The Wife of Bath is a complex character: she is different from the way she represents herself. Maybe not even what she believes herself to be. On the surface, it appears that she is a feminist, advocating for women's rights and power over men. She also describes how she dominates her husband, playing on a fear common to men. From a man's point of view at the time, it seemed to illustrate all the wrongs men found in women. As a weak parody of what men then saw as feminist. The Wife of Bath constantly highlights the negative implications of women throughout the ages. It portrays women as greedy, controlling and dishonest. Many critics over the years have given the Wife of Bath a feminist title. She is a strong-willed, dominant woman who gets what she wants when she wants it, manipulating her husbands into feeling bad about things they didn't do, or saying things that put them in total shame. No man has ever been able to give an exact answer when she asks how many husbands a woman can have in her life...