How does the play Romeo and Juliet suggest that attitudes towards marriage and family life were very different in 15th Century Italy.

Authors Avatar

How does the play Romeo and Juliet suggest that attitudes towards marriage and family life were very different in 15th Century Italy and in Elizabethan times than in today’s society? How might Shakespeare’s contemporary audience have responded to the story of the star-crossed lovers and how might we respond to it today?

When Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet fall for each other their love is doomed by the seething hate their families share for one another. Their relationship is further wounded as the Capulets have already chosen Paris as a suitor for their daughter. Their relationship faces tragic inevitability as its seems fate is against them and the family's hate overshadows the young couples love.

The audience's ideals of love are immortalised in the story of Romeo + Juliet as good conquers evil. Although the couple dies for each other, the Montagues and Capulets see the results of their foolishness through the loss of their offspring and vow to change their ways

The play Romeo and Juliet is widely loved because it portrays the power of true love i.e. they die for each other because they cannot be together.

It appeals to a wide range of people of all ages, as its genre is flexible in the way that has been adapted to an action film ‘Romeo and Juliet’ which stars young, popular actors and actresses such as Leonardo Dicaprio and Clare Danes.

‘Shakespeare in Love's’ plot is based around it and of course the theatre productions and the actual play itself.

Join now!

In Shakespearean times, families did not just consist of mother, father and children; often cousins, aunts uncles and even grandparents would share a house, making 'extended families'

Females in the family unit were only meant to be there to bare the children and to stand by there husbands. In Juliet’s case she was brought up completely by her nurse, this is the reason that they are so close. Although she did not see very much of her parents, she still had to respect them, and if she did not, it would be considered a sin.

Women are ...

This is a preview of the whole essay