Attitudes Toward Love in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

Attitudes Toward Love in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

I am going examine and discuss the characters attitudes towards love

and arranged marriages in Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet'. In the 15th

century in Verona, Italy where 'Romeo and Juliet' is supposed to have

been set, the attitudes to arranged marriages, where that it was the

normal and it was performed to maintain social classes. The plot of

this story is around a family feud between the Capulet family and the

Montague family. These families have a daughter and a son these two

youngsters fall in love at first sight and marry; they are then split

up by a murder that takes place and eventually kill themselves, they

decide that if they can't be together in life they will be in death,

it is unnecessary however and they could have been together in life.

This is a story of tragedy and whirlwind romance against the odds of

family disapproval.

Throughout the play the attitudes of the character to arranged

marriages change. At the beginning of the play in Act 1 Scene 2 Paris

asks Lord Capulet for Juliet's hand in marriage, at this time Lord

Capulet is resistant and doesn't think his daughter is ready he tells

Paris to wait two summers (2 years). Capulet is concerned about Juliet

and doesn't want her to be unhappy and doesn't want her to marry to

early, as her mother had, "and too soon married are those so early

made" meaning the marriage is spoilt, he is reflecting on his personal

experience and his own arranged marriage. He sets up the masked ball

so that Juliet and Paris can get to know each other. By Act 3 Scene 4

Paris and Capulet are discussing the marriage again. This ...

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...aughter back then was the ultimate

insult and disapproval of an action these days this doesn't happen and

if it does it isn't to the degree it was back then. Also there is no

Nurses in modern times except with some rich families and then they

are nannies who are around up to a age of 8 at maximum and this would

be highly irregular for a family in modern times to have a nanny for a

girl of 14-15. Arranged marriages are still very common within the

Asian countries of the world and within some Asian communities in this

country; these would receive the same disapproval if not respected

maybe not quite as extreme however on the whole. Romeo and Juliet is

still a popular and widely known play today and this is because it is

relatable within many parts of today's society today in things such as

love are never going to change.