eate realistic and meaningful female characters. In The Taming Of The Shrew, courtship and marriage are not so much the result of love but rather an institution of society that people are expected to take part in. As a result of the removal of romance from marriage, suitors are judged, not by their love for a woman, but by how well they can provide for her. All suitors compare the dowry each can bring to the marriage and the one with the most to offer 'wins' the woman's hand in marriage. This competition for marriage is like a game to the characters of the play. While discussing the courtship of Bianca with Gremio,Hortensio says "He that runs fastest gets The ring" (Act I, scene i, l. 140-141) likening receiving permission to wed Bianca to winning a race. In the game, however, women aretreated like objects that can be bought and sold rather than as human beings. This is expected since the society is a patriarchal one. For example, Lucentio, Tranio and Petruchio are all defined with reference to their fathers and all the elderly authority figures, like Baptista and Vicentio, are men. The taming of Katherine is not a women's shrewishness being cured as much as it is a woman being taught the rules of the 'patriarchal game'. Katherine has learned how to be assertive and with this knowledge is able to control men, and a woman controlling a man is considered 'against the rules' of the game. The play ends with Katherine proving that she is truly cured of her 'shrewishness' and is the most obedient of the three newlywed wives at the end of the play. This is demonstrated in her soliloquy when she lectures the other wives on the proper way in which a woman should behave:I am ashamed that women are so simpleTo offer war where they should kneel for peace, Or seek rule, supremacy, and sway,When they are bound to serve, love, and obey. (Act V, scene ii, l. 161 - 164)Although it is interpreted that Katherine is being of a woman finally acting t...
