plebeian woman neither has the graces of the high-born lady, nor does
she excite that reverence for the sex which marked her condition in the
feudal castle. "Tournaments and courts of love were not framed for
village churls, but for high-born dames and mighty earls."

Chaucer in his description of women in ordinary life does not seem to
have a very high regard for them. They are weak or coarse or sensual,
though attentive to their domestic duties, and generally virtuous. An
exception is made of Virginia, in the doctor's tale, who is represented
as beautiful and modest, radiant in simplicity, discreet and true. But
the wife of Bath is disgusting from her coarse talk and coarser manners.
Her tale is to show what a woman likes best, which, according to her, is
to bear rule over her husband and household. The prioress is
conventional and weak, aping courtly manners. The wife of the host of
the Tabard inn is a vixen and shrew, who calls her husband a milksop,
and is so formidable with both her tongue and her hands that he is glad
to make his escape from her whenever he can. The pretty wife of the
carpenter, gentle and slender, with her white apron and open dress, is
anything but intellectual,--a mere sensual beauty. Most of these women
are innocent of toothbrushes, and give and receive thrashings, and sing
songs without a fastidious taste, and beat their servants and nag their
husbands. But they are good cooks, and understand the arts of brewing
and baking and roasting and preserving and pickling, as well as of
spinning and knitting and embroidering. They are supreme in their
households; they keep the keys and lock up the wine. They are gossiping,
and love to receive their female visitors. They do not do much shopping,
for shops were very primitive, with but few things to sell. Their
knowledge is very limited, and confined to domestic matters. They are on
the whole modest, but are the victims of friars and pedlers. They have
more liberty than we should naturally suppose, but have not yet learned