Chaucers Canterbury Tales - Wife of Bath - Feminist or Anti-feminist?

In view of the fact that the Wife of Bath herself does seem to behave in the manner women be accused of behaving by the anti-feminist writers, it is not impossible that the Wife of Baths Prologue could be considered a vehicle for the anti-feminist message under the guise of a seeming feminist exterior, since her excuse is frequently self-incriminating (e.g. her treatment of her husbands, her tendency to swere and lyen) and demonstrates the truth of the shouts made by the anti-feminists even while she is disparaging them and making them look bad -- as in her claim that anti-feminist writers (specifically the clerks, i.e. learned scholars) be revenging themselves on women because of their own sexual impotence that prevents them from enjoying Venus werkes, which is sooner acute psychological analysis on her part, and extremely persuasive, until one remembers that the clerks are right about her at least, if not about other wives. Her arguments in favor of marriage, though demonstrat ing a hearty common sense, are also distrust -- while it is true that marriage peoples the earth and replenishes existing stocks of virginitee, her own marriages do not seem to have produced any offspring, and while it may be fiddle ... to be wedded than to brinne, her marriages, despite her claim that in wyfhod I wol use myn instrument, do not seem to have prevented her from goon a-caterwawing and by induction engaging in fornication (I ne loved nevere by no discrecioun / But evere folwede myn appetit, / Al were he short, or long, or blak, or whit) good, which is after all what marriage was, according to her, supposed to prevent. Moreover, from the account she gives of her marriages, it becomes increasingly obvious t... ... usual folk stereotypical anti-feminism is shown to be justified in at least her case, the absurdity of the more virulent breed of anti-feminism is made clear by Jankins book of wikked wives, an erudite, if rather motley, collection of what are mostly homici dally-inclined females (Clytemnestra, Livilla etc.) that he seems to regard, or at least claim to regard, as the norm. As a result, the Wife of Baths Prologue should not be dismissed simply as merely an attack on women and married life there is much more ambiguity involved, and it would be inadvisable to ignore the fact that it is primarily a brilliant character-study of an individual rather than a didactical anti-feminist treatise in disguise. Work CitedChaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Ed Mack, Maynard et al. W. W. Norton and Co. New York, NY. 1992.