File:Taming-shrew-1815.jpg

"TAMEING A SHREW. or PETRUCHIO'S PATENT FAMILY BEDSTEAD, GAGS & Thumscrews"

October 1815 London caricature by "Williams", whose title is an allusion to Shakespeare's play "The Taming of the Shrew". Most spousal abuse at the time tended to be due to inebriated louts who crudely pounded on their wives in fits of drunken rage after an evening of heavy carousing -- but Petruchio in this print seems to take a rather more dispassionately systematic approach (using techniques similar to modern bondage practices) to establishing who's the boss in the marriage. Mrs. Petruchio is shown confined to a canopied four-poster bed, whose head and foot are stocks, while Petruchio menaces her with cane and gag. On the table is Petruchio's patent, and the thumbscrews, while the books "Rule a Wife and Have a Wife" and a torn copy of "The Whole Duty of Woman" are on the floor. A placard reading "LOVE, HONOR, and OBEY" (with "Obey" written in larger letters) hangs along the wall inside the bed's canopy. This is a quote from the traditional wedding ceremony (in which only the woman promises to obey), and the way that the woman's shoes, corset, and red garment are strewn carelessly on the floor or over a chair may suggest that this is their wedding night.

The depiction of the bed was probably imaginative (rather than being based closely on a real-life model).