What If Romeo And Juliet Had Lived?
Scenario: A priest marries a girl of not yet 14 years of age with a boy only slightly older, without the knowledge of the parents. Both have known each other for about a day.
Seen from today's perspective, it would be preposterous, except the consequences being too serious, so it is more an irresponsible madness.
The priest should be adult and mature enough to know better than to marry two children, who are too immature to know the difference between loving a person and being infatuated by a body. Probably the priest was stupid and immature himself. Otherwise he would have chosen a more rational career than that of spreading a public delusion.
Yet this story is supposed to be the most romantic love story in literature, and countless people consider Romeo and Juliet as the prototype of a loving couple. But it is only the tragic end, that did set their union and story apart as special.
Had they survived, they would have ended like so many other couples with a similar social background of belonging to the nobility in the Italy of the 16th century. There and also in the England of 1593 to 1596, when Skakespeare wrote the play, maturity seemed to be considered as the physical and educational fitness to fulfill very disparate gender roles.
A boy's like Romeo's education focused primarily upon sportive fitness in every discipline serving his role as a fighting man, especially sword fencing, riding and being knowledgeable about horses, and secondary upon his role as a member of the ruling class.
A girl's like Juliet's education focused upon preparing her for her role as an attractive possession of a man, a breeding womb and a refined organizer of a household.
The only thing both genders of their class were taught was instruction to follow their religion, to dance, to sing, to play music and to write or recite poetry. All of this was not enough to keep a couple interested in each other for a long time, if they were brought together merely by infatuation.
Romeo was exiled to Mantova, where he could have received enough money from his parents to enable Juliet and himself the same luxury life as they had been used to in Verona. But had Romeo taken Juliet to Mantova, the romance would not have lasted, their infatuation would have faded like it always does, if there is nothing deeper. They would have drifted apart for having nothing to talk about, getting bored with each other's company. When Julia got the first of a dozen children, she would have turned her affection and attention to the children, probably she would had grown obese too. Romeo would have gone back to a world of leisure with his buddies and sooner or later would have cheated on Juliet with the servant girls.
In entry 301, I commented on Shakespeare's other play: 'The Taming Of The Shrew'. It is set in the same culture and time as Romeo and Juliet. The jerk mistreating Kathrina had the typical attitude towards woman as had most men of his times, he was in addition also extremely cruel and inconsiderate. But even a considerate and caring Romeo was certainly not able to consider Juliet as an equal partner. On a more subtle level, Juliet and Romeo would have encountered similar conflicts as there were between Kathrina and Petruccio.
Scenario: A priest marries a girl of not yet 14 years of age with a boy only slightly older, without the knowledge of the parents. Both have known each other for about a day.
Seen from today's perspective, it would be preposterous, except the consequences being too serious, so it is more an irresponsible madness.
The priest should be adult and mature enough to know better than to marry two children, who are too immature to know the difference between loving a person and being infatuated by a body. Probably the priest was stupid and immature himself. Otherwise he would have chosen a more rational career than that of spreading a public delusion.
Yet this story is supposed to be the most romantic love story in literature, and countless people consider Romeo and Juliet as the prototype of a loving couple. But it is only the tragic end, that did set their union and story apart as special.
Had they survived, they would have ended like so many other couples with a similar social background of belonging to the nobility in the Italy of the 16th century. There and also in the England of 1593 to 1596, when Skakespeare wrote the play, maturity seemed to be considered as the physical and educational fitness to fulfill very disparate gender roles.
A boy's like Romeo's education focused primarily upon sportive fitness in every discipline serving his role as a fighting man, especially sword fencing, riding and being knowledgeable about horses, and secondary upon his role as a member of the ruling class.
A girl's like Juliet's education focused upon preparing her for her role as an attractive possession of a man, a breeding womb and a refined organizer of a household.
The only thing both genders of their class were taught was instruction to follow their religion, to dance, to sing, to play music and to write or recite poetry. All of this was not enough to keep a couple interested in each other for a long time, if they were brought together merely by infatuation.
Romeo was exiled to Mantova, where he could have received enough money from his parents to enable Juliet and himself the same luxury life as they had been used to in Verona. But had Romeo taken Juliet to Mantova, the romance would not have lasted, their infatuation would have faded like it always does, if there is nothing deeper. They would have drifted apart for having nothing to talk about, getting bored with each other's company. When Julia got the first of a dozen children, she would have turned her affection and attention to the children, probably she would had grown obese too. Romeo would have gone back to a world of leisure with his buddies and sooner or later would have cheated on Juliet with the servant girls.
In entry 301, I commented on Shakespeare's other play: 'The Taming Of The Shrew'. It is set in the same culture and time as Romeo and Juliet. The jerk mistreating Kathrina had the typical attitude towards woman as had most men of his times, he was in addition also extremely cruel and inconsiderate. But even a considerate and caring Romeo was certainly not able to consider Juliet as an equal partner. On a more subtle level, Juliet and Romeo would have encountered similar conflicts as there were between Kathrina and Petruccio.
