Chaucer's Feminism Fails, Falters, Falls Flat

As I initially read the Wife of Bath's Tale, I found myself pretty pleasantly surprised with its ideological content. The moral of the story seemed to have a little more depth of social analysis than just "respect women," as seems to be the case in a good many romances. Indeed, the protagonist ultimately learns to give women agency and authority over their own lives and decisions. Given the pervasive conceptualization of the medieval as being more intensely patriarchal than modern society, I was shocked, as Chaucer's ethics seemed in line with the Feminist movements of the 20th and 21st centuries. However, I ultimately found his feminism fell a little flat.

The language used at the story's conclusion is telling: the knight's bride asks "Thanne have I gete of yow maistrye...Sin I may chese and governe as me lest?" To which he replies "Ye, certes, wyf." (1236-1238) This attempts to serve as the "empowering" high point of the story; the woman establishes agency over herself and the knight learns to respect it. The contradiction lies in the action itself occurring in the lines - she's asking for permission. This act contradicts Chaucer's thesis: her asking permission shows an utter lack of power, as it implies the ability of the knight to say no - to deny her agency. Furthermore, it implies infantilization of the woman, as needing a guiding (masculine) authority over her life. Agency that requires permission is false agency, and Chaucer disguises this under the guise of granting her autonomy.

The knight thusly becomes the primary patriarch in the tale. The driving force of the narrative is his rape of a young maiden, an act which is presently and historically a very gendered crime, and an exertion and demonstration of power. The irony in this is that Chaucer, in his supposed feminism, never actually punishes the knight for his act. In fact, he ultimately ends up with a beautiful and loyal wife - he's ultimately better off than he began for having committed the act. The maiden is misogynistically thrust aside of the narrative. Ultimately, the only purpose of her being victim to such a horrible, traumatic experience is to help the knight learn to be a better person, which is unjustified - the good and bad are hardly equal here.

The primary woman of the story ends up serving a similar narrative purpose. She does it in such a severe way to foreshadow a modern literary trope - the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. This is a woman, often described as "quirky" or something similar, whose own motives end up being secondary to her helping a male protagonist become a better person - see: every John Green novel. Here, the "Pixie" aspect of the trope is taken literally: she is implied to be a fairy (Osborn, f.n. 18). This further reinforces her lack of agency by stripping her of humanity.

Ultimately, Chaucer serves an interesting role in that his proto-Feminist thought, while almost entirely upholding patriarchal structures, predicts several common tropes of modern liberal feminism - much of which didn't crop up until the revolutionary shift from feudalism to liberalism and capitalism was in full swing. I'll close with a quote, from someone I'm sure you're tired of hearing about:

Michel Fouc-oh, no, not again.

"Power is exercised rather than possessed; it is not the 'privilege', acquired or preserved, of the dominant class, but the overall effect of its strategic positions." (Discipline and Punish 26) Chaucer's downfall is the downfall of much of feminism - he fails to recognize that it's not enough for those in power to claim respect for the marginalized, because it does not change the effect of their position in structures of power or mystically grant 'agency' to the oppressed.