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 Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 10:05 pm
Thirteen years old? I know they married young back then, but thirteen? That's kind of pushing it isn't it?
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Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 2:04 am
xxHaleyBaileyxx Thirteen years old? I know they married young back then, but thirteen? That's kind of pushing it isn't it? sure, to us it IS ridiculous! but keep in mind that Henry the 8th's grandmother (who would have been more or less contemporary with this time period) was married and had given birth to Henry's father by age 13!
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Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 7:56 am
I'd definitely say it's young- in fact, in the play even Juliet's father thought she was too young. Add to that, she was twelve when she met Romeo and decided within two minutes of meeting him and a fourteen line impromptu sonnet that they were in love.
If you actually look at studies of church records from that period in England, you'll find, surprisingly, that the common statistics we've heard on ages are skewed. For example, if you discount babies who die before they are two, the average lifespan of people at the time increases to between seventy and eighty years old, so their life wasn't half over by the time they were twenty. Similarly, looking at marriage records the average marriage age in England at the time to be something like 24-5 for girls and 26-8 for men.
It's true that the upper upper class- basically royalty- would be engaged at young ages. This was not, however, true for the lower and middle classes including the merchant class that Juliet was a part of. As well, at the time, although it was still 'proper' for children to get their parents approval for matches, it was becoming far more common for young couples to chose their own marriage partners rather than entering arranged marriages.
I agree that's kind of pushing it, and I wonder what Shakespeare was thinking? He could have easily made them a few years older, which would have made them more sympathetic, or suggested a deeper emotional connection between them. Instead, while many people still find them to be sympathetic characters, he made them rash children who rushed into things without thinking and ultimately managed to kill themselves by doing so.
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