Thou seyst som folk desiren us for richesse,
Somme for oure shap, and somme for oure fairnesse,
And som for she kan outher synge or daunce,
And som for gentillesse and daliaunce;
Som for hir handes and hir armes smale;
Thus goth al to the devel, by thy tale.
Thou seyst men may nat kepe a castel wal,
It may so longe assailled been overal.
– Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue. Pity the Wife of Bath’s first three husbands. Here she replays how she railed at them for saying that men desired women for their money, their shape, their beauty, because they could sing or dance, or they came from a good family and flirted a lot. That all goes to the devil, the husbands say, there is always some reason a wife is going to cheat – no castle wall can stand up to constant attack. Of course it’s all fiction and the Wife is making it up, pretending to her husbands that they said these things while they were drunk. All so that this aggressive, medieval feminist can ensure the woman has sovereignty in a marriage.