Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew:

The economics of marriage
and the society's influence on happiness


The shrew…

She was a woman who knew her mind and enjoyed speaking it out. Meek and submissive, she was neither. Her tongue was good at stringing spiteful words; and her mind, as her tongue, was sharp and not easily matched nor bent.

The 21st century would love her and believe in her. Inspired by her, it would teach its sons to respect and admire her, and its daughters to emulate her. Independent and tough, she would be called, and both words would carry a ring of veneration and amazement to them.

But unfortunate, Katherine likewise was, for she was made to live 400 years much too early — at a time not a bit tolerant of her nature, in a story that is sympathetic of her yet intolerant of her ways.

She was an outcast of the society she despised. Everyone likeneed her to an animal to be tamed; and people referred to her as a shrew, and was invariably described as “too rough” (I.i.55) and “stark mad” (I.i.69).

Yet, in retrospect, she might simply be misunderstood by everyone around her — her father who seemed to love her sister more, and the less-witted men that surrounded her.


… and the tamer…

Had he lived today, when the two sexes are viewed as different but equal, he would be deemed egotistical and portentous. A man to be revered, he was not — now, or 400 years ago — with his crass behavior and overbearing attitude, and his not-quite-honorable intentions: first, to marry a wealthy woman to augment his inheritance:

Signor Hortensio, ‘twixt such friends as we
Few words suffice; and therefore, if thou know
One rich enough to be Petruccio’s wife—
As wealth is burden of my wooing dance—
Be she as foul as was Florentius’ love,
As old as Sibyl, and as curst and shrewd
As Socrates’ Xanthippe or a worse,
She moves me not—or not removes at least
Affection’s edge in me, were she as rough
As are the swelling Adriatic seas.
I come to wive it wealthily in Padua;
If wealthily, then happily in Padua.
(I.ii.62–73)


then, somehow challenged by reports of the rich man’s daughter’s (Katherine’s) shrewish behavior, to tame her and turn her to a suitable wife.

Katherine: If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
Petruccio: My remedy is then to pluck it out.

Quick-witted he was though, and that proved to be enough to make Katherine submit to his will.


… together…

Their first meeting was hostile, as was the norm with Katherine; and soon they engaged in verbal duel:

Petruccio: Come, come, you wasp, i’faith you are too angry.
Katherine: If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
Petruccio: My remedy is then to pluck it out.
Katherine: Ay, if the fool could find where it lies.
Petruccio: Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail.
Katherine: In his tongue.
Petruccio: Whose tongue?
Katherine: Yours, if you talk of tales, and so farewell.
Petruccio: What, with my tongue in your tail?
(II.i.207–214)

with Katherine throwing insult after insult, and Petruccio turning each of her slurs into sexual innuendo which frustrated her and, at the same time, somehow won her over; or at least, silenced her.


…in a story that made me roar with laughter…

Using a frame within a frame* that consisted of a plot (Katherine and Petruccio) and a subplot (Bianca and Lucentio), the story examines marriage, emphasizing on its economic aspects (how economic factors influences who marries whom); and on the tremendous influence the society has over one’s happiness (how happiness is dependent on everyone playing his or her prescribed role).

Performed on stage**, Petruccio’s way of taming Katherine — showing up late and horribly dressed for their wedding; turning everything against Katherine’s will, ironically, under pretense of concern for her wellbeing; making Katherine agree with everything he said even if she believed otherwise (e.g., making Katherine say that the sun was really the moon); and showing her beautiful dresses but denying her the chance to own them, telling her they weren’t good enough for her — are hilarious. So are the wooing scenes between Bianca and Lutencio.


…while being so confused…

The language of the story is such a challenge to understand, but far challenging to comprehend are some crucial points. What happened to the Christopher Sly frame? Why did Katherine, intelligent and rapier-tongued, uncharacteristically fall silent when Petruccio arrogantly forced her to give her consent to marry him? Was it because he proved he was her equal in wit and in verbal skills? Or was it for something deeper, such as, she had recognized he was her only chance of ever being married?

But if that was so, why then, after the marriage, did she allow herself be treated brutally, giving only the slightest of objections? And finally, how could she have been transformed so easily? Or had she been really?


… then, somehow a little enlightened, laughed no more.

As the story came to an end — with Katherine suddenly becoming well tamed and proper, while her sister turned into a shrew; and, more importantly, with the understanding of just how much influence the society had over one’s life and happiness coming down to mind — the laughter just died down, especially when Katherine gave her sister a piece of her mind:

Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign, one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe,
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks, and true obedience,
Too little payment for so great a debt.
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband’s foot,
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready, may it do him ease.

Hearing her speech, I was so stunned, that soon I found myself thinking: “Poor Katherine, she did not at all have a choice." She knew she had to be transformed somehow if she wanted to gain acceptance to the society she despised.

But if indeed she was transformed, then she was a broken woman, because the very essence of who she was — intelligent, independent, and not easily swayed — was destroyed. But if she was just playing along with her husband, having realized that it was the only way she could get what she wanted, she was broken still, for she had locked away her true self, never to resurrect it again.



* Main frame is the Christopher Sly frame. Sly was a tinker who became a subject of a nobleman’s cruel joke. The second frame is the main story, which consists of a plot (Katherine and Petruccio) and a subplot (Bianca and Lucentio).

** The production of The Taming of the Shrew that I saw was that of the Repertory Philippines in 2005 at Greenbelt One.