Alison, the Wife of Bath, was a radical thinker of her time and was probably considered by Chaucer's readers to be promiscuous and even blasphemous. She establishes herself as an authority on all matters of marriage. Women, in the time of Chaucer, were cast into very specific roles. In her prologue, the Wife of Bath addresses the general code of conduct and other commonly accepted behaviors of women and dismisses them to justify and rationalize her own life style of being married many times.
Women at that time were expected to live lives of purity, holiness, and service to others. Many of…
