"He Nedes Moste Hire Wedde": The Forced Marriage in the Wife of Bath's Tale and Its Middle English Analogues

Author/Editor
Glasser, Marc.

Title
"He Nedes Moste Hire Wedde": The Forced Marriage in the Wife of Bath's Tale and Its Middle English Analogues

Published
Glasser, Marc. "'He Nedes Moste Hire Wedde': The Forced Marriage in the Wife of Bath's Tale and Its Middle English Analogues." Neuphilologische Mitteilungen: Bulletin de la Société Néophilologique/Bulletin of the Modern Language Society 85.2 (1984): 239-41.

Review
This essay focuses on one of the central differences between Chaucer's "Wife of Bath's Tale" and its Middle English analogues, including Gower's "Tale of Florent." Glasser points out that Chaucer's is the only version in which the knight is not fully aware that the ultimate price of the answer to the question will be marrying the old woman, and that this difference suggests the knight's marriage represents "forced consent" befitting the Wife of Bath's domineering character. The brevity of this essay reflects its cursory interrogation of the subject. The issue of consent (in marriage, sexual union, and elsewhere) is central to both Chaucer's and Gower's works, and this essay does not explore that issue, or attempt to define it historically, in any great detail. In characterizing the difference, the essay notes, "Only in Chaucer's version does the knight state in absolutely clear terms that he does not consent to marry the hag: 'Taak al my good, and lat my body go'" (241). But that statement is not dissent; rather it is a counteroffer in this contractual negotiation, and one that Florent also offers: "Florent behihte hire good ynowh / Of lond, of rente, of park, of plowh" (1.1555-1556). A stronger case for lack of consent in Chaucer's version might be made by exploring the fact that Chaucer notes the knight "Constreyned was": "he nedes moste hire wedde," (1071), since that line literally refers to being compelled or forced ("constreinen") into the agreement. The essay insightfully remarks that the Wife of Bath is unable to "envision a marriage unsullied by the dominance of her will," but while Chaucer's is the only version where marriage is not immediately understood as the price to be paid, it is not unique in the knight's resistance to that offer before consenting. [BWG. Copyright. The John Gower Society eJGN 40.1]

Date
1984

Gower Subjects
Confessio Amantis
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations