The Wife Of Bath’s Prologue: Love The Weapon Of Mass Destruction

Love is a theme that will always play an important part in the life of any human. Love is a need for the human race rather than a want. In the three tales that I have read so far of The Canterbury Tales love is present in all of them. If all the tales have elements of love I might as well say that Chaucer was greatly influenced by love or has a strong opinion about love. We discussed a little about what Chaucer thought of love in class but we didn't reach a conclusion. In my opinion Chaucer thinks of love as a very powerful weapon but in most cases it is used to do damage rather than make people happy. It was the love of Emelye that separated the life time friends Arcite and Palamon, as well as the love for Alisoun made Nicholas and Absolon fight for her love. Neither in The Knight's Tale or in The Miller's Tale love has been shown as a happy thing. Before I started reading The Wife Of Bath's Prologue from the title I thought it would be a different story because in the title there was the word wife which I thought meant loyalty to the husband and happiness. As I started reading I found out that things were very different and I would say that it was the opposite. The woman in this story has married five times and is along the whole tale trying to justify why she married and backing it up with God's teachings. This woman didn't really love each husband because she said: "I governed hem so wel, after my lawe, That ech of hem ful blisful was and fawe To brynge me gaye thynges fro the fayre. They were ful glad whan I spak to hem faire, For, God it woot, I chidde hem spitously." (219-223) This woman doesn't sound like the loving wife who really cares about her husband, she sounds more like the wife that will marry for money and play with her husband so she would get what she wants. In this case the love shown by Chaucer isn't the ideal love that so many movies and books have illustrated. I think that the idea of the ideal love only will exist in movies or books because this is based on people with no defects. As we have seen each time we make a mistake, we humans are not perfect and sometimes make mistakes so therefore the perfect and ideal love will never be possible. In this tale there is also a case in which love is the major weapon used to destroy emotionally someone. The emotional destruction that a person may have when their loved one has cheated on them can be huge and when she said: "But certeinly, I made folk swich cheereThat in his owene grece I made hym frye For angre, and for verray jalousye. By God, in erthe I was his purgatorie," (486-489) her husband must have been devastated. After reading this part where the women makes her husband burn in jealousy I confirmed my theory that Chaucer thinks that love is a huge weapon. I also concluded that Chaucer doesn't see love as a good thing, rather he sees it as a horrible force that will separate friends and make many fights appear. There was also a giant war that happened between Argos and Troy because love had controlled Paris so much that he was drawn into taking Helena with him. I think that both writers would agree that love is a destructing force because in both books they make love have negative effects. Chaucer must have had a horrible marriage and relationships by the way he pictures love in his tales.