Class: Shakespeare Authority in Marriage in the play the taming of the shrew and the wife of Bath First. Introduction Marriage is an important element in the play “The Taming of the Shrew” which indicates that woman should obey her husband, her lord, in order to lead a successful marital relationship. In other words, woman is simply a commodity belongs to her husband with no autonomy while man controls everything from economy to freedom of thinking and speaking. However, one of the best-known tales of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales “The Wife of Bath” also plays with the same marriage theme and discusses about the authority in marriage but provides a contrast opinion. The wife of Bath indicates that woman should hold back sex in order to gain authority in marriage.
It is most natural state of man and therefore the state in which you can are most likely to find solid happiness’’. Through those sentences, Franklin seems to estimate that from a masculine’ view, one of the main advantages of the marriage is to bring pacification toward requirements of the flesh. The recipient of the letter who was the friend of the author seemed to be looking for a situation in which he could find sexual partner and happiness without commitment. Based on the previous quotes, the author claims that the best situation in which he could find what he was looking for was a marriage. In his letter, Franklin advices his friend to settle because ‘ It is the man and woman together that make the complete human being’’.
Love and lust and sin in Milton’s Lost Paradise Our maker bids increase, who bids abstain But our destroyer, foe to God and Man? Hail wedded love, mysterious law, true source Of human offspring, sole propriety, In Paradise of all things common else. (4.748-752) There are not many sex scenes described in Paradise Lost but this quote is a relatively famous sex scene written in book 4. To choose this quotation not only because the words are so beautiful in describing Adam and Eve the most intimate behavior with implicit wordings, but also because this part is impressive. Speaking to love and lust, it may seem a prohibition from ancient times to nowadays.
Edward Taylor’s “Huswifery” and Anne Bradstreet’s “To My Dear and Loving Husband” both contain strong puritanical views, but which of their compositions shows the lifestyle more clearly? Bradstreet’s work approaches the subject directly with riveting emotion, while Taylor’s uses countless metaphors to subtly express the same basic opinion. Even though both effectively showcase the same opinion, Taylor’s clearly has more of a Puritanical Edge that allows his to portray the lifestyle more strongly. Bradstreet’s does a very good job displaying her devotion to her husband, a major merit in Puritan lifestyle, but she fails to show the aspect of faith in the Puritan lifestyle. The husband’s is the head of the home, and the wife is supposed to follow him fully with her own life.
In this regard Mr. Collins is a true production of this society. He wants to “make amends” to the Bennets girl for the entail on the property by marrying one of them. It is very ridiculous that in such a matter of marriage, he is considering only the “property” not his own prudence whether the Bennet girl is fit for him or the marriage will be a proper one. When we look at another character of this novel namely Charlotte Lucas, we see that she is also going on the same path of the society. The union between Charlotte and Mr. Collins is a good example of this marriage that brought about entirely for economic reasons.
Either way, before death both achieve various degree of wisdom based on the importance of love, society and death. Love in a family is like oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony. The importance of love is not realised until it is lost and one suffers without it. For example, King Lear prioritised love for his own benefit, and does not realise the importance of love till it was gone. Lear viewed love as a one way street, in which he believed that a family was there only to serve his needs.
Body It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife (Austin, 1813). This line defines the importance of marriage in Austen’s time, and is a primary plot element and social underpinning for the characters within the novel (Peterson, 1982). While the focus of the phrase is "a single man must be in want of a wife," irony reveals the true nature of marriage as a woman’s need for a man of means to secure her financial future. The interpretation of the opening statement and views on marriage are key differences in viewpoints of Elizabeth, her mother and Lydia. In Austen’s time, societal constraints left women with little choice but to marry for economic survival (Multiple, 1966).
If a person is truly in love with their spouse, they should never have the thought of cheating in the first place. In the last stanza, Gylys writes about the man’s wife leaving with the children. The idea of children reinforces my belief that Gylys was incorrect in saying that marriages fail due to not taking the time to think. The husbands have their wives that they should be committed to, but their children should also emphasize the importance of the marriage. Therefore, I think the cause of failed marriages is not lovers not thinking, but rather lovers falling out of love.
Nevertheless, it could be argued that the fact that she was prepared to go against convention infers that their relationship was based on true love, as she loved Othello enough to defy her father and was prepared to have an inter-racial relationship which were unusual in the 17th century, in fact racism is evident when; Iago calls Othello ‘thick-lips.’ Similarly the relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff in ‘Wuthering Heights’ seems happy and loving. True love is suggested by the spiritual nature in which the
Jane Austen reflects upon the important personal matters and superficial morals of her society through the role of marriage as seen in Pride and Prejudice. “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife” (Austen 1). With this quote as Jane Austen’s opening line of Pride and Prejudice, the author starts off her story in a manner which reflects the rest of the novel’s satire over the era’s shallow ethics and views of marriage. Many examples of sour matrimonies of different types are given by this never-wedded author through the many relatives and acquaintances of the Bennet family. It could have been the result of family pressures, a desire for money, a change in social status, for physical beauty, escaping the family, or simply avoiding a life with a low-respected, low-paying, job with poor working conditions, but a majority of the time, women married for reasons other than for love of her fiancé.