Quote of the day by Geoffrey Chaucer: “Women naturally desire the same six things as I; they want their men to be…..” |

If you thought Shakespeare was the Father of English Literature, you have been living in a lie all your life. It was Geoffrey Chaucer, who lived from around 1343 to 1400 in London, is said to be the father of the English Literature that we know. He lived in an England that witnessed wars, plagues, and massive social shifts. Chaucer was born in a prosperous family of wine merchants. He didn’t start out as some ivory-tower poet but very slowly climbed the ranks through grit and connections. When he was a teenager, he served in the royal court. He got captured in the Hundred Years’ War in France and had King Edward III pay his ransom, that’s how deep he was in the nobility’s world. Chaucer did diplomacy trips to Italy and France, had a customs jobs in London, and even a stint as a Member of Parliament. These work experiences exposed him to French and Italian writers like Dante and Boccaccio, who shaped his style. But he developed his own ‘everyday English life’ style, ditching the fancy Latin and French that dominated back then. By his death, he was the first person buried in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner, a spot that honors literary giants.Geoffrey Chaucer’s big break into writing came early with dream-vision poems. They were typical medieval tales where the narrator falls asleep and wanders into fantastical realms pondering love, fame, or death. His Book of the Duchess is an elegy for John of Gaunt’s wife, Blanche, blending courtly grief with subtle humor, his The House of Fame is about a wild ride through a giant eagle carrying the poet to the goddess Fame’s wobbly palace, poking fun at how reputation crumbles. Parliament of Fowls imagines birds debating Valentine’s Day mates, full of witty bird banter on love’s chaos. But Chaucer hit his stride in the 1380s with Troilus and Criseyde, a heartbreaking epic romance set in the Trojan War. Drawing from Boccaccio, he turned it into deep character drama.However, nothing can ever match The Canterbury Tales, his unfinished masterpiece from the late 1380s to 1400. It’s about thirty pilgrims swapping stories on a trek from London to Canterbury’s shrine for Saint Thomas Becket. Each tale mirrors the teller’s class-a knight’s chivalric romance, a miller’s bawdy fart joke, a prioress’s saintly miracle, a wife’s no-holds-barred marriage manifesto. Unfinished at his death, it still packs over 17,000 lines, influencing everyone from Shakespeare to modern novels. Chaucer’s genius was that he observed without preaching, letting characters clash and reveal society’s hypocrisies.One of his most famous quotes is “Women naturally desire the same six things as I; they want their husbands to be brave, wise, rich, generous with money, obedient to the wife, and lively in bed.” It pops up in The Canterbury Tales, specifically the Wife of Bath’s Prologue. She’s schooling her fellow pilgrims on marriage after her tale about a knight learning women’s “what women want” secret, sovereignty over husbands. This list sums her blueprint for the ideal man-bold in battle (brave), sharp-minded (wise), loaded (rich), free-spending (generous), henpecked (obedient), and virile (lively in bed). “As I” ties to her self-portrait, she craves what she dishes out, flipping male dominance on its head.What’s the meaning? On the surface, it’s cheeky medieval erotica, a widow’s shopping list for hubby number six, blending virtue (bravery, wisdom) with practical perks (wealth, obedience) and straight-up lust. But dig deeper, and it’s satire exploding gender myths. Men wrote rules, wives submit, sex for heirs, but the wife demands reciprocity. Obedient husbands? That’s heresy in patriarchal times, where wives were chattel. Lively in bed nods to her “marital debt” obsession- bodies owe pleasure, not just babies. Chaucer doesn’t endorse, he vents her voice amid male pilgrims’ snickers. It mirrors real tensions, noble wives wielded soft power through nagging or lovers, while peasants bartered brides for land. Today, it lands as proto-feminism: women have desires, agency, standards. Or cynical humor. Nobody’s perfect, so good luck finding all six. In her tale, the knight grants a hag “maistrie,” which allows her to transform, suggesting that control unlocks beauty and harmony. Chaucer’s point? Marriage thrives on mutual give, not tyranny. The quote endures because it’s timelessly human,love wants heroes who pay bills, listen, and deliver.Chaucer’s era obsessed over control. Plague killed half of Europe, peasants revolted, church scandals raged. His words cut through, saying desire’s universal-men or women, we chase security, smarts, spark. Drop this quote today, and it sparks laughs or fights. He captures that raw truth without sermons, just stories that stick.