The Tamer as Shrewd in John Fletcher's The Woman's Prize: Or, The Tamer Tam'd

Fletcher's play utilizes the close domestic connection between shrews and tyrants to critique Petruchio's absolutist marital authority. Yet, in recasting Petruchio as a tyrant, Fletcher also rewrites the role of shrew; rather than stage a showdown between unruly partners, Fletcher valorizes feminine "shrewdness" as an everyday safeguard against masculine misgovernment. By vesting Maria with the rational control required to bring order to the domestic body, The Woman's Prize makes room for women's power over household relations.