not be virgin women if people were virgin.
The Wife of Bath’s tale relates the story of a young knight from the court of King Arthur who rapes a young woman in the forest. After knowing it, people is so angry that they demand to sentence the knight to death. However, although the law says that the knight must be decapitated, the queen plead with King Arthur to let her be able to determine the knight’s future, proposing that the knight discover what women more want than anything else in the world if he wants to be forgiven. For that reason, the knight is allowed to go out and look for the answer before going back to court after a year and a day from that moment.
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The final day arrives and when the knight is going to the court he finds an ugly old woman in the forest that agrees to help him if he does what she demands. Answering correctly by saying that what women most want is sovereignty over their husbands, the woman asks him to marry her and the knight upsettingly accepts, although then the knight pays no attention to the woman. For that reason she asks him and he then confesses that it is because she is ugly, old and a lower-class woman.
The old woman tells him that those factors can be an advantage since he has a virtuous wife and if she were beautiful many men would be interested in her. She then offers him the choice to stay with an ugly old woman but virtuous wife, or be with a beautiful woman but with many men after her. The knight says her to choose whatever she wants and because she has won the control over him (lines 1236-1237: ‘Thanne have I gete of yow maistrie,’ quod she, ‘Syn I may chese and governe as me lest?’), when the knight kisses her she becomes a young woman and they live happily.
