Violence In 'The Taming Of The Shrew'

Females are the most highly affected by domestic abuse according to studies done around the world. Typically aggressive behavior at home is frequently more than simply physical misuse. It involves sexual, enthusiastic, monetary and mental savagery. At first, recognizing the indications of an injurious relationship can be troublesome, particularly if the abuser utilizes inconspicuous strategies to pick up force and control. It is normal for survivors to perceive the start of the misuse as the first run through when the abusers hit them, yet truly the cycle of violence may have begun at an opportune time in the relationship. Culprits have a tendency to fascinate and be exceptionally persuading when applying power and control strategies. People

In The Taming of the Shrew, the concept of love is a means of emotional manipulation, and manipulation is nothing more than a means of control between men and women. William Shakespeare critiques the patriarchal social structure by ironically employing the manipulative stance Petruchio takes towards winning Katherine as his wife by charming her with words and manipulating her psychologically, and then taming her after their marriage through legal, physical, financial, and psychological control and manipulation. Though Petruchio may think he yields power over his wife, Katherine uses obedience as a tool of manipulation and has the control of the household, as can be seen

is tolerated under these traditional conditions as discipline (Cohen, 1996). Domestic violence is overwhelmingly committed by men ".. to discipline and coerce women" (Cohen, 1996). "Husbands use violence against their wives as a way of coercing them, establishing control, and conveying rules to regulate 'proper' female behavior (Dobash & Dobash, 1977-1978)." This type of abusive behavior often comes from the ideology that women are subordinate to men (Cohen, 1996). This way of thinking

The earliest literature reference to domestic violence against men can be found in the studies of Suzanne Steinmetz (1977,1978) entitled, “The Battered Husband Syndrome.” She hypothesizes that the incidents of husband-on-wife beatings rivals the incidents of wife perpetrated batterings, and that it was husband abuse not wife abuse that was underreported form of domestic violence. Steinmetz used two United States populations, a broadband nonrepresentative group and a random sample in New Castle, Delaware in the form of police reports and family surveys. The small study found only small differences in the percent of men and women who resorted to violence in the context of pushing, shoving, or hitting with hands or an object. This suggested early on that domestic violence is not a one way street. Husband beating is a serious issue and needs attention due to the fact that it is grossly underreported. Steinmetz received numerous criticism from her colleagues on this concept. In later studies, Murray Straus, Richard Gelles, and Suzanne Steinmetz (1980), authors of the book, Behind Closed Doors: Violence in The American Family, supports Steinmetz’s earlier studies in finding that women acted violently during marital affairs compared to a similar number of men who act violently in the United States. The study used 2,413 family surveys, finding in majority of them that the level of violence was a mutual or bilateral activity, with only 27% of cases finding that husbands were the

In his 2003 paper Jeffery Adler states, "social scientists generally link domestic violence to strains and tensions in gender relations, especially men's efforts to preserve masculine authority. According to many criminologists, sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists, wife beating represents a "strategy of patriarchal power, typically employed either to discourage women from challenging men's authority or reign in those who stray from established or expected gender roles." (Adler, 2003) In 1995, Michael P Johnson introduced two distinct forms of domestic violence. One is where families suffer from occasional outbursts of violence from either husband or wives (common couple violence) While others are terrorized by systematic male violence (patriarchal terrorism). The distinction between the two is important because it has implications on how policy is implemented, the development of intervention strategies, and educational programs. (Johnson 1995)

     Burgess and Draper also say that wife batterers have an "intrusive style", easily angered, display extreme jealousy, fear of abandonment and violent out busts in response to personal loss of authority. (Ohlin,

According to the modern sociologists, batterers tend to exhibit the following traits: they are hyper masculine, being aggressive in their behavior as a verification of their manliness, they believe in male superiority, viewing women as sexual objects to be dominated, they resort to both physical and psychological abuse in an effort to control their spouses and they are extremely possessive (Bloom 51). According to Sallust, a roman politician, an angry man who “will be angry for anything will be angry for everything” ( qtd. in Singh 26).

There are not any real causes of domestic violence. However, there are unit theories that attempt to justify why men use violence against ladies. Such things as family pathology, dangerous communication skills, stress, chemical dependency, provocation by ladies, lack of spirituality, and economic hardship area unit problems associated towards the fighting of ladies. However, “Violence may be a behavioral alternative that the batterer should take responsibility. No language or different act is provocation or justification for violent behavior” (Domestic Violence, 1). Victims of violence suffer psychological and physical injuries. Victims could become “masters of disguise, staying home after they are marred… ” (Asher, Elba, and Sugg 1).

Throughout The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare, as you can tell by the title, a shrew is tamed. That shrew’s name is Katherine, the daughter of Baptista Minola with whom she lives in Padua. Petruchio is the fellow doing the taming. He is a gentleman from Verona who arrived to Padua “happily to wive and thrive” (Shakespeare 68). The taming process teaches both Petruchio and Katherine that hard times will come, but they will go through them together; Kate was also confronted with the truth about the way she should treat people and Petruchio was slapped with reality. Needless to say, they were both tamed without having a clue.

Particular moments in William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew have a special significance in regard to the overall meaning of the play. One such moment is when Petruchio and Katherine talk about “how bright and goodly shines the moon,” (Shakespeare 13). At this moment, the insistent Petruchio pressures Katherine to refer to the sun as the moon. After a brief tussle of wits, Petruchio acquiesces and agrees to adopt the line of thought forced on to her by Petruchio. This moment is captured in the YouTube video in which couple converses during a brief rest as they journey towards Padua to visit Petruchio’s father Baptista. One of the outstanding aspects of the video is that it projects

Families in which husbands are abusive to their wives depict these social attitudes and furthermore, convey messages to their children that domestic violence is tolerable in society (Abraham, 1995). This notion is also argued by Gelles and Smith who stated that “wife abuse is more common among couples who witnessed their mothers being abused and/or were abused when they were a child” (as cited by Furze et al, 2008, p213). Therefore, domestic violence is caused by patriarchal structures and male domination in socialisation.

Every year in the United States, One in four women are victims of the domestic violence; however, this is only based on what has been reported to the department of justice (Stahly 2008). While men are also victims of domestic violence, women are more often the victims. Moreover, 90% of domestic violence is male initiated. In severe cases domestic violence ends with victims being murdered. More specifically, domestic violence resulted in 2,340 deaths in the United States in 2007, and 70% of those killed were females (CDC 2012). Many people think that victims have the option of leaving and many people blame victims for putting up with the abuse; what many people don 't know is, victims of domestic violence have many reasons preventing them from leaving their abusers, these reasons include, isolation, having children bounding them with the abuser and lack of financial support. "It 's never pretty when you leave an abusive and controlling relationship. The warden always protests when a prison gets shut down," says Dr. Steve Maraboli (qtd from web). Whether a victim stays or leaves their abuser, the outcomes of both situations are not always as easy as many people predict. In some situations, the outcomes of leaving may be very dangerous for both the victim and her children.

The subject of husband-battering had finally been addressed, but not to the great satisfaction of anyone. Although it had finally been shown that there was violence being perpetrated both by wives and husbands, there was no information about relative frequency or severity, or who initiated the abuse and who was acting in self defense. Furthermore, some researchers became concerned that the use of police or social services references in choosing subjects to study might be biasing the results. In short, they recognized that battered husbands might be nearly invisible next to their female counterparts.

According to Kimmel, he states that that some women use violence as a tactic in family conflict while also understanding that men tend to use violence more instrumentally to control women’s lives. (Kimmel, 24 Researchers like Straus try to prove that women are the instigators to these physical altercation, and that creates a high amount of domestic violence. He said that according to 466 women involved in a violent relationship, their partner struck the first blow 43 percent of the cases, they hit first in 53.1 percent of the cases, and they could not

Domestic violence is a prevalent issue that has enormous consequences for both the victimized individuals and their families. There are many injuries, deaths, rapes, and separation of families, and other fatalities which can all be interconnected to domestic violence. Which raises the question who are the perpetrators? why are they violent? Were they also abused? The answers to these questions may shed some insight on what goes on inside the mind of an abusive and violent individual.