Alyson, the "good wife of beside Bath" is one of the most famous characters in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. He describes her as colourfully dressed, outspoken and prosperous (she is a successful businesswoman in the textile trade.) Most striking of all, she has had five husbands ("at church door…without other company in youth") and is on the lookout for a sixth. In the long introduction to her Tale, Alyson describes all her marriages in detail. She enthusiastically relates how she worked the first three, who were rich and elderly, to death in bed. The fourth, who was unfaithful, she tormented by pretending to have an affair herself. The fifth, Jankin (whose attractive legs she had noticed at Number Four's funeral) won her heart and all her goods, and as soon as he had gained her property began to mistreat her. There followed a Titanic battle, which left the Wife permanently deaf in one ear but with her dominance assured. After that she and Jankin lived happily until his unexplained death, leaving her crying, "Welcome the sixth!"
