my maid of honor speech for my sisters wedding!
14 years ago
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
What Men Want: The Ideal Woman
In "The Franklin's Tale" we meet Dorigen, "the truest and the best wife that [Aurelius] ever yet knew in all [his] life". Unlike the bawdy Wife of Bath who has had five husband and admittedly enjoys an active sex life, and Alison the carpenter's wife in "The Miller's Tale" who grossly cheats on her husband while demonstrating her uninhibited sexual nature by hanging her "arse" out a window for Absalom to kiss, or even Maius from "The Merchant's Tale" who lifts her smock in a tree for her husband's squire, Dorigen remains loyal to her husband and "would rather lose [her] life than be shamed in [her] body". As discussed during our class presentations, some scholars argue that the crude women are "modern" and illustrate Chaucer's feminist beliefs in a still patriarchal male-dominated society. But do you think that these values -- the values of the Wife, Alison, and Maius -- are feminist values we should embrace as a society, or do these women actually reinforce sexual and social stereotypes of women? Is Dorigen simply a "Debbie-downer" who should "get with the Medieval times" or does she represent the female ideal?
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2 comments:
YUCK! I haven't read the Merchant's/Miller's Tale yet and I'm grossly surprised by the summation. Who wants a wife who hangs "her 'arse' out a window for Absalom to kiss"?! That's just plain unnecessary. I don't know what anyone should embrace about their values. Their values are obviously pretty messed up since they cheat and do STRANGE things. Dorigen IS the ideal wife (and might be the only one in Canterbury Tales. She's normal unlike those other women) She is not a "Debbie-downer" who should "get with the Medieval times". She represents the female ideal. She doesn't cheat on her husband, doesn't do explicitly wrong things, and is faithful. I'm sure that husbands don't want cheaters. They don't want to feel like they're just an object for women. So the female ideal will never humiliate the man like the Wife, Alison and Maius did. Men would rather marry a faithful, loyal wife than a sick, cheating, deceitful woman, unless a man just doesn't understand the concept of marriage. Then MAYBE he'd prefer someone along the lines of Maius
but I doubt it.
Ahh! What a delightful post. You see in a shallow conversational sense us manly men talk about the face, the breasts, the buttocks of the females who catch our eye, just like our older brethren hath. But wanna know a small catch? A personality, intelligence, and the ability to speak one's mind are also crucial to perfect and become ideal "wifey" material. Merchant was correct in what he loved, and as much as the misogynstic womanizers you see out there , talk about how they "pimp da hoes".. they will get bored when a woman is not outspoken enough and a strong proponent of filial piety if ya catch my Tokyo Drift :) The point is in this day and age we're equal, and the ideal woman is a rival, a student, a teacher, a chef, a friend, a spouse, a lover, and a mother. Become all eight and you've got my (and everybody else's) heart
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