English Professor Lynda Boose: What is meant by the Expression to "Bridle one's Tongue"?

Boose has always been intrigued by the figure of the "shrew" or "scold" in Anglo-American culture. "Shrew," she explains, was a female criminal category punishable by dunking or bridling putting an iron gag over the tongue to prevent speech. After bridling, the scold was tied up in A the town square for public display. The bridle was used with some regularity on slave women in the antebellum South, and used as an emasculating punishment for enslaved men. Through the late nineteenth and early twentieth century postcards showing bridled women with stabbed tongues read, "If you have a wife that nags, get one of these patent gags."

Boose, a Shakespeare scholar, notes that the Bard's treatment of Kate in TheTaming of the Shrew is far gentler. "Kate's capitulation and her insistence that women should acknowledge their husbands' rightful dominance is dramatized (in a speech containing the phrase 'obey, love and honor') by her prostrating herself on the floor and slipping her hand beneath Petruchio'sfoot." Shakespeare didn't even have to make this up. According to Boose, bridal prostration was part of traditional wedding practices in several European countries and in Russia. If the husband gave land as part of the pre-nuptial endowment, the prostrate bride would kiss his foot, touch her head to it, or slip her hand beneath it. The act even had a name: "courtesy."

"Bridle one'stongue" was oncemouthed byshrew tamers.