The moral compass of humanity has always piqued the interest of authors. The Middle Ages were a time of immoral behavior, corrupt religious officials, and failure to honor marriage vows. Geoffrey Chaucer used The Canterbury Tales to explore his personal views on this dark time. In particular, he made “The Wife of Bath's Tale”, “The Prioress's Tale” and “The Shipman's Tale” to portray the tainted society, using the women in each to bring out his opinions. In the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer describes women as immodest and conniving beings to suggest the moral corruption of the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages were a time when women were supposed to be paragons of virtue, yet they acted contrary to those beliefs. As young women, they were expected to strive for perfection and protect their virginity (Bardsley 96-97). In reality, women were often free with their virtues and, according to Francis and Joseph Gies, "women's chastity was eternally suspect in the eyes of canonists, who perceived them as always desirous of sexual gratification." Women were presented with mixed messages when told that they were sources of evil, but were also told that they must exemplify Mary's model (Bardsley 172). Modeling Mary, women were expected to be virtuous and holy and not selfish. However, women were far from this model of Mary and received little respect from men. Men dominated women and they never escaped male control. As girls, their fathers controlled them and later in life they were subject to their husbands (McLean and Singman 24). Because of this, women were seen as scandalous if they attempted to gain power, money, or land. Chaucer exemplifies this in "The Wife of Bath's Tale". Living in a male-dominated society, the wife... middle of paper... Harper Perennial, 1978. 52-53, 58-59. Print.Hallissy, Margaret. A companion to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1995. 225-235. Print.McLean, Will and Singman, Jeffrey L. Everyday Life in Chaucer's England. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1995. Print.O'Brien, Timothy D. "Seductive Violence and Three Chaucerian Women." University Literature 28.2 (2001): 178. Literature Resource Center. Network. 17 October 2011. Rossignol, Rosalyn. Chaucer: a literary reference to his life and work. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2007. 68, 70-71, 77-78. Print.Saur, Michelle M. "The Miller's Tale." Bloom's How to Write by Geoffrey Chaucer. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2010. 98-99, 118-129. Press. "Prologue and Tale of the Wife of Bath". Criticism of poetry. Ed. Lawrence J.Trudeau. vol. 58. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Literature Resource Center. Network. October 25. 2011.