What does a modern audience learn about marriages,

and the roles of men and women in Shakespeare’s time?

By: Mohammad Naseem Pasarlay

The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy, written in 1594, by William Shakespeare, a world-known British Poet and Playwright. Shakespeare writes about the realities and injustice in the society and what is going on. He gives a real image; therefore, I have the right to say that Shakespeare is a Realist writer. “Taming of the shrew” has two protagonists (Katherina and Petruchio). The play has two plots. The main plot is between Katherina and Petruchio, and the second or sub-plot involves the roles between Bianca (Katherina‘s sister) and her suitors who adapts different roles and disguises. This play reflects the male and female relationships and presents the issues connected with marriage in the society at the time of Elizabeth 1. Shakespeare chooses paradox in characters, represents status of women, and relationships between male and female, and custom and tradition.

The play is interesting, because of a paradox in characters. I say paradox because there is a shrew like Katherina, and there is a gentle girl like Bianca too. Katherina and Bianca are the daughters of Baptista, a wealthy gentleman of Padua. One of the main characters, “Katherina”, the elder daughter of Baptista, is a notorious shrew, ill tempered, hateful, and a scolding tongue having maid who always thinks of herself:

KATE

“A pretty peat! It is best

Put finger in the eye, an she know why.”

Bianca is very gentle in her behavior. She is quite, and doesn’t come even with a bad word. Her elder sister is obstacle to her wedding, there is no one to get her elder sister, because of her shrewish ness, and their father is also not ready to marry Bianca, before her elder daughter, I know this from:

“I firmly am resolved you know‑

That is, not to bestow my youngest daughter

Before I have a husband for the elder”

The paradox is good for the reader or audience, it shows the life of both characters, and it makes easy for the reader or audience to judge. Shakespeare used many other characters to indirectly change the actions in the drama, and keep the drama interesting and long enough to complete the drama with a positive consequence.

Shakespeare also reflects male and female relationships and the status of women in the society. When Petruchio speaks of Katherina:

“She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,

My household-stuff, my field, my bam,

My horse, my ox my ass, my anything,”

It clearly explains the relationships between men and women. Women were oppressed, and they were counted as other possessions, as: Property, Shop, Car or finally an animal.

The relationships between them were like the relationships of male and female today in Afghanistan, or other central Asian countries. In non-urban areas women are oppressed, they are like obedient slaves whom men are mastering.

The playwright skillfully explains the matters related to the marriage, and the custom and tradition. Petruchio goes to Baptista’s house to marry her elder daughter. It might be the custom that allows him to go by himself and ask for Baptista’s daughter to marry. In our tradition or almost all Asia, while marrying a girl, the boy’s family members like father and mother must go to talk to girl’s parents, if father and mother are not alive, so the uncle of the boy can do the same. Here boys and girls who are becoming spouse, shames, but there, according to what Shakespeare writes, the boy himself goes and talks to girl’s parents. Dowry is something normal which is in almost every society. But it was very waist breaking at the time when Shakespeare was living. Shakespeare’s era is now in Afghanistan. It is a big problem, many boys and girls are getting old because they are not able to pay dowry. I think taking a lot of dowry is not present in England (it is good), but at the time of Elizabeth 1 it was. I know this from Baptista’s speech who discusses Katherina’s dowry with Petruchio:

BAPTISTA

“After my death, the one half of my lands,

And in possession twenty thousand crowns”

A rich man like Petruchio will give this amount, but it is the sound of death for a poor man. For taming of a shrew like, Katherina, when Petruchio comes in a poor kind of dress and bad conditions to the wedding, and do the un normal actions with her is very bad, because wedding or marrying is one of the great happiness in a human’s life, but, there, it is good, because that un normal things tamed her, and made her to submit and say:

KATHERINA

“Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,

The head, the sovereign, one that cares for thee”

OR

“And place your hands below your husband’s foot

In token of which duty, if he please,

My hand is ready, may it himself?”

The above second quotation shows this also, that if you behave well to other person that will also do like that, and vice versa. When the husband’s situation is good, so the situation of his wife will be also like that.

Finally, I found that Shakespeare, as a realist playwright, illustrated the culture and tradition of the society in a wedding and carried it to this time. I have the right to say that, Shakespeare; in spite of this, that he is a poet and a playwright. He is a folklorist too. Because he collected and saved the custom and tradition of that time in a drama, and now we are aware of that. This play has moral principles too, and teaches us the tricks how to fight to the life problems. We learn this from the intention of Petruchio as he doesn’t think of a shrew woman or other problems, he makes the decision, as it is a strong decision, he is successful, and finally he tames a shrew woman. Men and women relationships are another aspect, on which the play is centering. The most important is the status of women at that time which proves that during those times, women were only someone to obey and serve the men.