The Wife of Bath is Just Looking for Mr. Right
lending to the idea that Judith would rather be able to keep a husband by other means than having to use sex. In fact, she claims her fifth husband is so wonderful in bed, that he gains power over her because she loves him so. This loss of her power because of the importance she places on sex, drives her in the tale to turn the hag into someone that the knight does not want sexually. He is still forced to marry her but he does not have sexual power over her, nor her over him. It is a non- issue because of her physical appearance. Judith always uses sex as a tool in her relationships to get what she wants, however she would rather have power over her husbands because they love her and respect her, than just for want of her body. By making the hag physically disgusting to the knight she forces him from the beginning not to look at her as a sexual object but to listen to her because she has something else that he wants, knowledge. In modern terms this is still a battle that many women are faced with, feeling like sexual objects for men and the desire to be appreciated for everything that they are instead of how they look. Judith’s desire to be wanted for more than her body appears in the story as an elderly and unattractive hag, who ropes the knight into a marriage he would have otherwise never agreed to.
The knight in the tale is a flawed version of a Prince Charming like character because Judith knows that the hag could not end up with a man of his stature and gain power over him unless something was wrong with him to begin with. In this case, the knight is already weakened at the beginning of the story when he rapes a maiden. The image of a knight is often accompanied by shining armor and a white steed, not an accusel rape, therefore the knight is flawed from the beginning of the story and anything bad that happens to him is poetic justice because he has already committed a crime. Since Judith chooses to use a knight, someone of such high stature, and hag who is on the lowest of social wrungs, she is making a statement about the power of the hag. The fact that the knight can be made to submit to the hag in the end of the tale is remarkable considering that the hag apparently has no power.
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