While they were given little freedom outside this restricted sphere, critics observe that medieval women were granted substantial autonomy within that sphere. Men "imposed a closely circumscribed domain in which women exercised a degree of autonomy... primarily the house, a space both protected and enclosed, and, within the house, certain even more private places such as the bed chamber, the work areas, and the kitchen" (Klapisch-Zuber305). The Wife of Bath is a representative of this kind of social system. While she may poorly represent the women of her times, still her clothing and mannerism effectively reflect "the folly of the bourgeoisie -- its appetite for goods, both social and economic -- as the ancestral license of women.... If she [the Wife of Bath] is an arch-woman (all women ever), she is also a player in the fourteenth-century cloth trade...

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Ridley Florence H. The Prioress and…