The Wife of Bath is perhaps the most remarkable figure in The Canterbury Tales. Particularly interesting is the difference between her Prologue, in which she brashly and lustily gives the details of her five marriages, and her Tale, which is both moral and quite charming. Address the difference between the Wife's Prologue and her Tale. How do the two relate and lend meaning to one another? The Wife of Bath ha the longest prologue in The Canterbury Tales. Why does she feel the need to share this personal information with the pilgrims before she begins her tale?
The Wife's prologue is unique in that it is longer than the tale itself. The Wife of Bath uses the prologue to explain the basis of her theories about experience versus authority and to introduce the point that she illustrates in her tale: The thing women most desire is complete control ("sovereignty") over their husbands.
The Wife speaks on behalf of women everywhere

discusses her five marriages and her tactics for gaining power and financial independence through the use of her body.
Bawdy, lusty, and strong willed, she refuses to allow men to control her existence and she takes measures to shape her own destiny

The Wife’s narrative opens with a defense of her many marriages, all legal, as she points out, i.e. recognized by the Church even though some churchmen frowned on widows re-marrying. The Wife challenges anyone to show her where the Scripture sets a limit to the number of successive legal marriages a person can have in a lifetime. She claims that, because she has lots of experience of marriage, she is more of an authority on that subject than the celibate
“authorities” who write about it. And she knows how to use “authorities” too, if it comes to it, as the many marginal references in our text show.
The Wife of Bath presents herself as the authority on marriage and marital life. She comments on the social and legal position of women in marriage and daily life. She claims she has her knowledge from experience, not from scriptural authority. Rather than rejecting scriptural authority, she appeals to logic thus rejecting too strict interpretations of scriptural rules and commandments.
She reveals her tactic for manipulating her husbands – deliberately attacking her husband with a whole fistful of complaints and several biblical glossing (for justification) and starting an argument, with the result of her getting what she wants. By accusing her husband of infidelity, the Wife disguised her own adultery
Throughout the Tale, the Knight's fate is decided by women, first by Guenevere, then by the crone.
She holds her own among the bickering pilgrims,
In both “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue” and “Tale,” the Wife of Bath discusses marriage, virginity, and most importantly the question of sovereignty. In the “Wife of Bath's Tale,” Alison is suggesting control that women should have. She is a strong-willed and dominant woman who herself gets what she wants when she wants it. She cannot accept defeat no matter what the cost. She feels that this is the way things should be and men should obey her. She should not be controlled or told what to do by others, especially by a man.
The Wife of Bath believes that experience is the greatest authority, and since she has been married five times, she certainly considers herself an authority on the. It is ironic to see the even though is not religious but, she uses the Bible as justification to pardon her behavior.
She is using sex to manipulate men just as men do to women because she openly is saying that she will give herself to the man.
At the beginning of the tale, King Arthur submits to the rule of Guinevere (thus abandoning both his headship of the state and his headship of the family); the ladies of the court, instead of the men, serve as justices; and the authority of books and scriptures gives way to experience. Furthermore, the knight, a rapist who has violated the sanctity of a young girl's chastity, is redeemed by another woman, albeit a hag. Finally, in the choice the hag offers the knight, both choices are intolerable. Thus, when he lets her make the decision, he has abandoned the male's sovereignty in favor of the woman's rule, thus turning the medieval world-picture "up-so-doun."
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