Laura Powers
Stephan Flores
Advanced Shakespeare 504-02
Critical Summary
February 5, 2005
A Critical Summary of Lynda Boose's Article, "Scolding Brides and Bridling Scolds: Taming the Woman's Unruly Member"
In "Scolding Brides and Bridling Scolds: Taming the Woman's Unruly Member," Lynda Boose takes an historical approach to the actual treatment of shrews and scolds in sixteenth and seventeenth century England and applies the implications of such to Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. She prefaces her examination of the treatment of scolds during this time with a brief nod at the controversy Shakespeare's play inspired not only during and directly after its inception, but the controversy the play continues to inspire to this day. Boose explains that one of the reasons that directors have so often tried to soften the edges of The Taming of the Shrew (179), is due, in large part, to the actual punishment of scolds (or shrews, as the two terms are used interchangeably here) during, and just before, Shakespeare's time. Of course, the punishment of scolds during the sixteenth and seventeenth century is not what compels modern directors to soften the implications of Kate's prostration by emphasizing a mutual sexual attraction between Petruchio and Katherina; more likely than not, modern day softening is due to the power struggle in heterosexual marriages in general(181).
That being said, Boose goes on to explain that Kate's placement of her hand beneath Petruchio's boot was not only part of a ceremonial custom to be enacted when a bride was going to be offered a share of property by her intended husband, but also a physical representation of the marriage vow to love, honor, and obey (182-183). According to Boose's research, this was a custom throughout the geographical sphere of Elizabethan consciousness: there are accounts of the ceremonial prostration of a woman before her husband in Russia (183). That the brides were increasingly indisposed to perform this part of the ceremony (but still expected to do so) is apparent from all kinds of invented fumbling at the altar: the dropping of rings when the act of self-abasement was expected, is one example (183-184). Boose explains that this ceremonial debasement of women during the marriage ceremony was something that a Shakespearean audience would recognize (184).
Boose moves her examination from the marriage ceremony to the actual punishments of shrews in early modern England. She explains that during this time in England there was a certain amount of both civil disorder and “strained gender relations” that resulted in what might loosely be called witch hunts (184). The interesting thing about this is that it was more likely to be a woman's mouth that would get her into trouble; as opposed, of course, to something like sexual misconduct. The punishment would often be a public dunking. The offending woman would be strapped to an apparatus called a “cucking stool,” paraded through town, and then dunked in the local pond: more often than not that “pond” would be the local horsewash pond (185). Boose points out the line in 1.1.55 of The Taming of the Shrew when Grumio declares that instead of courting Kate, a man should “cart her rather” (186). This is a direct reference to the punishment just described and as recognizable to a Shakespearean audience as the ceremonial submission mentioned above.
What Boose wants her readers to understand about the nature of the cucking stool and carting (the parading), is that the kind of punishment that women were subjected to was about shaming; shame was a part of a woman's socialization. To emphasize that point, often while a woman was being carted, someone would make flatulent sounds in order to heighten that shame to carnivalistic levels (189-191). Of course, men were often guilty themselves of being the male equivalent of a scold. The punishment for such a man would be what Boose calls “gender inversion.” The man would be given punishment similar to what the female scold was subjected to; this kept shame within a feminine space (191-192). That means his punishment would be all the more shameful because it was female. The implications of such gender inversions are obvious: males are still affecting that “female space” with shame. The male would be cross-dressed and displayed as having shameful female tendencies. In other words, even though the offender would be male, the shame is still woman's.
To bring the article briefly back to Kate and Petruchio, Boose explains that what is at stake in The Taming of the Shrew is not so much Kate's submission, but her ridicule or shame. The central element surrounding the play is the public ridicule and shaming of a local scold. Petruchio's mock gestures of rescuing Kate (1.227), is really, according to Boose, a kind of “benevolent version of shaming a scold” that encourages the status quo (193-194).
The idea of a woman who is free with her speech is inextricably linked to a sexual politic. The “cucking stool” certainly has a connection to the more familiar word “cuckold.” Therefore, controlling a woman's tongue was tantamount to restraining her sexuality, and vice versa. Boose explains that the sexuality link was used to legitimize an instrument of torture known as a “ scold's bridle.” Blatant accounts of the device being used are scarce, Boose writes; however, the instrument was indeed invented and used under extreme circumstances—extreme circumstances could be defined as two women quarreling. Yet, in taming plots in general, an unruly wife's wedding trip often coincides with a horseback ride. This, of course, is a cultural reference to the scold's bridle (197-199). This is an implicit threat. For Katherina, there are puns embedded in the word “bridal,” and Grumio's repeated reference to the horse ride in 4.1.54, 59-60, when he says “how her horse fell, and she under her horse;…how the horses ran away, how her bridle was burst” (Boose 199).
The article explores more general folklore and myth in regard to the taming of the scold's tongue. There is, naturally, reference to Philomela—Ovid plays a large part in the figuring of many of Shakespeare's plays—where the female figure's tongue is cut out. In Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare takes that drastic action a step further by having Lavinia's hands amputated: all communication is therefore effectively barred.
In conclusion, Boose questions the apparent disappearance of scolds in subsequent years. She asks her readers to consider the Stepford Wives of mid-nineteenth century Chester as products of this historical bridling. Further, that while Katherina is on stage being “tamed” there is a real history of real Kates who underwent much harsher tamings (211-213).
Works Cited
Boose, Lynda E. “Scolding Brides and Bridling Scolds: Taming the Woman's Unruly Member.”
Shakespeare Quarterly 42.2 (1991): 179-213.