What are the hatreds of Romeo and Juliet?

Answer 1

Neither character has much to do with hate, they have more to do with love. Romeo does not hate anyone; he becomes furiously angry at Tybalt for long enough to kill him but does not hate him. In fact, Romeo is quite conciliatory to Tybalt until Tybalt kills Mercutio. Romeo doesn't hate anyone. In fact, the Montagues seem to be quite peaceful and not quarrelsome at all. The quarrel in Act 1 Scene 1 is forced on them by the Capulet servants and then Tybalt. Benvolio tries to make peace. Mercutio (not a Montague, just a friend of theirs) provokes Tybalt who is looking for a fight anyway. Romeo and Benvolio try to stop it.

The hating seems to come more from the Capulet side. Tybalt says, "I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee" to Benvolio. Juliet automatically says "my only love sprung from my only hate" and "I must love a loathed enemy"on her first encounter with a Montague of any description. But increasingly she leaves behind the artificial hate for Montagues which she has been taught. Curiously the hatred seems to come more from her mother, who is a Capulet only by marriage, as we see in her frantic denunciation of Benvolio "He is a kinsman to the Montague; affection makes him false", whereas Capulet does not appear to hate Romeo just because he is a Montague "'A bears him like a portly gentleman, and to say truth, Verona brags of him to be a virtuous and well-governed gentleman."

It's odd that the feud seems to be carried on by everyone except the Montagues and Capulets themselves. Mercutio, one of the Prince's relatives, the Capulet servants, Lady Capulet, and Tybalt, who is her "brother's son" and thus no Capulet at all, seem to be the ones spoiling for a fight.