"The Wife of Bath". Reading Questions

The Wife of Bath's Prologue
  1. What gives the Wife authority to speak about marriage?
  2. Which is better, actual experience or scholarly authority, according to the Wife of Bath's opening lines?
  3. How does she say she chose her husbands?
  4. In Chaucer's society, it was considered far better to remain a virgin than to marry. What does the Wife say about that?
  5. The Wife lumps the three old husbands together. How did she treat them?
  6. Her first three husbands, the Wife says, were "kindly men, and rich, and old." She also says she "ruled them," and she goes on to show how she did it. What was her technique?
  7. How and when did the Wife meet Janekin, her fifth husband?
  8. Why did she marry him? Why did he marry her?
  9. The Wife's fourth husband finally dies. What does the Wife do at his funeral.
  10. How did the Wife and Janekin get along?
  11. What problems did the Wife of Bath have with her fifth husband?
  12. What sort of reading material did husband #5 read to her each night before going to bed? How did the Wife of Bath react to this?
  13. What, according to the Wife of Bath, is one clear commandment from Genesis that clearly indicates she should be married?
  14. What does the Wife of Bath mean when she sasy, "if there were no seed sown, /Virgnity--where then should it be grown?"
  15. What is the Wife of Bath's counter-argument to celibate clergy who claim that the genitals are made (1) merely to pee and (2) merely to distinguish men from women?
  16. What did the Wife of Bath do to make her fourth husband loyal?
The Wife of Bath's Tale
  1. When and where is the Wife's story set?
  2. What does the knight do wrong?
  3. How is he judged and sentenced?
  4. What must he do to save his life?
  5. How long does the Knight have to fulfill this mission? How is this similar or different than the time alloted to Sir Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight?
  6. What's wrong with the answers he gets?
  7. What problem does the Knight find when he starts asking women what they want?
  8. What does the Old Hag say she wants in return for providing the answer to the knight's riddle?
  9. What answer does the knight give the Queen and her court? Is the Queen satisfied?
  10. What defense does the hag provide for her poverty and her ugliness?
  11. Why are these advantages, according to her?
  12. What two options does the hag present to the knight?
  13. Which of these two options does the knight pick (trick question!)
  14. How does the hag's appearance change at the end of the story?