I read the essay Habitus in Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. The author, Abigail R. Marsch, portrays the idea that the main characters, Petruchio and Katherine, cannot act one way in public and another way in private, an idea known as "habitus", or two-faced as we know it. Marsch also mentions the ideas of Petruchio and Katherine having two options; becoming one, or staying single. She begins to compare human society to Petruchio and Katherine's relationship. The final implication of Marsch's essay is that Petruchio and Katherine have the idea of an ideal marriage.
"When a person acts a certain way in one place and acts different in another " is the definition of Urban Dictionary's two-faced. Marsch gives the readers many examples of this term. For example, Petruchio illustrates to Katherine that he's interested in marrying her, therefore acting flirty and giddy in front of her, but acting an entirely different way in private. By doing this he is sending different messages to different groups of people. For example, to Katherine he is sending the message that he would like to be married to her. Katherine receives the message that he would like to pursue her, but does not quite realize how two-faced he is.
A big part of this essay is Petruchio's decision to marry Katherine or to stay single. Although he wants to marry her, he does not realize what he has to go through, to make her a socially acceptable wife. For example, Petruchio "cannot keep his public and private lives separate; through the process of Kate’s “taming” he inevitably ends up treating Kate as an inferior in their home as well as in public." Petruchio continues to treat Katherine badly, because he badly wants to get Katherine to conform to the woman he wants her to be, not the woman she wants to be.
Petruchio has one idea in his head of what the perfect marriage is: having a submissive wife, who will conform to his desires. For example, Petruchio is "overbearing, patriarchal, and even sometimes seemingly brutal in his “taming” of Kate—both in the public and private sphere. He shames Kate in front of her family and townsfolk, and in private refuses to let her eat, sleep, or much of anything else." Although Katherine desperately tries to get out of the relationship, she is forbidden, due to their marriage.
Throughout Marsch's essay, we are exposed to habitus; acting one way in front of people and acting a totally different way in private. We now see that the relationship between Petruchio and Katherine cannot be based off of Petruchio trying to conform Katherine to his ways, but by Petruchio allowing Katherine to be the woman she wants to be.
