Women and Marriage or Social Injustice
... Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels looks at society, social mores and human depravity through a fantastical construct, but takes the reader from a light-hearted romp in Lilliput and Brobdinag, ending in a serious indictment of English society. ... " In the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer looks at religion, societal conventions, gender inequities, marriage and class distinctions with his keen-eyed humor. I believe that Chaucer, just like Twain and Swift, chose his literary masterpiece The Canterbury Tales to confront the social injustice between men and women during this time period preempting societal change, as there is nothing more powerful than an artist exposing injustice. Critics scrutinize Chaucer’s masterpiece seeking to connect his satirical and often humorous characterizations to his personal beliefs regarding women and marriage. Many a reader comes to the conclusion that Chaucer truly likes women. ... Within the humor, there is real empathy for the limitations society put on women once married. Marriage is both the safety net and prison for women. ... According to Kimberly Beumer of the Women’s Studies Department at the University of Arizona: The actual desire to be married was not by choice of the woman, rather it was determined by the will of the parents and fellow kinship. The concept of marriage was a constant pressure placed on girls at a young age. ... The average age of consent for a female was seven years old, however the marriage could not be nullified until the girl reached twelve and the boy fourteen. ... The Wife of Bath and the Prioress are the only two women described in the General Prologue that are on the pilgrimage and whose voices fairly represent the affairs. Because of this limited selection, many of the women examples chosen by critics to demonstrate Chaucer’s view of the role of marriage and women come from the tales as told by men on the pilgrimage, and ultimately by Chaucer himself, a man. George Lyman Kittredge, critic and male, quotes from The Clerk’s Tale, The Merchant’s Tale, and The Franklin’s Tale in his essay “Chaucer’s Discussion of Marriage” attempting to convince the reader about Chaucer’s view of marriage. ... How can Kittredge claim that the tales prove how Chaucer feels about marriage, while at the same time spout that we cannot look at his examples from an ethical or moral perspective?