Female Sexuality In Chaucer'S And Hosseini'S Works

Living in a society controlled primarily by men, every day holds a new obstacle for women to overcome when expressing their sexuality. Female sexuality is the capacity for sexual feelings, which has been constantly challenged by the male patriarchal society throughout history. A patriarchal society is a social system where men hold primary power and predominance in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege, and control of property.

This is nothing new. Patriarchal societies have been around for a very long time. All one needs to do is read books that have considered this subject matter. For example, in A Thousand Splendid Suns, The Canterbury Tales, and many other works of literature, female characters suffer to overcome the weight of patriarchy on their own social lives. Due to the nature of men in an oppressive patriarchal society, female literary characters search for rebellious ways to express their sexuality. They express themselves through their appearances, actions, and relationships towards men.

First, according to A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, women in a patriarchy express their sexuality through their appearances. The women in the book and all throughout Afghanistan in real life are forced to cover themselves with a burqa for everyone besides their husbands. This cultural tradition has become controversial and is either embraced or denied by the women who face it. For example, “That face, in Khaled Hosseini’s new novel, is mostly hidden behind the stifling veils of the burqa, which both Laila and Mariam are forced to wear by Rasheed, the abusive husband they share. Hosseini’s portrayal of the women gradually coming to not only accept, but appreciate the confining garment is already stirring the most criticism of the book, the author acknowledges” (Hosseini, Jones). This statement shows how Afghan women sometimes find the burqa as a “safety blanket” from the oppression they face from the outside world and they’re being forced to wear them to use the burqas to express themselves.

In A Thousand Splendid Suns, different areas of Afghanistan have various levels of strictness towards women covering themselves with a burqa, depending on the length of the cloth. As the war of Afghanistan continued, Sharia Law enforced the wearing of the burqa more and more, especially in areas with little or no rebellion, which made it easier to exploit. For example, “The women in this part of Kabul were a different breed from the women in poorer neighborhoods like the one where Mariam and Rasheed lived, where so many of the women covered fully” (Hosseini 65). In the novel, women like Mariam and Laila used the burqa to hide from patriarchal injustice. The burqa makes them feel safe.

The Wife of Bath is very different from the women in A Thousand Splendid Suns. During the medieval period of The Canterbury Tales, women were taught to be proper and to do as they were told by the men that surrounded them. However, the Wife of Bath uses her sense of fashion and physical attributes to express her outgoing personality and sexuality: “Her hose were of the finest scarlet red and gartered tight; her shoes were soft and new. Bold was her face, handsome, and red in hue” (Chaucer 135). The scarlet red, as said in the previous statement, is a color symbolizing lust and romance which are desires that were deemed unnecessary for woman in this time period. In modern day literature, physical appearances are often what define a female character’s sexuality. “The authors may still be struggling with the idea that portraying sexuality is acceptable only when the characters fit the stereotype of a sexually desirable young women” (Younger 66). Female readers of these pieces of literature are forced to idolize these characters instead of finding their own way to express their sexuality outwardly. Women in Afghanistan, the medieval time period and modern day literature all use their physical appearances to express their sexuality in their societies revolving around men.

As women are tossed around in the literary patriarchal societies described, they actively express their sexuality through their physical interactions with other characters, especially men. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Mariam’s mother constantly reminds her daughter of the downfalls of being a woman in a society such as Afghanistan. Being a society woman will make life harder for Mariam according to her mother. In the novel, it states, “She remembered Nana saying once that each snowflake was a sigh heaved by an aggrieved woman somewhere in the world… As a reminder of women like us that suffer, she’d said. How quietly we endure all that falls upon us” (Hosseini 97). Mariam carries her mother’s pessimistic words along with the burden of being a woman throughout her life. This also constantly reminds her that she is an illegitimate daughter to her father and the neglect that resulted from it and always sticks with her.

The slightest hint of rebellious behavior from a woman leads to punishment through Sharia Law in Afghanistan, where women are publicly stoned to death and brutally murdered. In another article, it states, “Ever since the iconic image of a burqa-clad woman kneeling in Kabul’s stadium with a Kalashnikov held to her head was broadcast around the world, the west has been fascinated with a Afghanistan’s women” (Ghafour 61). Even though many women’s lives were taken due to their rebellious actions against Afghanistan’s patriarchal society and government, they have caught the eye of western civilization who cannot even imagine the hardship these Afghan women face everyday. Sharia Law most prominently attacks women’s freedom to express themselves openly in a society without any consequences. In the novel it states, “Afghan women cannot make political decision, though they bear the brunt of their awful consequences” (Ghafour 87). Women are refused the right to speak their minds in Afghanistan; yet the women are the ones being most affected by the oppressive laws being put into place. These laws do not seem fair, nor should they.

As well as Afghanistan, in medieval England, women were tied to the cult of domesticity where they were told to stay at home and do what the typical housewife was supposed to tend to. Men were fully in charge and held this over the women. In this article, it says, “In this perspective, the Wife’s actions are not simply a corroboration of the patriarchal discourse of misogyny. Rather, like other female characters in the tales, ‘she mimics the operations of patriarchal discourse’ and, in doing so, exposes those operations to view” (Rigby 38). The Wife of Bath defies these traditions and instead, openly mocks them throughout her narrative and tale. These female literary characters attempt to use their voices to speak up against the oppression of men. This oppression was faced in these patriarchies, and caused sexuality to be more expressed in society.

Women’s relationships to the men within their patriarchies offers them opportunities to express their sexualities publicly. Rashid’s domestic abuse towards Mariam and Laila is one of literature’s many examples as how men take out their pent up anger on the oppressed women in their lives. In Ghafour article, it states, “Unable to control the chaos outside the home, Rashid takes out his anger on his wife. As Mariam’s mother tells her, “like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman” (Ghafour 15). Mariam’s mother warns her daughter of these men who find joy in demeaning women. They take away a woman’s freedom to express themselves without fear of punishment. In The Canterbury Tales, women had no rights and were deemed not important enough to contribute to society. In the article, “Misogynist versus Feminist Chaucer,” it states, “It is undoubtedly true that the women of late medieval England experienced a systematic social inferiority to men in terms of their wealth, status, and power, clerical office, a structural inferiority which justifies the description of late medieval England as a patriarchal society” (Rigby 56).

However, even though the Wife of Bath lacks all of these rights in comparison to men, she still is superior in character with the way she presents herself to men. Her sexuality intimidates the men that surround her. In modern day society, women still endure all of these injustices, but to a lesser extent. However, these differences that separate men and women support the obvious inequalities between the two genders. In Rigby’s article, he also states, “Secondly, in patriarchal society in which women enjoy a lesser wealth, status, and power than the men of their own class, the construction of gender involved not just the creation of social difference but also the reaffirmation of a fundamental inequality between the sexes, as a result difference come to be presented as a justification for sexual inequality” (Rigby 72). Overall, in many societies women are seen as less than men which often discourages women from openly expressing their sexuality in such a man-controlled society. However, this rule does not apply to all women.

Due to the nature of men in an oppressive patriarchal society, female literary characters search for rebellious ways to express their sexuality. These ways include their appearances, actions, and relationships with men throughout these works of literature. Women are often intimidated by the power of men in a patriarchal society and do not know how to express their sexuality without being criticized by those around them. In the article, “Pleasure, pain, and the power of being thin: female sexuality in Young Adult Literature,” Younger states, “A touchstone for many contemporary debates on teenage sexuality, Young Adult fictions frequently depict female sexuality as a threatening force” (Younger 24).

In A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Canterbury Tales, characters such as Mariam, Laila, Nana, and the Wife of Bath all use female sexuality to overcome the obstacles of a male-driven society, such as domestic abuse and gender roles. Female characters in patriarchal societies serve as role models to their young readers as to learn how to express their sexuality openly without shame or guilt. This is why these books are so important and will continue to be read for a long time to come.