<P> In a Marxist reading of the play, Natasha Korda argues that, although Petruchio is not characterised as a violent man, he still embodies sixteenth century notions regarding the subjugation and objectification of women . Shrew taming stories existed prior to Shakespeare's play, and in such stories, "the object of the tale was simply to put the shrew to work, to restore her (frequently through some gruesome form of punishment) to her proper productive place within the household economy ." Petruchio does not do this, but Korda argues he still works to curtail the activities of the woman; "Kate (is) not a reluctant producer, but rather an avid and sophisticated consumer of market goods (...) Petruchio's taming strategy is accordingly aimed not at his wife's productive capacity--not once does he ask Kate to brew, bake, wash, card, or spin--but at her consumption . He seeks to educate her in her role as a consumer ." She believes that even though Petruchio does not use force to tame Katherina, his actions are still an endorsement of patriarchy; he makes her his property and tames her into accepting a patriarchal economic worldview . Vital in this reading is Katherina's final speech, which Korda argues "inaugurates a new gendered division of labour, according to which husbands "labour both by sea and land" while their wives luxuriate at home (...) In erasing the status of housework as work, separate - sphere ideology renders the housewife perpetually indebted to her husband (...) The Taming of the Shrew marks the emergence of the ideological separation of feminine and masculine spheres of labour ." </P> <P> In a different reading of how gender politics are handled in the play, David Beauregard reads the relationship between Katherina and Petruchio in traditional Aristotelian terms . Petruchio, as the architect of virtue (Politics, 1.13), brings Kate into harmony with her nature by developing her "new - built virtue and obedience", (5.2. 118), and she, in turn, brings to Petruchio in her person all the Aristotelian components of happiness--wealth and good fortune, virtue, friendship and love, the promise of domestic peace and quiet (Nicomachean Ethics, 1.7--8). The virtue of obedience at the center of Kate's final speech is not what Aristotle describes as the despotic rule of master over slave, but rather the statesman's rule over a free and equal person (Politics, 1.3, 12--13). Recognising the evil of despotic domination, the play holds up in inverse form Kate's shrewishness, the feminine form of the will to dominance, as an evil that obstructs natural fulfillment and destroys marital happiness . </P> <P> Another theme in the play is cruelty . Alexander Leggatt states: </P> <P> the taming of Katherina is not just a lesson, but a game--a test of skill and a source of pleasure . The roughness is, at bottom, part of the fun: such is the peculiar psychology of sport that one is willing to endure aching muscles and risk the occasional broken limb for the sake of the challenge . The sports most often recalled throughout the play are blood sports, hunting and hawking, thus invoking in the audience the state of mind in which cruelty and violence are acceptable, even exciting, because their scope is limited by tacit agreement and they are made the occasion for a display of skill . </P>

Who is disguised in taming of the shrew