The Undeserving Knight of The Wife of Bath's Tale

To paraphrase The Wife of Bath’s Tale, a knight rapes a girl and is sentenced to death for his crime. However, the queen steps in and offers him a chance of redemption by tasking him to find what women want most within a year. By the end of the year, the knight still doesn’t know, but comes across an old woman who gives him the perfect answer: that women want control over their husbands. However, there’s a catch if he uses the answer; he has to marry the woman. The answer spares his life, but he is forced into marriage with the creepy old woman. The woman asks the knight whether he would prefer an ugly yet faithful woman or a beautiful but coquettish woman. When the knight tells his wife he’ll follow her judgment, giving her control, she turns into a beautiful and faithful woman.

While it seems to be a story of a lusty knight learning his lesson of respecting women, I still question whether the knight is deserving of his ending. By the end of the tale, we seem to forget the knight “by varray force rafte [a girl’s] maidenheed” (894). Despite raping a woman, he is still blessed with a perfect woman. Sure, the knight learned his lesson and allowed his wife control, but I question whether the control was truly granted or the knight merely did not want to incur the wrath of his wife by choosing an offensive option. It’s one of those questions like, “Do these pants make my butt look big?” It seems no matter what a man says, he’s still wrong. Therefore, it’s best to simply avoid the question. It is apparent he feels miserable in the marriage since “ther nas no joye ne feeste at al / ther nas but hevinesse and muche sorwe” (1084-1085). It is specifically apparent that the issue at the heart of the matter is the ugliness of his wife since “wo was him, his wif looked so foule” (1088). While it is possible the knight learned his lesson, I still feel a sense of doubt that the knight is fully deserving of his ending.