#variorum

Actually, it might matter a great deal. Experience can come unbidden. But an experiment requires volition—intention. To call anything an experiment requires that we have a purpose to gather knowledge in taking action. That means that for the Wife of Bath, today, experiment is the more subversive word than experience. Experiment argues the Wife marries each husband in order to learn something—what marriage is, what makes a good husband, whatever. Many students suspect that the Wife is a mercenary. The word experiment would lean that direction, suggesting not only that she has learned from what has passed in her marriages (as experience indicates), but that learning—not love—was the whole point. Oh, the scandal! Experiment makes the Wife’s approach to marriage and the “marriage market” a bit more like a casual shopper than many would like: “Hmm,” says this Wife of Bath, “I think I’ll try this one for a while, to see how it goes.”

Some will object that choosing experiment over experience takes us further away from what Chaucer intended and further away from what Chaucer’s original audiences would have understood. Experiment and experience were new words in English, having first appeared in written documents within Chaucer’s lifetime, and there was significant overlap in their meanings, making any argument quite complicated. In short, I think there is room to disagree.