Summary: Act III, scene ii
On Sunday, outside Baptista’s house, everyone has gathered
for the wedding of Kate and Petruchio. The groom, however, is late,
and Baptista has begun to worry. Kate frets that Petruchio habitually woos
women only to leave them standing at the altar, and she runs off
in tears. Just then, Biondello rushes in to announce that the groom
is on his way, dressed in a ridiculous, mismatched, and shabby costume,
riding up the street on an old, broken-down horse riddled with diseases.
Grumio rides at his side, similarly attired. When Petruchio finally
arrives, the crowd, horrified, sees that Biondello’s description
was accurate. Baptista begs him to change into a more fashionable
outfit before marrying Kate, in order to avoid further public humiliation.
Petruchio says he will do no such thing and rides off to find Kate
at the church. Most of the crowd follows in a kind of horrified
fascination.
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Act III, scene ii →
Summary: Act III, scene iii
Tranio and Lucentio stay behind, alone. They briefly discuss
the status of their plan to win Bianca. Tranio informs his master
that they must find a father for him, and Lucentio suggests that
the simplest solution may be for them to elope. They do not speak
for long before Gremio returns to tell the story of what happened
at the marriage. Apparently, Petruchio swore at the altar, struck
the priest, threw food, and, in general, proved such an embarrassment
that Gremio felt compelled to leave early. The marriage has been
completed nonetheless, and the rest of the company soon arrives.
However, before they can even begin the wedding feast, Petruchio
announces that he must leave at once and take Kate with him, not
even giving her time to receive congratulations from her friends
and family. At this ridiculous suggestion, Kate tries
to draw the line, saying she will leave only when she wishes, but
Petruchio remains as persistent as ever. He says that since she
is now his wife, he claims her as his property, and, pretending
to defend her from jealous thieves, exits quickly with her and Grumio.
The rest of the party can only watch in amazement and laugh at the
day’s events, wondering how two such people could ever put up with
one another. They resume the wedding feast, and Baptista moves to
discuss the marriage of Bianca to Lucentio.
Analysis: Act III, scenes ii–iii
In this scene, Petruchio makes it clear that although
he has won Kate’s hand in marriage, his efforts to tame her are
far from complete. Apparently, he has every intention of contradicting
her will at every point, even after she has consented to marry him.
Now we can see that he doesn’t want just her dowry—he really wants
a tamed wife. By embarrassing her with his ridiculous costume, crass
behavior in the church, and their abrupt exit, he robs her of her
dignity even as he overcomes her resistance. He almost seems to
mock the fact that she has allowed herself to be wed, making her
wish that she could retract the decision. She laments, “I must forsooth
be forced / To give my hand opposed against my heart” (III.ii.8–9).
This scene raises the question of whether Kate, like
Sly, has any agency in her situation. It returns to the theme of
authority in marriage and to the foreshadowing exhibited during
the play’s Induction. Kate’s proven capability of standing up to
her father and the other suitors, through words and even violence
if necessary, does not manifest itself here with Petruchio. Surely,
if she did not wish to marry Petruchio, she would have found a way
to resist—she could simply have refused to go to the church or to
take the vows once there. Even when she does offer resistance—for
instance, when Petruchio demands that they leave immediately after
the wedding—she does not respond with the same vigor. Kate does
exert some agency by choosing not to fight, but she appears to make
this choice because she is cowed by Petruchio’s unyielding stance.
Thus, if Kate is powerless to stop the actions of others upon her,
just as Sly is, then it seems that there will be little equality
in this marriage. Petruchio completely subjugates Kate’s will. Indeed,
Petruchio speaks his most misogynistic lines of the play in this
scene as he prepares to pull Kate away from the marriage feast:
“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” (III.iii.101–103).
Petruchio’s words are not, however, spoken in all seriousness. First,
they are not his original thoughts—they are a list of a man’s possessions
from the Bible’s Ten Commandments, which Petruchio simply relates
to his new wife. By quoting precisely from another text, Shakespeare
creates the possibility that Petruchio speaks with self-conscious
irony. Furthermore, in the context of the rest of the scene, his
little diatribe appears just like his outlandish outfit—a possibly
malicious way to embarrass not only Kate but everybody else there.
Petruchio’s outlandish, exaggerated pronouncement of the social
convention of women’s inferiority might be interpreted as a satire
of the idea that a woman is really a man’s property. Petruchio’s
ironic take on marriage becomes particularly clear when we consider
the fact that Petruchio utters his commandments while simultaneously
disrupting and dishonoring the traditional Christian marriage rites
themselves.
Moreover, Petruchio gives another, very different opinion
of married life when Baptista asks him to change his clothes:
