“The Wife of Bath's Tale” in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is the story of a widow who made a pilgrimage to the city of Canterbury with a series of dynamic characters i whose different backgrounds allowed them to share their stories with each other to make the long journey more interesting. The widow named Alison in The Wife of Bath's Tale tells the story of her experiences with her five past husbands and the story of a knight and a witch. He truly believed that for a woman to have a happy life she would need to gain dominance over a man; however it could be assumed that this was programmed into her by her influential mother and her own religious doctrines. Consequently, Alison argued that the woman must control everything to have a happy marriage; however, her life experience and the story she has shared should tell her otherwise. Throughout Alison's life, she believed that women had the same rights as a man and that personal happiness did not mean for a person to be celibate unless married or to view sexual desires differently. women as moral sin. Alison's outlook on life allowed her the freedom to marry often and not let society or her husband dictate the time she was a capable individual with no independent worth or worth because of her sex; therefore he married five times in search of the perfect union. J. Lawrence suggested that the widowed Alison used her knowledge of the Bible and the teachings of God's prophets as an excuse for her sexual appetite and multiple marriages because she considered herself equal to man (Vol. 58). The widow's first three husbands were old, wealthy, and loved her dearly. He has always had the upper hand in marriages by using sex as a ploy to manipulate and take advantage of their generosity. S...... middle of paper ......or provided her with wealth and property and she wanted, did not love or respect them; however, the next two husbands whom she loved most of all had dominion over her. As a result, the only positive attention she got from them was that of her wealth and property, with little regard for her needs and affections due to her old age and loss of beauty. Furthermore, the story of the knight and the witch also disproved the theory of the widow's dominance of what women desire most, because it was the witch who had to change her appearance to win her husband's affection. All in all, the theory put forward by the widow regarding dominance over men as what women wanted most to experience a fulfilled marriage is flawed because it conflicted with the reality of her experiences, as well as the story she told about love. The Knight and the Witch.