Tag: marriage

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‘Taming of the Shrew’ and Today’s Sensibilities

Engraving of a scene from the works of William Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, circa 1590-1592. (Archive Photos/Getty Images)

Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” the story of a man’s choosing a loud and troublesome but rich and beautiful girl for his wife and “taming” her destructive misbehavior, has been for centuries a favorite of audiences. But it has now fallen on hard times. This happened when feminism was converted from the idealism of equal rights for women into resentment for the supposed perennial oppression of women by men.

As a result of that intellectual wind, those who did still want to produce the play would doctor the ending by going against the grain of the text to show Katherine making a mere show of obedience. She would deliver her final speech with ironic winks to the audience, suggesting that she had learned to pretend to be obedient to Petruchio but, in reality, was secretly manipulating him. The whole idea of “taming” her was thus turned into farce, and the resentful in the audience were given a satisfying inversion of power roles to take home with them to justify their resentment.

The unfortunate byproduct of that kind of production was that the audience was robbed of the possibility of experiencing the great reversal that Shakespeare actually dramatized in the play. The reversal I mean is not the mere subduing of Katherine’s will under the power of Petruchio and her consequent surrender to his government. Shakespeare meant that power play to be not a goal of Petruchio but merely a tool to achieve what he really wanted. What Petruchio really wanted was what was best for both of them: harmony, a happy union of man and wife. In short, love.

Portraying a Higher Goal

How does Shakespeare portray the achievement of that higher goal? In three ways.

First, Shakespeare doesn’t have Petruchio simply cudgel Katherine into obedience. (In the old joke that was one of the play’s sources, a husband wrapped his wife in a mule’s skin and beat her with a stick.)

Instead, Petruchio shows Katherine what it looks like when someone is being irrational, as was Katherine’s habit. His version of her irrational willfulness produces chaos, causes her to suffer, to go hungry and sleepless. It’s how every parent must train a self-damaging, willful child: “Here is what your behavior looks like and leads to. Do you want that?”

Second, Shakespeare has Petruchio enact this irrationality as if for Katherine’s own sake. He tosses away the food she hungers for because, he says, it’s not cooked as well as she deserves; rips apart the beautiful tailor’s gown as not good enough for her; creates havoc in the bedroom, all “in reverend care of her.” He “kills her in her own humor” by seeming to “kill her with kindness,” countering her selfish willfulness with an equal but opposite selfless willfulness.

The irony, for the audience, is that though Petruchio is creating actual havoc, keeping Katherine miserable in the name of serving her, in reality, he is doing this for her sake. Because in fact, her only path to peace and happiness is the giving up of her own selfish will. Once she has done that, there is no more power struggle; they can live happily ever after.

Rejection of Power Struggle

Finally, Shakespeare dramatizes the achievement of the goal of love with a wonderful rejection of the power-struggle image of marriage in favor of an image of mutual love. It comes after Katherine is fully subdued to Petruchio’s will. She has already called the sun the moon and an old man young because her husband commands her to do so.

When the other wives refuse to come at their husbands’ call, Petruchio commands Katherine to force the other wives to obey. She does so and then gives her great speech about the hierarchy of duty and the division of labor that must prevail in marriage at its best. The husband is stronger than the wife, but his duty is to use his strength not to oppress her but to defend and care for her, just as her duty is to care for him as best she can and to be grateful.

But here’s Shakespeare’s kicker. At the end of the speech, Katherine offers to place her hand beneath Petruchio’s foot as a symbol of her true obedience to him. And what does Shakespeare have Petruchio do? Step on her hand and crow “Ha! I’ve won! I’m stronger than you and will now oppress you freely!”? No. He says: “Why there’s a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.” (“Wench” is a term, and “Kate” a nickname, of endearment.)

What does that kiss mean? Not the triumph of power over weakness, but the joy of mutual love. Now that both members of the pair are in their right relation to one another in the hierarchy created for their mutual benefit, neither one combating against the other in willfulness but each committed to the other’s good—now they can live happily ever after.

Isn’t this a better image of marriage than the confrontation between two strugglers for power?

Gideon Rappaport has a doctorate in English and American Literature with specialization in Shakespeare. He has taught literature, writing, and Shakespeare at all levels and works as a theatrical dramaturge. He podcasts at Appreciating Shakespeare with Doctor Rap (AppreciatingShakespeare.Buzzsprout.com) and on YouTube, where he also has video lectures at Shakespeare’s Real Take.

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Mending Marriages

Kimberly and Joe Beam of Marriage Helper. (Nikayla Skolits)

Joe Beam gave a talk recently in Texas; afterward, a family came up to greet him, their young daughter shyly offering up her comments as well. Partially hard of hearing, Beam crouched down and asked her to repeat herself.

“Thank you for saving my family,” she told Beam.

Since 1999, Beam has hosted marriage crisis workshops, which couples sometimes tell him are “the best-kept secret in America.” But the path to saving marriages—which takes him all around the world, nowadays—began with his own divorce.

Twice Married

Before Beam founded various organizations including Marriage Helper, he was working in corporate America and running workshops on relationship-related topics. His own marriage was in rocky waters, having reached a point where he was vilifying his wife, he said, and the relationship was cold. When the couple divorced, Beam thought he would end up living happily ever after and marrying another woman with whom he’d fallen in love—that didn’t pan out.

But after three years of Beam visiting every weekend to see their two daughters, Beam and his wife Alice became friends again. They were able to spend time together without arguing, and they rebuilt their relationship.

“I came back and asked my wife if she would be willing to take me back and marry me again,” Beam said. Of course, she had to think about it. She also asked everyone around her for their advice.

“And everybody, everybody she talked to told her not to marry me again, that she can never trust me again,” Beam said.

“Contrary to their advice, she decided that she would marry me a second time,” he said. “That was 1987.”

It wasn’t smooth sailing just because they had made up. They argued a lot, having not yet worked on the issues that festered in their first marriage, and both were in need of healing. Alice sought out a counselor, and Beam says he healed through helping others.

“We began to have heartfelt, open and transparent, honest conversations,” Beam said.  “Eventually, Alice became my best friend, and to this day she is my best friend.”

And through that union, they had their daughter Kimberly.

Hope’s Not Lost

Kimberly Holmes has never known her parents to be apart.

“I owe my life to two people who decided to do the right thing, who decided to put their marriage back together and to make it work. Otherwise, I would not exist,” Holmes said. She knows this not least of all because her experience of having always known loving parents is a departure from the experience, and trauma, that her two older sisters had growing up through their parents’ divorce, which remarriage doesn’t just erase.

“I’ve seen them [my parents] fight, but I’ve seen them work it out. I’ve watched them live and model a great marriage. And it has affected me in amazingly positive ways in my life,” said Holmes, who is now CEO of Marriage Helper. In her five-year tenure, she has greatly expanded the organization’s reach, helping couples in crisis as well as couples who just want to learn. It’s work she describes as “purpose-filled,” because she has seen that the workshops don’t just provide effective education—they give people hope.

Marriage Helper has received countless relationship questions from all around the world: My spouse says terrible things about me, will he or she ever see me in a positive light? How do I forgive my spouse for cheating on me? Can I ever trust my spouse again?

But the most common question is simple: Is there hope for me and my situation?

“And our answer to that is yes,” Holmes said.

She answers confidently because she’s seen the amazing transformations that happen. People are reminded up front that there’s no guarantee any given marriage will be saved (about three of every four couples attending the workshops see success), but the tools and ideas learned in the workshops do promise to change and improve personal relationships regardless.

Three-Day Workshops

After completing a bachelor’s degree in psychology, Holmes had neither a specific career in mind nor a thought of joining the “family business,” but continued graduate studies in marriage and family therapy with the heart to help people.

In her schooling, she experienced firsthand what working with couples one-on-one is like, how slow the progress is, and how frustrating it can be.

But at the same time, Holmes started working part-time for Marriage Helper on the side, and once a month she would help out with the workshops.

“And I would see amazing progress that would happen in these couples, in only three days,” Holmes said. “It was during that time that I realized this is what I want to do. I want to help marriages be saved, families be strong.”

The workshops are unique in the relationship counseling world. For one thing, dozens of people gather in each session (through video conferences as well). Days before holding a pair of weekend workshops for 45 couples from across the globe, Beam elaborated further.

Based on his experience in the corporate world, Beam took the “three-day workshop” and applied it to marriage counseling. In his quest to repair his own marriage and then help others, Beam had read countless books and earned a doctorate. Now an expert at taking complex psychological principles and simplifying them, making them easy to understand at a deep level, he’s often invited to counseling centers to teach their counselors to do the same.

He helps people to understand how their behavior affects others, how to recognize their own unacknowledged harmful actions, how to deal with anger, and how to forgive (including a how-to-reconcile process). He also walks people through the process of what happens when we fall in love, and decodes other deep insights in a simple but enlightening manner.

Over the years, Beam has worked with a diverse range of couples and seen a wide variety of problems. When he talks to people, none of it is theory. He can talk about real experiences and real marriages that fell apart or were salvaged. Experience means Beam has seen it all, and he doesn’t judge. Everyone is treated with respect and dignity regardless of individual situations, and the workshops, like Beam, are very positive.

The vast majority of couples attending the workshops include one spouse who wants out, and is only present because of the promise that divorce papers will be signed afterward.

“Basically, on the first day, they’re not talking to each other. They’re kind of pushing their chairs apart. Some of them are scowling,” Beam said. “By the end of the first day, at least they’ve calmed down.

“Then the second day, they actually start talking to people and start loosening up.

“And then the third day—it’s amazing to see the transformation—on the third day, we have trouble keeping them quiet so we can actually teach! Because they’re all interacting with each other, encouraging each other.”

Not everyone, of course. Not all the couples stay together, but around seven out of ten do.

(Nikayla Skolits)

Best Kept Secret

That 70-some-percent success rate raises some eyebrows, so Beam says that over the years Marriage Helper has invited many psychiatrists, counselors, and therapists to join the three-day workshops and see for themselves. They join thinking, “This is crazy,” but leave saying that the methods and results are valid.

“This is the 22nd year so far,” Beam said. “Every one of them sends couples to us now.”

Leaving inspired on the third day isn’t enough; couples have to be willing to put into practice all they have learned, for there to be real and lasting change. Marriage Helper isn’t there to twist people’s arms and convince them to stay married; instead, couples are given the tools needed to make their relationships work. Even couples who don’t stay together recommend the workshops—the principles can apply to any relationship.

As a teacher who intervenes in the middle of things, Beam doesn’t always know the outcomes. But sometimes couples find him—even years later, even couples from 1999—and share incredible stories.

A minister acquaintance of Beam’s recently remarried a couple that had divorced five years prior and made up after attending one of the workshops.

Another couple attended one of the workshops about 10 years ago, but ended up divorcing later on. The woman recently contacted Marriage Helper to say that she and her ex-husband started dating again after six years of divorce, and were contemplating marriage. They wanted to attend another workshop, to see if they could really make things work.

Many couples that finish the workshops say their children should, once engaged, also attend, so they can build strong relationships from the start. The workshops fill up weeks in advance.

“We love to have engaged couples,” Beam said. “We figure it’s the best premarital education in America, or the world, because not only do they learn all these fascinating, very powerful principles about relationships, but they’re in a room full of people who’ve messed it up. So we’re not giving you theory, we’re showing you real-world stuff.”

Holmes hears many people call it a last resort, saying if anything works, this will. And she believes it does work, wholeheartedly. The Marriage Helper team believes strongly in the mission to create strong marriages, she said, and that drives everything they do. “We never stop being passionate about doing this,” Holmes said.

“I give God credit for all of that, because I’m just not that smart,” Beam said. “It’s just absolutely exhilarating to hear how it worked. But when you’re working with them and they’re in pain, it’s absolutely painful. We hurt when we heal these couples. We feel their pain and it gets to us. But then we hear the stories afterward, of how they got through this and got through that, and it’s just amazing and unbelievable—I can’t believe God chose us to do this.”

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Strengthening Family and Marriages

The Wolfenberger family. (Courtesy of the Wolfenbergers)

David and Mitsue Wolfenberger started a crab business on the coast of Washington in the 80s. They enjoyed small town life which provided a relatively protected environment in which to raise their family of seven children. But today, the Wolfenbergers are run a successful international nonprofit organization providing marriage education. In some ways, theirs is still the quintessential American story of family, hard work, and ingenuity.

“Our children worked alongside us in the crab business and in this way, developed good work habits and some skills. They washed totes, unloaded crabs from the boats and packed shipping crates. This is a demanding business, and since I had to be on the job full-time, my wife, whose first language is Japanese, homeschooled the children,” David said. “Our children’s flexible schedule provided us with opportunities to go on family camping trips and road trips during the off-season, when they weren’t working or getting an education.”

David and Mitsue’s own relationship had already planted a seed to grow something more. “From the time we were engaged and then married in 1982, Mitsue and I considered our relationship the most essential ingredient for the happiness of our family. My wife and I often had discussions with other couples who felt the same way. We wanted to do something to strengthen our own relationships, and help other married couples in our community, including our own married adult children,” David said. It was just discussion—until the crab business took off and they found success, and opportunity to pursue their passion.

David and Mitsue Wolfenberger. (Courtesy of the Wolfenbergers)

“We wondered where to begin,” David said. Then one day, the couple were spending time with their newlywed son and his wife, and their new daughter-in-law suggested they take on marriage enrichment education in their ministry. The very next day, David called a friend who had two decades of family therapy experience and asked him to come on board.

“We decided on two main objectives: revive marriages and train young people to conduct marriage enrichment programs. Three younger couples got involved and together they created the program we now call “Energize Retreats,” a two-day marriage enrichment program inspired by the teachings of Mark Gungor, a well-known marriage educator,” David said.

It was on one of these retreats that David had an “aha moment.” During one activity, husbands and wives met in separate groups.  When the subject of pornography came up, the room went silent and at first no one said a word. When the conversation finally commenced, David discovered that this was a huge and common behavior causing serious problems in the marriage relationship.

The Wolfenbergers realized that if they didn’t take on this issue, nobody else would, so they decided to make pornography awareness a new objective of their ministry. In order to effectively address the problem, more education was needed. David financed an intergenerational group of men to attend a Christian sponsored workshop on the addictive nature of pornography and its negative impact on marriages. This was a boost for the attendees to overcome their own issues and then learn how to help others through getting trained in mentorship. This group of brave men did just that and as a result, High Noon was given birth.

The mission of High Noon is to help us understand the harmful and addictive nature of pornography, especially for today’s young people who are inundated with inaccurate, harmful sexual triggers in social media and elsewhere. Some of us may not think it’s such a big deal, but when we hear first-hand about a person’s struggle, it becomes obvious how a porn habit has the potential to hijack future plans for everlasting love and well-being.

“I started watching porn mainly out of curiosity about sex. However, it quickly turned into something I would go to when I was bored or frustrated. Luckily, I never reached the point where I was watching porn everyday but if it had not been for the recovery process of High Noon I might have gotten to that point. I would say that pornography had a negative impact on my relationships, and made me think of sex in a way that is likely not ideal and is not about love. Because of porn, my concept of sexuality was all about the pleasure and intensity and not at all about the emotion or love that is so deep in sex. It affected the way I viewed others, relationships, and even affected my motivation to pursue a relationship that could result in marriage. When was I able to say to myself, enough is enough? When I entered into a serious relationship and was on track for marriage, I decided that I could not continue watching pornography. I realized that it felt like I was being disloyal to my partner and pornography affected the way I valued her. I wanted my first real sexual experience to be about the love I had for my partner rather than the desire I had for sexual pleasure. I knew that overcoming this struggle with porn was essential to creating a lasting relationship of real love.” (Anonymous from a participant in High Noon mentorship program)

High Noon has created workshops with curricula for young adults, couples, and families. In these programs, singles can grow their sexual integrity before marriage and develop the skills needed to overcome the temptation of pornography. Husbands and wives can listen to presentations and discuss what it takes to experience greater intimacy and build trust in the marriage relationship. Parents can learn how to guide their children into God’s plan for sexuality in age appropriate lesson plans in the “School of Love” curricula.

High Noon proves that the curse of internet pornography can be lifted when individuals recognize its negative, addictive influence on their lives and seek help. Its mentorship program has been very effective in helping men and women break free of porn. “What made the difference for me was that I was surrounded by others who wanted the same things I wanted,” one anonymous participant shared. Being part of a weekly check-in call system for eight months helped this person overcome the challenge. “Now life is awesome. I am living life on purpose and building my dream every day. I have a beautiful wife that I am free to love unabashedly with all of my heart. I do not have the useless negative distraction that porn is and can use all of my time focused on creating a life that I want. I have confidence in who I am; I know that I am now aligned with my integrity goals.”

It’s impressive to see how the ingenuity and courage of one couple has produced effective and far reaching programs for families here in this country and abroad. What began with two people has multiplied and contributed to thousands of healthier individuals and families.

Poppy Richie is a freelance writer and former teacher and administrator at the Principled Academy in the San Francisco Bay Area. She co-authored a K-12 Character Education curriculum, “Discovering the Real Me,” and contributed to online elementary-level science education curricula for various companies.