Page "The Taming of the Shrew" Paragraph 103

Some critics argue that even in Shakespeare's own day the play was controversial due to sexist elements.

Oliver, for example, believes that Shakespeare created the Induction so that the audience wouldn't react badly to the inherent misogyny in the Petruchio / Katherina story, in effect defending himself against charges of sexism.

Dana Aspinall also suggests that an Elizabethan audience would have been similarly taken aback by the play's harsh, misogynistic language: " Since its first appearance, some time between 1588 and 1594, Shrew has elicited a panoply of heartily supportive, ethically uneasy, or altogether disgusted responses to its rough-and-tumble treatment of the ' taming ' of the ' curst shrew ' Katherina, and obviously, of all potentially unruly wives.

" He further explains that " arranged marriages began to give way to newer, more romantically informed experiments ," and thus people's views on women ’ s ' position in society and their relationships with men were in the process of shifting at the time of the play, so audiences may not have been as predisposed to tolerate the harsh treatment of Katherina as is often thought.