Taming of the Shrew Act Three - "Who woo'd in haste, and means to wed at leisure."

Taming of the Shrew Act Three - "Who woo'd in haste, and means to wed at leisure."

No-one thinks Petruchio is going to arrive. Katherine thinks him a serial Runaway Groom. When Petruchio does arrive he is dressed as if he has been through a kid’s dress up box. He goes off to get married to Kate. We hear that Petruchio swears at the altar, gets into a fight with the priest, throws food, and want to leave before the wedding feast. Kate stands up for herself but Petruchio claims:

“She is my goods, my chattels. She is my house,

My household-stuff, my field, my barn,

My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything”

This is course part of Petruchio’s plan to “tame” Kate. These antics and this speech is, of course, ironic, since we know Petruchio is not possessive or materialistic and his outlandish statements of the inferiority of women might be Shakespeare’s social comment on the whole concept of women being the goods and property of a man. In my own state of Queensland in Australia, women did not get the vote until 1905, it wasn’t until 1922 that they had the same divorce rights, it wasn’t until the late 1960’s that the law on women being the possession of their husband was revoked and that the principle of equal pay was enacted in law (and still women get nowhere near the same pay as men in most professions) and it wasn’t until the 1970’s that women were allowed to drink in public bars. Also, it wasn’t until the 1980’s that sex discrimination laws were enacted. Getting back to Shakespeare, Petruchio is not a misogynist, but certainly is not willing to treat Kate as an equal.