ABSTRACT
In Chapter 1, “Commodified Kates: Consent, class, and agency on the marriage market,” class affects the commodified marriage market. Compare what Kate, Bianca, and the Widow say and do in relation to their Continental predecessors. Ludovico Ariosto’s (1524) I Suppositi features Polynesta’s premarital affair with Erostrato. Polynesta falls in love with Ferranese student Erostrato who changes places with his servant Dulippo to tutor and court her. Balia enables her ward’s intimacy with her lover. Psiteria stands up to her employer Damon for knowing about, but not reporting, his daughter’s affair. Having lost her virginity, Polynesta allows men to arrange her marriage to her man of choice. Shakespeare probably found the plot of Ariosto’s I Suppositi through George Gascoigne’s translation in Supposes. In The Taming of the Shrew, Lucentio swaps identities with his servant Tranio to become Cambio to tutor Bianca. Kate suffers verbal and physical abuse in her forced marriage until she joins her husband to regain agency in society. Katherine circumscribes Bianca and the wealthy Widow’s in public. Class influences speech and actions of Polynesta, Balia, and Psiteria in Italian and English tales and Kate, Bianca, and the Widow in Shakespeare’s Shrew.
