What do women really want?

If you remember anything of high school English, you may recall the Wife of Bath from Canterbury Tales. Chaucer pictures her as a hearty soul who’s outlasted five husbands and knows a thing or two. The story with which she regales her fellow pilgrims concerns a knight of the Round Table who rapes a young maiden and is sentenced to death. But Queen Guinevere intervenes with an alternate sentence. If, within a year, he can discover an answer to man’s most urgent question, he wins a pardon. The question: What do women want?

The knight’s search yields only contradictions until he encounters an ugly old hag who promises the true answer on the condition that he marry her. It beats the alternative, so he reluctantly agrees. The answer: “Wommen desiren to have sovereynetee” (sovereignty, especially over men).

In this desire, women were no different from men, but more biologically constrained. That’s why “the pill” in 1960 and legalized abortion in 1973 were seen as liberation from the shackles of motherhood. You want babies? Fine; you know how to get them. But if a baby doesn’t fit into your current plans, here’s a prescription. And if that fails, here’s an address. Children are an option for whenever you’re ready.

But is anyone truly “ready”? Children are always a surprise, even when expected. They’re unruly and obstreperous. They don’t act according to plan. To an aunt or cousin viewing them from the outside, they’re a lot of trouble. What’s more, the means to acquire them—namely, a man, or even worse, a husband—may be even less amenable to the plans of an upwardly mobile young female.

So it’s no surprise that on an NBC News survey of almost 3,000 participants from Generation Z (ages 18-29), women place marriage and motherhood low on the scale of what constitutes success. No surprise, that is, for Democrat-leaning voters, who ranked “Being married” and “Having children” as No. 11 and No. 12 on a list of 13 priorities. Of more concern to conservatives, women who voted for Donald Trump weren’t far behind. Marriage was No. 9 for them and children came sixth, after material concerns like financial independence (No. 1), a fulfilling career (No. 2), home ownership (No. 3), and “Having enough money to do the things you want to do” (No. 5, after “Being spiritually grounded”).

While men and women on the left tracked roughly the same in their ambitions, the gap between male and female Trump voters was startling. On the right, men ranked “Having children” first, and “Being married” fourth. Priorities need a little adjustment there, but their hearts seem to be in the right place, possibly due to influencers like Jordan Peterson and Charlie Kirk. Female models may be more on the order of Karoline Leavitt, who appears to balance marriage and motherhood with a high-profile administration job, all while looking fabulous.

Does the long shadow of 1970s Women’s Lib, which touted almost any job as superior to housewifery, stretch this far? More to the point, where does love fit into the current view of life satisfaction? Is it a by-product to be picked up on the way to success, or a prize awarded once personal goals are achieved? Or is love the meaning of life in a world created by Love Himself?

Women’s liberation never admitted that raising children in a loving relationship, who then go on to form loving relationships of their own, may actually be a fulfilling career. We used to call it “homemaking”; societies throughout history call it “stability.” Survey after survey indicates that marriage and motherhood are the greatest markers of satisfaction for women, but the siren call of financial independence—“sovereignty,” in medieval terms—speaks louder.

In “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” the knight drags himself to the altar, and on their wedding night his ugly bride exercises sovereignty by offering him a choice. He can value her as a woman of worth and nobility bestowed by God, or she can transform herself into a lovely maiden of questionable virtue. Sighing, he sees the wisdom in the first option, and thereby receives his reward. With his kiss, she becomes beautiful.

Also chaste, amiable, and obedient, for according to the worldly wise Wife, a compliant woman gets her way more often than the other kind. But beyond that, she gets love, which is all any of us really want.