Of a very different type are Chaucer's practical, bustling housewives, amongst whom the Wife of Bath and Dame Pertelote stand pre-eminent. The Wife of Bath is a capable, active, pushing woman, with plenty of courage and plenty of self-confidence. She is well-to-do and has a fitting sense of her own dignity and importance, but she has no idea of letting dignity stand in the way of enjoyment, and is quite ready to take her part in the rough jests of the company. Comely of face and plump of person, she dresses well and is quite prepared to make the most of her attractions. The prologue to her tale shows that she has plenty of shrewd mother-wit. Her view of matrimony is characteristic. She recognises the "greet perfeccioun" of celibacy, but since all men and women are not suited to such a life, she is impatient of the idea that they should marry but once, and she quotes the Scriptures most aptly for her purpose. Her present husband is her fifth, and when he dies she has every intention of marrying again:-- "I nil envye no virginitee;" she cries, "Let hem be breed of pured whete-seed, And lat us wyves hoten barly-breed,"[108] for barley-bread is by no means to be despised. In fact she is the epitome of common-sense, and her confidence in her own opinion enables her to bear contradiction good-humouredly enough. Her methods with her various husbands were simple: three she bullied and brow-beat, one she paid back in his own coin. The fifth, who had the sense to beat her, was the only one for whom she had any respect, and even he had finally yielded her ... the governance of hous and lond And of his tonge and of his hond also. It is the picture of a violent, coarse--but not wholly ill-natured--woman, who despises bookishness and thoroughly enjoys good ale and good company. She has no morals and no ideals, though she loves to go To vigiles and to processiouns, To preching eek, and to thise pilgrimages, To pleyes of miracles and mariages, but her genial good-fellowship makes her a pleasant enough companion.