The Taming of the Shrew is one of Shakespeare's most famous comedies. This play demonstrates how money controls marriage and shows a much different role of love in a relationship.

The two couples do fall in love but the ways in which their eventual love relationships come about are very different however.

Petruchio and Katherine represent much of the society in which Shakespeare lived where people did not marry for love, but learned to love each other over time.

Lucentio and Bianca are the opposite of that in they married each other for love that they initially felt, though it was love at first sight for only Lucentio.

The life in time of Shakespeare's play illustrates the importance of money to the upper class families.

Money is the reason Petruchio married Katherine though their undesirable personalities made them perfect for each other, and the reason Lucentio won Bianca's hand from Sir Gremio. Though Gremio loved the girl, and had known her longer, it was in the end his inability to compete with the rich Lucentio which lost him Bianca's hand.

he attaches great importance to money and love seems less important than it in his view.

Money is the reason why Baptista offers a

generous dowry to the man who marries his

daughter Kate in order to get a husband for his

undesirable daughter.

Baptista tells Tranio (as Lucentio) and Gremio that the one who can offer Bianca the most for a dowery, will be the one who marries her. He said: "Content you, gentlemen. I will compound this strife. 'Tis deeds must win the prize, and he of both That can assure my daughter greatest dower Shall have my Bianca's love.“ (2.1: 341- 346) Baptista treats marriage like a business, his girls Go to the highest bidders and he's not above taking a bribe from any suitor looking to get on his good side.

Shakespeare intertwines love and money throughout this play Consider that the pitting of Tranio against Gremio for Bianca's hand before Baptista involves a comparison of riches. "First, as you know, my house within the city/Is richly furnished with plate and gold,/Basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands,“ says Gremio.(2.1: 344-346) "Two thousand ducats by the year, three great argosies, besides two galliases/And twelve tight galleys," responds Tranio. (2.1: 367-377)

And just as Baptista wants to ensure that Bianca receives a sufficient dowry, so too Petruchio demands that Katharina come with sufficient wealth: "Then tell me, if I get your daughter's love,/What dowry shall I have with her to wife?" (2.1: 119-120) The two narratives thus share evident symmetry in their concern with wealth: the quest for love is never disconnected from the quest for money. Indeed, money is so important in securing marriage that the characters in the play are driven to desperate, even ludicrous measures in order to prove their wealth; Tranio even grabs a man off the street to assume the role of the wealthy Vincentio. The uneasy role of money in The Taming of the Shrew is never fully resolved.

Sumaiah Basheer Al-juhani

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