Feminism In The Miller's Tale

"Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, and destroy capitalism." This quote by Pat Anderson goes into the mind of an antifeminist. This is salient to the argument made by Geoffrey Chaucer in Canterbury Tales. In a time where women had no say in anything, and were just there to sit and be pretty he highlights it in literature. In many different instances he indicates points that would make the reader believe he has views the same as Pat Anderson. Throughout Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer he shows women are objects used to gloat about by men for their looks and family status, and are not nearly as knowledgeable as men.

The Miller's Tale is all about raunchiness and women showing
The prologue for the Wife Bath's tale is much lengthier than the actual tale because Chaucer wanted to display how a woman wasn't knowledgeable to argue a point because they know nothing. Also it displays how she was used by almost every one of her husbands when she's trying to argue feminism which makes no sense because that makes her even worse than the men because she let it happen. For example when talking about her fourth husband she describes their relationship as this, "But in bed he was so fresh and gay, so coaxing, so persuasive.....Heaven knows whenever he wanted it - my belle chose - though he had beaten me in every bone he still could wheedle me to love, I own." (P.272) She literally states that he beat her, but she still had sex with him. This is so momentous to my argument because her husband's getting all he wants, and she is just following his lead because women have no possibility of individuality in any sense. This makes the man bad for using her, but her even more abominable for letting it happen, and not just leaving him which like i stated Chaucer is showing how woman are in complete tutelage. Also in the prologue The Wife of Bath references the Bible and misinterprets it like when she said, "A man should wield his wife her debt."(P.262)
The Knights tale is the first tale of the book, and is Chaucer trying to exhibit how in that time Knights were the ones who were expected to get the alluring, rich girl. Chaucer also wanted to display in his first tale how antifeminism was prominent. This was shown by the woman in the tale who the men were fighting over had no say in what happened to her. It had already been decided that she would be married off, and the only question was who would be her husband. She even said she didn't want to even get married at the time, but this shows Chaucer's belief yet again that woman have no singularity and need to be tamed by a man. Than in the third tale, The Reeves tale, two men want to expose a local Miller for his treachery, but he still tricks them. Than to get back at him one of them, Alan, decides to sleep with his daughter. Then John recollects on how he could have been doing that by saying, "He took his chance and now his needs are sped, I'm but a sack of rubbish here in this bed."(P.116) This quote is important to the theme because it makes her seem like a prize as previously mentioned which Chaucer wants the reader to notice. Than he proceeds to get the wife to sleep with him because it's embarrassing for a man to let his friend have