Master of the Wedding

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I was thinking about Bridezillas today. It simply amazes me at how many women completely freak out and demand absolute control over "their day." This, of course, got the literary geek in me to ponder female archetypes, which naturally led to The Wife of Bath from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

For those unfamiliar with The Canterbury Tales and, specifically, the Wife of Bath’s Tale, here’s a little history lesson:

The Canterbury Tales was written in the fourteenth century; it is a collection of stories written by Geoffrey Chaucer. The frame story begins with a group of medieval pilgrims who are making a pilgrimage from London to Canterbury to pay their respects to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The group of pilgrims represented all classes and stations including a monk, a carpenter, a knight, a sailor, and a housewife (among others).

When the group of pilgrims stops at an Inn for the night, the host of the pilgrimage suggests that they tell stories to each other to pass the time during their journey to Canterbury. Everyone agrees to this idea and further agree that host should determine the best story among all the pilgrims; the winner will then have his/her expenses for the journey paid by the rest of the group.

The Wife of Bath’s Tale is set in King Arthur’s court. It begins with a knight of the court raping a young woman in a field. When brought before the king, the knight is told that the offense is punishable by death. The queen then asks for mercy on his behalf and the king decides to allow the queen to sentence the knight.

The queen tells the knight that in order to save his own life he must answer her one simple question: more than anything else, what do women want? She gives him one year to find the answer. He agrees to return in one year with the queen’s warning that if he fails to satisfy her with and sufficient answer, he will surrender his life.

The knight spends the next year asking his question every maiden he encounters; every single one of them answers with something different. Defeated, the knight begins making his way back to the queen to tell her he has failed and is prepared to forfeit his life.

Upon entering a meadow, he sees a group of women dancing. As he draws closer, they disappear and he is met by on ugly old hag. He asks her for help. She agrees to tell him the answer to his question if he promises to grant her a request. Desperate, he agrees to the hag’s condition.

Upon returning to the court, the knight answers the queen that what women want above all else is, “to have the sovereignty as well upon their husband as their love, and to have mastery their man above." The queen is satisfied with his answer and pardons him. Soon after, the hag announces that she helped save the knight and that he owes her a favor in return; she claims that she wants the knight to marry her. The knight protests, but the queen grants the hag her request.

Later, the hag and the knight are discussing his unhappiness with the arrangement. Finally, the hag gives him a choice: she will be ugly and faithful or beautiful and unfaithful. After careful consideration, he gives the choice to her to become whatever would bring the most happiness. Satisfied with her mastery over her husband, the hag chooses to become beautiful and faithful.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

I find it fascinating at how little things have changed since the 14th century. I don’t know if I would go as far to say that all women want mastery over their husbands - I think many women simply want independence and the prerogative to make their own decisions.

Bridezillas, on the other hand, seem to subscribe to the thought process of the Wife of Bath. They think that men are to be dominated and controlled; those that refute this idea claim that the wedding is the one time she gets to be "princess for the day" in order to justify her behavior.

If Brides want to be a true princess for the day, they should look to the lesson of the queen in the Wife of Bath's story. In her royal wisdom, she showed compassion towards the knight and encouraged him to seek out a truth that she already knew.

Bridezillas can take a que from the queen and realize that they need not be the sole master of the wedding (or the marriage for that matter). Instead, they should seek out to understand what their future husbands want and realize that the planning of their wedding is the perfect opportunity to not only learn about his desires but to establish a precedence of how decisions will be made throughout the marriage.

What do you think?