Power is inevitably a source of corruption.

In the light of this view, discuss ways in which writers explore power and corruption. Throughout The Wife of Baths Prologue, Chaucer satirises the power struggle between the eponymous narrator and her five husbands, a series of madrigal disputes which, collectively, are emblematic for the age-old battle of the sexes. The wifes matriarchal dominance transcends into cruelty, leading her on a dark path of immorality - the story of which she recollects without conscience. The underlying message of the text is clear; at least moralistically, power is inevitably a source of corruption. The subject of matrimony is explored throughout the text, and at least forms the basis of the wifes moral corruption it could be argued that the medieval institution of marriage itself was corrupt itself, used by the religious ruling class as an apparatus of ideological control over the peasantry. Marriage serves as a tool to contain lust, the most primal of instincts; if you can control such fundamental urges, then they are easier to influence. Indeed, this idea of state corruption translates to the characterisation of the wife, who uses lust as a weapon of a dominance against her husbands: That many a nyght they songen Weilawey! Intercourse is usually interpreted an expression of intimate desire and love for your partner; in this event, the wife is using it to manipulate her husband and create a submissive attitude. This, combined with her irregular open-ness when talking about sex supports her ill-feminine characterisation and skewers gender roles commonplace in the C14th. While she at first comes across as a negligent, remourseless villain, it becomes clear throughout the text that her narration is often exaggerated and carries a clearly humourous tone, supported by her almost slapstick recitations of violence (And yet eftsoones I hitte hym on the cheke, I with my fest so took hym on the cheke) and vulgar, taboo expressions of her numourous sexual conquests. Perhaps then, we could argue that not only is the wife morally corrupted but also a corruption of the female stereotype? She is likely the most masculine character of the text; she is even able to conquer the patriarchal values of a young, able-bodied man, whom she leaves cowering in fear of both her strikes of dominance and threat of rejection: As help me God, I shal thee nevere smyte! ... he yaf me al the bridel in myn hand Again, we are exposed to her crusade of switching gender roles and coming out on top of male patriarchy; not only has she secured his god-given oath to never smyte her, she has also gained complete control of al the bridel. This could indicate that the wife is associating control of men with control of property, or even that men are property in themselves; thus, we could argue, the wife goes a step further and corrupts the highest power that of god. Exodus 20:17 in the old testament reads: You must not covet your neighbor's wife or anything else that belongs to your neighbor." This clearly associates women with property and implies that men have divine right over both; thus, he wife is divinely corrupt in that she uses sexual deviance and control to socialise her husbands

into becoming her property, going against the word of God. In the C14th such corruption would be seen as the highest transgression, even if it is not all that shocking in the context of the western modern world. It could be further argued that the wife directly contradicts Exodus 20:17 by directly associating men with property, rather than making a simple implication: Forbede us thyng, and that desiren we; And to greet cheep is holde at litel prys, This knoweth every womman that is wys. Even before her final claim of maistrie over Jankyn, she is suggesting that like market property, the value of men fluctuates based on demand, and that every wise woman knows this. Furthermore, her description of [forbidden] desire implies that she only wants male for sexual prosperity; this acts as a clear example of corruption of not only her stereotypical role as a woman but gender roles established within the bible.