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Shrew (stock character)
The shrew – an unpleasant, ill-tempered woman characterised by scolding, nagging, and aggression – is a comedic stock character in literature and folklore, both Western and Eastern. The theme is illustrated in Shakespeare's play The Taming of the Shrew.
As a reference to actual women, rather than the stock character, the shrew is considered old-fashioned, and the synonym scold (as a noun) is archaic. The term shrew is still used to describe the stock character in fiction and folk storytelling. None of these terms are usually applied to males in Modern English.
This stereotype or cliché was common in early- to mid-20th-century films, and retains some present-day currency, often shifted somewhat toward the virtues of the stock female character of the heroic virago.
Folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand collected over 400 literary and oral versions of shrew stories in 30 cultural groups in Europe in the middle 20th century.
Being a "common scold" was once a petty criminal offense in the early-modern law of England and Wales and of colonial New England, during the 16th through 18th centuries. Punishments varied by region, but were usually meant to humiliate the guilty party. They included the imposition of the ducking stool, pillory, jougs, a shrew's fiddle, or a scold's bridle. Scold or shrew was a term which could be applied with different degrees of reprobation, and one early modern proverb allowed that "a shrew profitable may serve a man reasonably".
A common central theme of such literature and folktales is the often forceful "taming" of shrewish wives by their husbands. Arising in folklore, in which community story-telling can have functions of moral censorship or suasion, it has served to affirm traditional values and moral authority regarding polarised gender roles, and to address social unease about female behavior in marriage.
This basic plot structure typically involves a series of recurring motifs: A man, often young and penniless, marries a woman with shrewish or other negative qualities (laziness, etc.), for her dowry or other reasons unrelated to love, despite another trying to talk him out of it. She may have a more docile but unavailable younger sister, for contrast, and/or an even more shrewish mother.
The taming process begins immediately after the marriage, and does not last long, sometimes only the wedding night itself. It involves denial of intimacy by the husband to the bride, and often also has several other features, including coercion (e.g., by violence, sleep deprivation, and/or starvation) to induce submission, and psychological manipulation (e.g. animal abuse, usually targeting cats, in front of the wife). Capitulation by the "shrew" happens suddenly, she transforms into a "model" wife, and the couple lives happily ever after.
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Shrew (stock character)
The shrew – an unpleasant, ill-tempered woman characterised by scolding, nagging, and aggression – is a comedic stock character in literature and folklore, both Western and Eastern. The theme is illustrated in Shakespeare's play The Taming of the Shrew.
As a reference to actual women, rather than the stock character, the shrew is considered old-fashioned, and the synonym scold (as a noun) is archaic. The term shrew is still used to describe the stock character in fiction and folk storytelling. None of these terms are usually applied to males in Modern English.
This stereotype or cliché was common in early- to mid-20th-century films, and retains some present-day currency, often shifted somewhat toward the virtues of the stock female character of the heroic virago.
Folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand collected over 400 literary and oral versions of shrew stories in 30 cultural groups in Europe in the middle 20th century.
Being a "common scold" was once a petty criminal offense in the early-modern law of England and Wales and of colonial New England, during the 16th through 18th centuries. Punishments varied by region, but were usually meant to humiliate the guilty party. They included the imposition of the ducking stool, pillory, jougs, a shrew's fiddle, or a scold's bridle. Scold or shrew was a term which could be applied with different degrees of reprobation, and one early modern proverb allowed that "a shrew profitable may serve a man reasonably".
A common central theme of such literature and folktales is the often forceful "taming" of shrewish wives by their husbands. Arising in folklore, in which community story-telling can have functions of moral censorship or suasion, it has served to affirm traditional values and moral authority regarding polarised gender roles, and to address social unease about female behavior in marriage.
This basic plot structure typically involves a series of recurring motifs: A man, often young and penniless, marries a woman with shrewish or other negative qualities (laziness, etc.), for her dowry or other reasons unrelated to love, despite another trying to talk him out of it. She may have a more docile but unavailable younger sister, for contrast, and/or an even more shrewish mother.
The taming process begins immediately after the marriage, and does not last long, sometimes only the wedding night itself. It involves denial of intimacy by the husband to the bride, and often also has several other features, including coercion (e.g., by violence, sleep deprivation, and/or starvation) to induce submission, and psychological manipulation (e.g. animal abuse, usually targeting cats, in front of the wife). Capitulation by the "shrew" happens suddenly, she transforms into a "model" wife, and the couple lives happily ever after.