Tag: Taming of the Shrew

Detailed Synopsis for ‘The Taming of the Shrew’

Induction: Christopher Sly, a drunken tinker, rudely refuses to pay for his ale in an alehouse in England, annoying the hostess.  He falls asleep at his chair.

A lord and his men come to the alehouse after a hunt.  They see Sly asleep, and regarding him as contemptuously as the hostess has, the lord decides to play a trick on him.  He tells his men to carry the drunkard to his bedchamber.  There, they will trick him into thinking he’s a lord.

The lord has his page, the boy Bartholomew, dress up as a woman and pretend to be Sly’s dutiful, obedient wife.  When Sly wakes up, he finds himself wearing a lord’s bedclothes, and lying in a luxurious bedchamber.  Naturally confused, he insists he’s Christopher Sly the tinker; they say his identity as a tinker is the result of a dream he’s had during a fifteen-year coma, from which he’s just woken, to the tears of joy of his long-suffering wife.

The lord says Sly will now watch ‘a pleasant comedy’ that a group of actors has prepared.  Sly’s doctors say the entertainment will be good for his recovery.  The play begins:

Act One: Lucentio and his servant Tranio are entering Padua, since Lucentio is to study at the university there.  They see Baptista Minola and his two daughters, the shrewish Katherina and her younger sister Bianca.  Two suitors to Bianca, the elderly Gremio and foolish Hortensio, are disappointed to hear that Baptista won’t allow any wooing of Bianca until a husband can be found for Katherina.

Lucentio falls in love with the pretty Bianca instantly, forgetting all about his studies while focusing all his energy on winning her love.  Though Baptista won’t allow her to be married until the ‘too rough’ Katherina is wed, he wishes to find music and poetry teachers for both his daughters.  Lucentio thus plans to disguise himself as a Latin poetry teacher, calling himself ‘Cambio’.  Tranio is to pretend he’s Lucentio, and woo Bianca in the real Lucentio’s stead.  Master and servant swap clothes in the street, when Biondello, another servant of Lucentio’s, arrives, all confused to see his master dressed as Tranio, and vice versa.  Lucentio explains the whole plan to Biondello.

(The actors note that Christopher Sly, bored with the play, is nodding off.  He politely insists that he’s enjoying the performance, asking if there’s more…Actually, he wishes it was already over.)

Petruchio and his servant Grumio enter Padua.  Petruchio would have Grumio knock at the door of Hortensio’s home; and when Grumio grows argumentative over Petruchio’s ambiguous words, Petruchio threatens to knock his servant over the head.  When Grumio shouts in fear of his ‘mad’ master, Hortensio appears.

Petruchio and Hortensio greet each other, and Petruchio explains that his father has died, and he, without money, hopes to marry a woman and get a generous dowry.  He doesn’t care what the bride is like, as long as he gets lots of money.  The fact that Petruchio is Hortensio’s good friend is a deterrent from Hortensio telling Petruchio about the shrewish Katherina.  Still, Petruchio would get a good dowry from Baptista, so he willingly accepts.

Delighted with the hope of Katherina soon being married off, Hortensio tells Petruchio of his plan to disguise himself as ‘Licio’, a teacher of the lute.

Gremio comes with ‘Cambio’, hoping the would-be Latin teacher will woo Bianca on his behalf.  When Hortensio tells Gremio of Petruchio’s intention to marry Katherina, Gremio worries that Petruchio will change his mind when he learns of “all her faults.”  Petruchio reassures the others that he, being used to the harsh sounds of war, has no fear “of a woman’s tongue.”

Tranio appears, calling himself ‘Lucentio’ and telling everyone of his plan to woo Bianca, to the annoyance of Gremio and Hortensio.    All the men go to the Minolas’ house.

Act Two:  Angry and envious Katherina has Bianca’s hands tied, and demands that her sister tell her which man she loves the most.  Bianca says that she doesn’t love any particular man yet.  Katherina hits her.  Baptista comes over to break up the fight, pitying poor Bianca and unbinding her hands.  She leaves.  Katherina grows more enraged, imagining their father loves Bianca more, and that Bianca will be married first, thus shaming elder Katherina, who leaves in a fury.  Baptista laments his ill fortune as a father.

All the suitors arrive.  Gremio greets Baptista, and Petruchio asks about Katherina, praising her “beauty and her wit,/Her affability and bashful modesty./Her wondrous qualities and mild behaviour.”  Everyone hearing these words cannot believe his ears.  Petruchio introduces ‘Licio’ to Baptista as the girls’ music teacher.

Gremio introduces ‘Cambio’ to Baptista.  ‘Lucentio’ introduces himself as a suitor to Bianca.  A servant leads ‘Cambio’ and ‘Licio’ to the girls to begin their lessons.  Petruchio asks Baptista of the dowry he’ll receive for marrying Katherina.  Baptista offers a generous dowry, which more than satisfies Petruchio.  The only challenge will be gaining the shrew’s love.  Petruchio has no fears of not gaining it.  (See the first quote from my ‘Analysis of The Taming of the Shrew‘.)

‘Licio’ enters the room, his head beaten.  He explains how he tried to explain the proper fingering of the lute to Katherina, who’d gotten it wrong.  Angry with his corrections, she broke the lute over his head.  Petruchio is delighted, saying he loves her all the more, and eagerly wishing “to have some chat with her.”

Baptista goes to send her over to meet Petruchio.  As he is waiting, Petruchio goes over his plan to deny her every word of nastiness or unwillingness to marry him.  He’ll insist she’s sweet and gentle instead, as well as eager to marry him.

Katherina arrives: Petruchio addresses her as ‘Kate’.  She says she’s known as Katherina, but he insists she’s ‘Kate’.  She scoffs at his plans to marry her.  The arguing between them escalates till she slaps him for making a lewd joke.

When Baptista returns with Gremio and ‘Lucentio’, Petruchio denies Katherina’s reputed shrewishness and unwillingness to marry him, claiming her nastiness is all just an act she puts on in public, while privately she’s sweet and mild (and the only time to know a woman for real is in private).  They’ll be married on Sunday.  (She’d have him hanged then instead.)

The others would much prefer Petruchio’s story to hers, so the wedding is settled.  Now gleeful Baptista is ready to accept the best dowry offer of Gremio or ‘Lucentio’.  The latter offers a better one, so as long as ‘Lucentio’ can prove that his father can pay the dowry, Baptista prefers him as a husband for Bianca.  Baptista and Gremio leave.  Now Tranio must find someone to pretend to be Vincentio, Lucentio’s father.

Act Three:  ‘Cambio’ and ‘Licio’ are vying over who gets to teach, and therefore woo, Bianca.  ‘Cambio’ wins, slipping in his wooing words between Latin phrases; meanwhile, ‘Licio’ is tuning his lute.  Bianca tells ‘Cambio’, in Latin phrases alternating with her responding words, that he must try harder to win her heart, but not give up, for she clearly prefers him.  ‘Licio’ increasingly suspects him to be a suitor rather than a teacher; he also increasingly realizes he’s losing the suit.

On Sunday at the church, everyone is waiting for the very late Petruchio to arrive.  Katherina complains that everyone will say, “Lo, there is mad Petruchio’s wife,/If it would please him come and marry her!”  Indeed, Baptista acknowledges that she has good reason to be angry.

Finally, Petruchio and Grumio arrive, but they are dressed absurdly.  Biondello describes Petruchio as wearing “a new hat and an old jerkin; a pair of old breeches thrice turn’d; a pair of boots that have been candle-cases, one buckled, another lac’d…”, et cetera.  The others chide Petruchio for his clothes, and offer him better ones to change into.  He insists Katherina’s marrying him, not his clothes.  She very unwillingly goes with him into the church.

The comical goings-on during the ceremony are described by Gremio.  Petruchio “swore so loud/That, all amaz’d, the priest let fall the book;/And as he stoop’d again to take it up,/This mad-brain’d bridegroom took him such a cuff/That down fell priest and book, and book and priest.”

Petruchio and Katherina come out of the church, but he refuses to attend the wedding party, claiming he has urgent business to attend to back home.  Katherina won’t go with him, and the others sympathize with her; but he insists she’s his ‘goods’, his ‘chattels’, his ‘any thing’.  Acting like a madman, he pretends the others are trying to take her away, and he and Grumio, brandishing swords, claim to be protecting her as they take her with them to Verona.  An exasperated Baptista allows them to go.

Act Four: In Petruchio’s country house in Verona, Grumio arrives first, telling Curtis, another servant, of Petruchio’s mad, ungentlemanly treatment of Katherina during the journey from Padua to Verona.  She fell off her horse and into the mire, and he wouldn’t help her back on; he beat Grumio instead.  Grumio then tells Curtis to have all the servants ready to meet their master and Katherina.

Petruchio soon arrives with his filthy, exhausted, and starving bride.  He bullies his servants into making dinner quickly for them.  Dinner is served, but Petruchio rants and raves like a maniac that the meat is burnt (it isn’t).  A terrified Kate tries to reason with him; he then throws all the meat at the servants.  Poor Kate must now do without supper.

He plans to be similarly abusive when he sees the condition of her bed, not letting her sleep in it.  In a soliloquy, he tells of his plans to tame Kate (see quote 2 of my ‘Analysis of The Taming of the Shrew‘), saying that all of his depriving her of food and sleep is out of perfect love for her, since the rejected necessities haven’t been worthily prepared for so fine a wife.  He’d be happy to see if anyone knows a better way to tame a shrew, for “‘Tis charity to show.”

Tranio (still pretending to be Lucentio) and Hortensio (no longer pretending to be Licio) speak of how ‘Cambio’ is successfully courting Bianca: they watch the two lovers walk by.  Hortensio speaks of his plans to marry a wealthy widow instead, then leaves.  Tranio is now speaking with Lucentio and Bianca, and all three are happy to be “rid of Licio.”

Biondello comes, telling of a pedant whom they can use in their plans.  The pedant arrives, saying he’s from Mantua; but Tranio tells him “‘Tis death for any one in Mantua/To come to Padua.”  For the dukes of each city have a ‘private quarrel’ now publicly proclaimed.  The pedant, to protect himself, must disguise himself as Vincentio, a man of Pisa, and help Lucentio in promising to pay the dowry for Bianca’s hand in marriage.  The pedant agrees to do so.

In Petruchio’s country house, poor Kate continues to go hungry and without sleep.  (See quote 3 of my ‘Analysis’.)  Grumio tortures her by speaking of delicious meats, then denying her the food, claiming “it is too choleric a meat.”  She begins beating him when Petruchio and Hortensio arrive with meat.  Petruchio offers her the meat, which he has lovingly prepared himself for her; he is sure his ‘diligent’ work deserves some thanks.  She reluctantly thanks him, but he’d have Hortensio eat it instead.

Since Bianca is about to be married, Petruchio and Kate are to wear their finest clothes and go to Padua.  He’s had a tailor and haberdasher prepare a gown and hat for her to wear; she loves the clothes, but he is quick to find fault with them.  She insists that all gentlewomen wear hats like the one made, but he won’t have her wear one until she learns to be gentle.

When he says the gown hasn’t been made in accordance with his instructions, the tailor insists that it has, and even shows Petruchio and Grumio them in writing; but they both deny this.  So Kate won’t have the dress, either.  She and Petruchio will have to go to Padua in their modest attire instead; the clothes don’t make the man (or woman), anyway.

Petruchio claims it is seven o’clock, but when she says it’s about two, he says they won’t go to Padua unless she agrees with his incorrect estimation of the time.  Defeated, she agrees with it.

In Padua, the pedant as ‘Vincentio’ helps Tranio (as ‘Lucentio’) with the promising of payment of the dowry in a scene with Baptista.  Plans are made for the real Lucentio to marry Bianca in a church.

On the road to Padua with Hortensio, Petruchio looks up at the sun and calls it the moon.  When Kate says it’s the sun, he threatens to take her back home unless she says it’s the moon, which she now does.  Then he corrects her, saying it’s the sun, and she says it’s whatever he wants it to be.  Hortensio is impressed, hoping he can similarly tame his shrewish new wife, the wealthy widow!

They see an old man approaching, and Petruchio calls him a pretty young maiden.  He tells Kate to “embrace her for her beauty’s sake”.  Kate immediately greets the “Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet”.  Petruchio now corrects her, saying she’s spoken to an old man.  She begs his pardon for her “mad mistaking”.

The old man, having overcome his surprise and confusion at the ‘merry’ woman,  then introduces himself as Vincentio of Pisa, on his way to Padua to visit his son.  Since Petruchio and Kate are going there too, they all decide to go there together.

Act Five: In Padua, Lucentio and Bianca prepare to get married, when Petruchio, Katherina, Vincentio, and Grumio arrive.

Vincentio is enraged to find the pedant pretending to be him, and even more so to find Biondello, Tranio (dressed in Lucentio’s clothes), and Baptista all confirming that the pedant is ‘Vincentio’, while Tranio is ‘Lucentio’.  Convinced of his servants’ villainy, Vincentio accuses them of having murdered his son.  Tranio, wishing to protect himself from getting into trouble, calls for an officer to have Vincentio arrested.  Baptista agrees with ‘Lucentio’ that the old ‘dotard’ should go to jail.

Lucentio and Bianca, now married, arrive, apologizing to Vincentio and explaining away all the disguises and deceit.  Now Baptista is angry that his daughter has married a man without her father’s consent.  All will be explained and resolved when they go.

Kate wishes to follow them and watch the resolution: Petruchio agrees, but wants her to kiss him first.  She is too shy to kiss in public, so he threatens to take her back to Verona.  She now agrees to kiss him.

Finally, all are in Lucentio’s house, celebrating at the wedding party.  Bianca, and especially the widow, prove themselves to be even more shrewish than Kate.  Indeed, Kate is quite annoyed with the widow’s meanness.  At one point, the three women leave the room, and all the men assume Kate to be still the most shrewish of the three.  Petruchio denies this, confidently entering a wager with Lucentio and Hortensio.  Each man will call his wife back into the room; the first wife to come, thus being the most obedient, will cause her husband to win the wager.

Overconfident Lucentio goes first, telling his father he’ll pay in full if he loses.  He has Biondello fetch Bianca; the servant returns without her, reporting that she says she is busy and cannot come.  All are shocked.

Hortensio nervously has Biondello entreat his wife to come.  Biondello returns, saying the widow refuses to come; she’d have her husband come to her!

“Worse and worse; she will not come!” Petruchio says to this.  The other two husbands insist, though, that Kate will be the most disobedient of all.  Petruchio is sure she will obey, and he tells Grumio to tell Kate that he commands her to come.  Grumio fetches her, and she comes immediately, in all submission.  Everyone is amazed.

Petruchio tells her to get the other two wives, and bring them back, by force if necessary.  She goes to get them.  Petruchio promises to show the stunned spectators more proof of the obedience of his transformed wife.  She returns with Bianca and the widow.  Petruchio tells Kate to remove her cap, as he doesn’t like how it looks on her, and drop it at her feet.  She immediately does so, to the continued amazement of all in the room.

Bianca and the widow find Kate’s obedience silly; Lucentio wishes he’d gotten such silliness from Bianca, so as not to lose the large sum of money he’s lost in the wager.  Bianca calls him a fool for relying on her obedience.

Petruchio tells Kate to tell “these headstrong women/What duty they do owe their lords and husbands.”  The widow will hear none of it; Petruchio demands she listen.  Kate chides Bianca and the widow in a long speech about why wives should obey their husbands.   (See quote 4.)

Petruchio is touched and appreciative of Kate’s love and duty (quote 5).  He triumphantly leaves the party with Kate, while the others are left wondering how he succeeded in taming her.

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Analysis of ‘The Taming of the Shrew’

The Taming of the Shrew is an early Shakespeare comedy, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1592.  Though this farce has always been a popular one, it isn’t without controversy.  The traditionalist attitude towards women that is depicted, especially in Katherina’s closing speech–about a wife’s required obedience to her husband, was problematical even back in Elizabethan times.  For this reason, modern productions try to soften the perceived sexism in various ways: for example, at the end of the Franco Zeffirelli film version, Katherina (played by Elizabeth Taylor) walks out on Petruchio (Richard Burton) without his permission; and in the 1929 film version with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (Petruchio), Katherina (played by Mary Pickford) gives Bianca an ironic wink during the closing speech.  There is always an indication that Katherina’s feisty spirit hasn’t been, and never will be, broken by any man.

I will argue, however, that there is absolutely no need to alter the ending for feminism’s sake.  What must be remembered is that the Petruchio and Katherina story is just the play-within-the-play, a farce staged for Christopher Sly, the main character of the Induction.  Though all too often cut out of productions, this Induction is, in spite of its brevity, the real story of the play.

Here are some quotes:

“I am as peremptory as she proud-minded,/And where two raging fires meet together,/They do consume the thing that feeds their fury.” –Petruchio, Act II, scene i, lines 130-132

“Thus have I politicly begun my reign,/And ’tis my hope to end successfully./My falcon now is sharp and passing empty,/And till she stoop she must not be full-gorg’d,/For then she never looks upon her lure.” –Petruchio, Act IV, scene i, lines 172-176

“What, did he marry me to famish me?”  –Katherina, Act IV, scene iii, line 3

“FIe, fie!  unknit that threatening unkind brow,/And dart not scornful glances from those eyes/To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor./It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,/Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds./And in no sense is meet or amiable./A woman mov’d is like a fountain troubled–/Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;/And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty/Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it./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./Such duty as the subject owes the prince,/Even such a woman oweth to her husband;/And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,/And not obedient to his honest will,/What is she but a foul contending rebel/And graceless traitor to her loving lord?/I am asham’d that women are so simple/To offer war where they should kneel for peace;/Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,/When they are bound to serve, love, and obey./Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,/Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,/But that our soft conditions and our hearts/Should well agree with our external parts?/Come, come, you froward and unable worms!/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.”  –Katherina, Act V, scene 2, lines 136-179

“Why, there’s a wench!  Come on, and kiss me, Kate.”  –Petruchio, Act V, scene 2, line 180

The Induction is the key to understanding this play, for it is the real story, not the Petruchio and Katherina one.  The Induction’s brevity should not distract us from its centrality.  The play staged before Christopher Sly should be regarded as no more important than the plays-within-plays in A Midsummer Night’s Dream or Hamlet.  The length of the Petruchio and Katherina farce, admittedly covering the vast majority of The Taming of the Shrew, nonetheless shouldn’t deflect us from the conclusion that it’s of secondary importance to the Christopher Sly story.

It is unfortunate that the Induction is so often trivialized as a mere appendage, or framing device, that can easily be discarded from productions as superfluous.  It is key to understanding the play’s themes of deception, illusion, and denial of reality.

The shrew of the Petruchio story may be Katherina, but Christopher Sly is the shrew of the Induction.  We must remember that, in Shakespeare’s day, a shrew could be a nasty person of either sex, not just a woman, as ‘shrew’ is understood today.  Sly, a drunken oaf who refuses to pay for the ale he’s drunk at an alehouse in England, is just the kind of charmless fellow in need of a good taming.  In fact, he will be so well tamed that he’ll nod off during the performance of the play.

A lord and his men come to the alehouse after a hunt, and they see the drunken slob sleeping at a table.  As contemptuous of Sly as the annoyed hostess is, the lord decides to play a trick on him.  Sly is carried to a bedchamber in the lord’s house, carefully so as not to wake him.  When he wakes in bed, he’s been changed into the clothes of a lord, and a boy is dressed like a woman, pretending to be the lord’s obedient wife (!).  This tricking of Sly, that he’s a lord, should clearly indicate what we are to think of the ‘lord’ of any house, and of his ‘obedient’ wife: it’s all an act.

Sly is told that all of the life he remembers, that of a tinker, is a mere dream he’s had while being in a coma for fifteen years.  His life as a lord, into which he has woken, and surprisingly so, is his ‘real’ life.  His real life has been an illusion, apparently.

Next, he is to watch ‘a pleasant comedy’, since his would-be doctors say such entertainment would be conducive to the restoration of his health.  The play, that of the Petruchio and Katherina story, is so long that we, the audience, forget about the main story, the Induction, and are deceived into thinking that this mere play-within-a-play is the real story.  This switching of real and illusory events (i.e., Induction and play-within-a-play) parallels the trick played on Sly, whose sense of reality and illusion are also reversed (i.e., his comatose dream-life as a tinker versus his supposedly actual life as a lord).

We must always remember how sensitive the Bard was to the illusory nature of theatre, a notion he exploited for artistic effect in several of his plays.  The Taming of the Shrew is no exception to this: the play-within-a-play is to be understood as mere theatrical illusion, while the Christopher Sly story is the real one.

Another thing about Shakespeare: with his deep, penetrating insight into human nature, one of the main reasons his plays have endured for so many years, it is inconceivable that he could have had so simple-minded a view of humanity as to think that men are the natural rulers of women, however dominant such a bigoted view may have been in Elizabethan times.  The Taming of the Shrew, far from being a sexist play, very subtly satirizes male chauvinism, particularly in the Induction.

The play staged before Sly, being mere theatrical illusion, needn’t–and mustn’t–be taken seriously.  It’s just a farce, and its attitude towards women is accordingly absurd.  The themes of deception and denial of reality within the Petruchio and Katherina story only reinforce the absurd illogic of sexist thinking.

When Lucentio sees and falls in love with Katherina’s pretty younger sister Bianca, he cannot woo her, for their father Baptista insists on finding a husband for shrewish Katherina first.  Lucentio thus disguises himself as a teacher of Latin (‘Cambio’), while his servant Tranio pretends to be Lucentio.  Lucentio and Tranio even exchange clothes in the street, this seeming role reversal astonishing Biondello, Lucentio’s other servant.  Servant is master: this can be seen as a subtle indication of the true husband and wife relationship.

Similar to Lucentio’s deception, another suitor to Bianca, Hortensio, disguises himself as a music teacher, ‘Licio’.  When Baptista agrees to have ‘Lucentio’ marry Bianca (after Petruchio agrees to marry her nasty sister), a pedant from Mantua, deceived by ‘Lucentio’ into believing Mantuans’ presence in Padua is illegal (on pain of death), agrees to pretend to be Vincentio, Lucentio’s father, and pretend to agree to pay the dowry for Bianca’s marriage.  All acting and pretending, just like the chest-thumping, ‘dominant’ husband of traditional marriage.

Speaking of dominant husbands, Petruchio quickly shows himself to be as much of a shrew as Katherina (see quote one).  He beats his servants, shouts at them abusively, and behaves like a madman.  He denies reality throughout the story, pretending that his bride’s real name is Kate, that she’s sweet and gentle, and that she wants to marry him as much as he does her (she of course doesn’t want to marry him at all).

More denial of reality comes after their marriage.  When Kate is in his house in Verona, he raves wildly at his servants that his dinner is badly cooked (it’s fine) and her bed is unfit for her to sleep on (it’s also fine).  Later, he rejects a beautiful, perfectly good dress Kate would have worn to Bianca’s wedding, claiming the tailor got the measurements wrong (the tailor hadn’t, and insisted he had the correct measurements from Petruchio, while Petruchio’s servant Grumio denies it, knowing full well that no mistake was made).

Petruchio pretends the time is seven o’clock, when it is actually about two; he insists that she agree with his deliberate inaccuracy (Act IV, scene iii).  On the way to Padua to attend Bianca’s wedding (Act IV, scene v), Petruchio pretends the sun shining in the sky is actually the moon, and that an old man (the real Vincentio) is a pretty young woman, again demanding that Kate go along with his bizarre distortion of reality.

All of these caricatures of reality symbolize the phoniness of male dominance of women, a phoniness that is most clearly shown in the final scene, when Bianca and a widow prove themselves to be even more shrewish towards Lucentio and Hortensio than Kate has ever been.  When Kate gives the final speech about obedience to husbands, we should clearly see that this is the ultimate denial of reality: wives are, always have been, and always will be, thoroughly indomitable.  Shakespeare knew–he just pretended he didn’t.