Oh no Shakespeare! (Rhetorical Analysis)

For my rhetorical analysis I chose Habitus in Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew by Abigail R. Marsch. In this article, Marsch is trying to explain Pierre Bourdieu's theory of habitus which is a way of understanding the dynamics of power relationships in social life. This applies to the play because some people believe that Katherine and Petruchio's marriage was one of equals. Some even believed that although in the play Katherine was treated very poorly Petruchio actually treated her as an equal and they had intelligent conversations much like some relationships today. Begging to differ, Marsch uses Bourdieu's theory saying that they couple would not be able to act one way in public and another way in private. She is appealing to our sense of reason stating

"private and public spheres have always informed one another and are inextricably linked together in the process of determining societal norms of behavior."

Marsch means that there is no way in that society Katherine and Petruchio would be able to portray two different sides to them, either the mean overbearing Petruchio of their social life would bleed into their personal life of the intelligent and witty Katherine of their personal life would bleed into their social life. And a wife that is not obedient to her husband in that day and age would be unheard of. So if Katherine is not seen as "tamed" Marsch says this would severely damaged the society that they live in. Therefore the mean and overbearing Petruchio enters the personal life on Katherine and himself, proving Marsch's point.
When I went online to Student Pulse and picked this article to write on, i had never actually read Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew and saw fit to go and read it once i picked this article to have a better understanding on what the author was arguing about. And I found the author's point quite credible. There are definitely points in the play that suggest that Petruchio had to treat Katherine as an inferior to keep the persona of "taming" her. This eventually led to this happening in their personal life. An example of this is when Petruchio says

"Thus have I politicly begun my reign,
And ‘tis my hope to end successfully.
My falcon now is sharp and passing empty,
And till she stoop, she must not be full-gorg’d,
. . .
She eat no meat to-day, nor none shall eat;
Last night she slept not, nor to-night she shall not;
As with the meat, some undeserved fault
I’ll find about the making of the bed,
And here I’ll fling the pillow, there the bolster,
This way the coverlet, another way the sheets.
. . .
This is a way to kill a wife with kindness,
And thus I’ll curb her mad and headstrong humor."

So basically he is saying that he will not feed her or let her sleep until he sees fit. This seems like the kind of persona he should only portray in public in he wants a secret marriage of equals. But this is in their personal life and he is being quite overbearing.
Aside from beautifully reaching her point in this article, Marsch also quotes other authors and writers that disagree with her. Saying that that Petruchio was just acting this way because he thought he had to to establish a type of authority but deep down he really wants to treat her nicely. But as Marsch quotes another writer saying, to prove these claims one must seek outside references and we are just analyzing Shakespeare here.