Modern Concepts About Violence Towards Women Are Actually 650+ Years Old

Alex Bain

Texts & Contexts

Professor Njus

12 May 2016

Modern Concepts about Violence towards Women Are Actually 650+ Years Old

        In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer’s creation of the Wife of Bath was meant to satirize and critique the oppression of women in the late 14th century. By allowing the Wife of Bath to speak freely about sex, women’s desires and violence against women, including her strong stance against verbal and physical abuse against women, the audience develops an understanding of Chaucer’s views towards women and violence during that time^[a]. Although over 600 years have passed, the issue of violence, both sexual and physical, against women remains critical in modern society, and represents a major problem that must be solved by stopping the existing problem and working to prevent this cycle of violence from continually occurring in the future. The Wife’s belief that not all violence towards women is considered physical and her usage of guilt, restorative justice and wisdom to break the cycle of violence would still be largely effective, albeit with slight changes in execution, in today’s society where women continually face & combat the same challenges of physical and sexual violence from men.

        The concept that violence towards women extends beyond just physical acts and includes emotional & verbal abuse seems to be a modern concept that was deployed by women leading the charge to restore gender equality from the 20th century to present times. This idea of emotional or verbal abuse “related closely to the ongoing sexual inequality and oppression of women in all aspects of life” (Rose 31). The issue of violence towards women was first addressed on a large-scale by the United Nations in 1993 through the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (“UN Resolutions”). Furthermore, the UN specified that “domestic violence can take many different forms, including physical, psychological and sexual violence” by decreeing Resolution 18/147 as a follow up in 2004 (“UN Resolutions”). In other words, while it may seem that non-physical abuse was only recently recognized in the 20th or 21st centuries by the United Nations and feminist movements as violence towards women, this concept actually existed in the past as evidenced by the Wife of Bath. In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the Wife of Bath displays her belief that violence towards women can extend beyond just physical acts in both her prologue and tale. First, the Wife describes the relationships with some her past husbands. She speaks of her fourth husband, who “had a mistress,” which was a form of abuse that caused the wife emotional and mental torment. She then speaks of her fifth husband, and while she does mention that he physically abuses her, she tells her fellow pilgrims that “he reads about women in his collection of antifeminist tracts and thus he constrains his wife and distrusts her” (Knoetze 39). Within the Wife’s prologue, it is clear that her fifth husband is causing her emotional abuse as his “habit of reading to [the Wife] ultimately leads to a physical altercation” (Knoetze 40). She again confirms this belief of violence extending beyond physicality in the opening lines of her tale, when she says “he will not do them any harm except dishonor;” while this quote specifically referred to friars raping young maidens, it has been interpreted to mean that a man’s true harm towards women extends beyond just physically striking her and includes dishonoring them by causing unwanted sexual advances and the resulting emotional torment (Chaucer 881) Additionally, in her tale, she mentions the knight who “rudely points out how loathly, old and low-born” the Loathly Lady is, even saying that “he will be degraded by a union with someone of lower birth” and that he’d rather experience his own damnation than give the Lady his love (Knoetze 47). The Wife of Bath’s belief that violence against women extends beyond just physical acts and includes emotional and verbal abuse is evidenced in her prologue and tale by her relationship with her fifth husband, general statements about men causing women dishonor and the actions of the knight. While it may seem that emotional and verbal abuse towards women were only recognized within the past few centuries, this concept was developed and mentioned by Chaucer in Canterbury Tales as early as the late 14th century.

        As the problem of emotional and verbal abuse towards women has now been recognized, at least in terms of society as a whole, guilt is now being used as one modern approach to end this violence towards women when it occurs and stop the cycle from persisting in the future. Specifically, guilt is being used to shame and publicly embarrass men that subject women to forms of violence, including non-physical acts. With the wide-spread use of social media and Internet that has left the global population constantly connected, stories and examples of emotional or verbal abuse are now being shared much more frequently. For example, consider a recent case involving Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice and his wife, Jenay Rice. Surveillance video of his violent attack on Jenay surfaced in September 2014, which showed the horrific images of him striking her until she became unconscious in an elevator, where he then had to drag her out. The first example of guilt being used in this situation arose once the surveillance footage was released and the incredible backlash it caused on Twitter and other social media sites. Numerous fans, and even fellow NFL players, took to social medial to condemn Ray Rice for his egregious actions in that Atlantic City elevator. NFL player Keith Bulluck tweeted “dudes that hit women are more than likely soft, insecure individuals on a power trip,” while another player Scott Fujita tweeted “I’m glad no one this morning seems to care about yesterday’s games. This piece of [expletive] needs to be out of the league. Period” (Payne). The second instance of guilt being applied to this specific violent action actually became targeted at the NFL and its commissioner for the 2-game suspension that virtually all players and fans considered to be incredibly light. Many players also began to target Commissioner Goodell and guilt him for extending such a light sentence, as player London Fletcher tweeted “@nflcommish to say you got that wrong is an understatement. Very disappointed in you. Wow…unbelievable” (Payne). The modern day usage of guilt to combat horrific domestic violence cases, like the Ray Rice incident, is often exercised in the public arena to guilt and shame the abusers, to not only make them learn their lesson, but also hold those with the power to enforce and enact punishments on these abusers accountable for making decisions that uphold justice. While modern day usage of guilt relates more towards shaming abusers in public, the Wife of Bath used this concept of guilt to end the cycle of violence when it occurred and to prevent the cycle from occurring in the future by personally addressing her abusers outright. Specifically, the Wife mentions “having had conversations with her first three husbands in which she recurrently complained about being mistrusted, spied upon and constrained” (Knoetze 38). Furthermore, she would tell her husbands they didn’t treat her right and “accuse them wrongfully,” suggesting they caused her emotional abuse by having other mistresses (Chaucer 226). The Wife of Bath would take this concept of guilt to prevent the cycle of violence from persisting in the future and actually extend it further to gain full power in the relationship. Specifically, she did this by “[using] sex within these marriages as a tool to realize her requests” and to establish a dominant position in the relationship (Knoetze 38). Overall, the key differences between modern day usage of guilt and the Wife’s usage in the late 14th century arose primarily out of the connectivity of society at the time. Currently, anyone with an Internet connection can read about virtually anyone or anything that is going on in the developed world. As a result, the most effective means to break the cycle of violence towards women through guilt is by publicly addressing the issue and even shaming those abusers so they learn their lesson. However, in the Wife of Bath’s time, society was much more disconnected and was limited mainly to an individual’s family and personal life. Because of this, the Wife would use guilt to address her abusers, whether her husbands had abused her yet or not, by throwing out false accusations and making their love towards her feel insufficient, which many critics view as “a subversive, yet perhaps more realistic version of how women may behave” (Dwyer 310). Regardless of the differences in execution that arise out of societal differences in the time period, the modern day usage of guilt to combat and break the cycle of violence towards women was actually first used by the Wife of Bath in The Canterbury Tales.