What the Man of Law Can't Say: The Buried Legal Argument of the 'Wife of Bath's Prologue'

Author / Editor
Thomas, Susanne Sara.

Title
What the Man of Law Can't Say: The Buried Legal Argument of the 'Wife of Bath's Prologue'

Published
Chaucer Review 31 (1997): 256-71.

Description
In WBP, the Wife delivers not a sermon but a mock legal case. Her reasoning is typical of courtroom reasoning, and (like lawyers) she buries her argument in rhetoric. Her unwritten law of marriage triumphs over the written laws of St. Paul, thus aligning her with the "new order of things"--legal negotiation and interpretation.

Chaucer Subjects
Wife of Bath and Her Tale.