The Taming of the Mom

I have seen The Taming of the Shrew, I think, once (Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton version; I’ve seen 10 Things I Hate About You at least a few times, but somehow I don’t think that counts). There’s a production of Shrew at this year’s Utah Shakespearean Festival, and the feature in the Living section of the paper on Sunday was on the play.

If you’ve forgotten, the eponymous shrew is Katharina (Kate in this updated version), who is rather mean and abusive toward men, especially suitors. In the end, though, she is “tamed” and accepts one Petruchio as her husband (who gave as good as he got).

Katharina’s final soliloquy seems to show a drastic change in character (selection below for Shakespeare lovers) that explains why she would agree to marry (finally). The speech goes on about how hard husbands work for their wives and all husbands want is a little obedience and a kind look, and that’s not really asking that much, etc.

These lines are often ridiculed as an outdated view of marriage, clearly a product of their time that has no place in ours. And, of course, to an extent I agree that this oversimplified view of women’s subservience and subjugation isn’t a proper definition of marriage.

But what I found interesting was the actress’s (Melinda Parrett) take on the lines (emphasis added, source):

[I]n the contest of this production, Parrett finds Kate’s words moving and affirming.

“It’s not about losing yourself,” she said. “It’s about finding out who you are in relation to someone else. What I hear is that life is too short—love requires give and take, and we should simply relax and offer support to each other. I get choked up over it. It’s what I hope to feel someday.”

Although marriage and motherhood are usually related 😉 , when I read that quotation I wasn’t thinking about my husband. I was thinking about becoming a mother. For my husband and me, despite a short courtship, the transition to marriage was . . . well, what transition? Do you mean moving in together?

But for me, the transition to motherhood was very hard, and, of necessity, very sudden. I struggled for months (and sometimes still struggle) to define myself as a person and not only as a mother. I often feared that anything that was once unique about me, anything that I enjoyed or valued as an individual, would be obliterated by the full-time obligation entailed in having a child.

“It’s not about losing yourself. It’s about finding out who you are in relation to someone else.” Certainly this applies to marriage, but in an even deeper way, it’s applied to me as a mother. In some ways, I do (or did) feel that I had to lose myself—but only to find a new self, someone who was not “just” a mother, not “only” a mother, not “solely” a mother.

Someone who was a mother and proud to be a mother—but was still me.

Did you find it difficult to “find out who you are in relation to someone else” when you married or became a mother?

From Katharina’s final soliloquy, The Taming of the Shrew, Act V:

A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am ashamed that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace;
Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love and obey.
Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts?
Come, come, you froward and unable worms!
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband’s foot:
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready; may it do him ease.