In The Taming of the Shrew Shakespeare plays his hand at describing working relationships. The play focuses on the roles of women in relationships and marriage. The major theme throughout the play is that people lie: many people, specifically women, lie and present themselves as something they are not. Ultimately, Shakespeare’s central theme in the play is that sincerity in a relationship is more important than the vanity of a first impression.

We see this theme play out in the action of the play. Katherine is at first presented as if she is a "shrew." She is seen as hard-headed and hot-tempered, and she has no suitors, which leads people to say even worse things about her. She is contrasted with her sister, Bianca, who is presented as being mild and good-tempered. However, we learn that first impressions are deceiving. Katherine might seem harsh at first, but over the course of the play, we learn that she is kind and smart. She cares for a servant and can see things from other people’s perspectives. In contrast, Bianca proves to be a disobedient and crass person, flirting with every one of her suitors and making rude jokes about her brother-in-law.

The ultimate lesson that Shakespeare provides is that despite her initial impression, the sincerity seen in Katherine is more important than the vanity presented by Bianca. This same idea is shown in how the Lord instructs Bartholomew at the beginning of the play. The Lord says,

Such duty to the drunkard let him do

With soft low tongue and lowly courtesy,

And say "What is't your honour will command,

Wherein your lady and your humble wife

May show her duty and make known her love?"

And then with kind embracements, tempting kisses,

And with declining head into his bosom (act 1.1)

The Lord is playing a trick on Christopher Sly by having his servant Bartholomew dress in drag and pretend to be his wife. The deception, pretending to be a lady and do the things that ladies should do, mirrors the issue presented in the play by Bianca’s actions. Bartholomew is supposed to put on an act, and in that act, he is going to make Christopher Sly believe that he is not only his wife but also a good woman. Bianca’s actions in the play mirror that, tricking not only her father into thinking she is clean and pure but also tricking all her suitors into thinking she will be an obedient and meek wife. Shakespeare foreshadows the trouble with first impressions and deception in that first act of the play.

In this opening scene, a bored nobleman decides to trick the drunken Sly into believing that he is a lord. The nobleman enlists his servants and a troup of players into the scheme and says that his page Bartholomew must dress as a lady and pretend to be Sly’s wife. The page must act like an ideal gentlewoman, who is described as being obedient, graceful, and courteous. He should say the following to Sly:

What is't your honour will command,
Wherein your lady and your humble wife
May show her duty and make known her love?

After that, he should show affection to, embrace, and kiss Sly, crying on command (something the lord calls “a woman's gift”). This description of a wife in no way fits the “shrew” Katharina who appears throughout the rest of the play. She does not possess a “soft low tongue and lowly courtesy” until after her taming. At the conclusion of The Taming of the Shrew, she describes the perfect woman, which matches the lord’s description in the Induction.

It is interesting that this is simply a boy playing a role of an ideal wife. He is not actually a woman, just as the actor playing Katharina would have been a young man or boy. Not only that, Katharina is being played by one of the players from the Induction. This device brings up questions as to how much characters in the play are just playing roles, such as chaste sister, obedient spouse, and mad husband. It also questions whether anyone can actually be the ideal wife, or if she can only play the role.