Kiss Me Kate

As a modern audience, we must remember to be mindful of the society in which Shakespeare wrote The Taming of the Shrew when we analyze it. This was a time when marriages were made for the convenience of the fathers far more often than for a love already existing between the bride and groom; people often were married without having known each other for very long, and sometimes without ever having met. Instead, one hoped to find love within the marriage once it was in place, to learn to love one's partner--there really were no "better" options. It is also doubtful that acting upon "love at first sight," in any society, necessarily brings greater happiness in marriage than does the slowly-developed, consistent love of a married couple who have learned how to live with and for each other. These are the two contrasting relationships that we see in the play, the former between Lucentio and Bianca, and the latter between Petruchio and Kate.

Thus the "ideal" married relationship presented by the play does not concern the "match made in heaven," in which the man and woman are perfectly suited for each other from the beginning. Rather, and much more realistically, it deals with the proper dispositions that a man and woman might arrive at in order to form a more peaceful, if not perfect, union. The question is not whether Petruchio is Italy's most eligible bachelor--certainly, he is at times grossly misogynistic, possessive, and condescending. However, at the beginning of the play, Kate is by disposition Padua's most ineligible maid. After all, as the title suggests, the play is fundamentally about a shrew, and Kate's transformation is its primary dramatic element. So the question becomes, is Petruchio the right man to bring about this transformation, and the answer is a resounding "yes." Only the carefree, persistent, self-assured manner of a man like Petruchio could break through the barriers of words that Kate has put up between herself and marriage.

Furthermore,