Canterbury Connection
PILGRIMS SEEKING PILGRIMS
BIO: Hey guys, so my name is Alisoun and I’m from a little city in England called Bath. I’m not as young as I used to be and I’m a little bit deaf in one ear, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to have fun! I work in textiles,1 even though some people think I’m a prostitute. All I have to say to those people is that if you have a problem with a woman who knows what she wants in and out of the bedroom, then swipe left.
AGE: I was first married when I was twelve2, so you do the math 😉
RELATIONSHIP STATUS: I know more about the woes of marriage through my experience than any of those stuffy clerics and academics who control the written authorities in this world. Thanks be to God, I’ve been married five times. Now, they weren’t all the greatest partners but they were worthy men in their own right. I heard once, not that long ago, that Christ commanded that we should not be married more than once. I also heard that when Christ was scolding the Samaritan woman, he said “You’ve had five husbands, and that same man which now has you is not your husband.” I don’t know exactly what he meant by that, but I just want to know why the fifth man was not husband to the Samaritan? How many might she have in marriage? In all my years, I’ve never heard an explanation for that number. Now, men may presume to know the right way to interpret Christ’s words, but I can understand that gentile text well! I know that God bade us to go forth and multiply and made no mention of any specific number of marriages – whether two, or five or eight! I know of many holy men who have had more than one wife, and God should have no problem with me choosing to remarry after my husband has gone from this world. After all, it is certainly “better to marry than to burn.” I welcome the sixth whenever he may come! 3
1.Chaucer, “The General Prologue,” I. 445-76
2.Chaucer, “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue,” III. 4
3.Chaucer, “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue,” III. 1-34
References:
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales, Edited by Jill Mann, Penguin Books Ltd, 2005.
