The Miller’s Tale: The Weird Middle Ages

There are many contradictions and things that are very exaggerated in The Miller's Tale. At first the characters do not seem like anything weird just a carpenter, a clerk, a wife, and a priest. When John the carpenter marries Alisoun he loves her a lot but I thought it was too overprotective. When the narrator says: "This carpenter hadde wedded newe a wyf, Which that he lovede moore than his lyf; Of eighteteene yeer she was of age. Jalous he was, and heeld hire narwe in cage, For she was wylde and yong, and he was old." (3221-3225) That could have been normal in the middle ages to confine the women to the house and never let her go out. I think that in those times that could have probably happened because the man was the supreme force of authority and whatever he said had to be done. In the present I think a relationship where the man told a woman to stay in the house and never go outside would be really difficult. In the present the woman has more freedom and is more self sufficient than it was before when she depended on the man to survive. The reason that the carpenter hid his wife was because he was old and she was young and wild, which meant that if she had the chance to go to the outside world she wouldn't come back. That could be also seen that Alisoun was in some way forced to marry John rather than by own choice. I still think it is really exaggerated to lock up a person in a house just because you have fear that you will lose him or her. There was another part that really brought to my mind contradiction and maybe a bit of satire. Absolon who is a priest is part of the Catholic Church which was the strongest institution in the middle ages. Absolon's activities were described like this: "In al the toun nas brewhous ne tavern That he ne visited with his solas, Ther any gaylard tappestere was. But sooth to seyn, he was somdeel squaymousOf fartyng, and of speche daungerous." (3334-3338) In this part we see that Absolon likes to goes to bars and drink with his friends the barmaids. He also went around flirting with Alisoun and trying to make her kiss him. I don't really think this is the idea of the perfect priest therefore in some way Chaucer could be writing this part to make fun of the Catholic Church and the contradiction being made of the perfect priest. After having read this part I did take it as someone making fun of the Catholic Church in the middle ages which brought a question to my mind. Did Chaucer publish this book during the middle ages? I went into Wikipedia and discovered that he published this book at the end of the 14^th century. Didn't the church do something about the fact that he was making fun of them? Maybe Chaucer was just saying the truth and in this story he was criticizing the church and what its priests really did in the middle ages.