Geoffrey Chaucer uses sex as an instrument of manipulation in The Canterbury Tales. Presenting sex as a power that women exercise over men rather than the marital bond of "making love" highlights Chaucer's biased views. of love and marriage with underlying tones of misogyny. He expresses these views throughout the work, however, the theme of love and sex is most evident in the substories of The Wife of Bath and The Miller's Tale. Chaucer divides the theme of sex into two fundamental parts: the carnal and the romantic. Although carnal love is a controversial subject, Chaucer delves into the subject by creating characters with a fierce sexual appetite and the means to satisfy their desires. Whereas, to approach romance, it relies heavily on courtship and the introduction of relationships which are means of satisfying one's carnal desires or simply accommodating one's natural desire for power over others. The Wife of Bath presents sex as nothing more than a carnal need and a constant struggle for "the upper hand" as well as for material goods. Most of the roots of this tale are found in the prologue where the woman discusses her personal sexual exploits with her five previous husbands. Chaucer presents an internal conflict when the woman momentarily questions the moral implications that being married five times imposes on her. Her conflict ends by comparing herself with the men of the Bible: "Abraham, I know, was a holy man, and so was Jacob, as far as they could go," and then recounting their situation as as presented by the Bible: “Yet everyone with more than two wives comes to dwell” (Chaucer). The wife first subtly presents her views on the role of sex in relationships, for example by referring to the male genitals as a "hanging purse", indicating that she is in the middle of a paper......both a material object and a comedy, thus diminishing its seriousness and, ultimately, diminishing the repercussions of the degradation of the tacit rules of it as an institution. Works Cited Aers, David. “Chaucer: Sex, Love and Marriage.” Chaucer, Langland and the creative imagination. Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980. 144-73. Print.Bloom, Harold and Blake Hobby, eds. Human sexuality. New York: Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2009. Print.Brewer, Derek B. “The Miller's Tale.” Nd Bloom's online literary reference. Internet. December 15, 2013. .Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Np: np, and About.com: Classiclit. Internet. December 16, 2013. .Miller, Mark. Philosophical Chaucer: Sex, Love, and Agency in the Canterbury Tales. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004. Print.