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The 16th century viewed love, romance, betrothal and marriage very differently than the way we do in the 21st. A pair of young aristocrats, one of them engaged to marry another man, goes behind their elders' backs, conduct a love affair, and marry - we today smile at this story indulgently and say, "ah, young love! The chances they take; the rules they break." But in the 16th century many people would not have smiled, but would have taken a dim view of the lovers' actions. They might have argued that Juliet's betrothal to Paris was a binding agreement, that neither Romeo nor Juliet was free to ignore or take lightly that arrangement, and that their behavior was irresponsible and reckless. The couple's deaths would be seen not as deserved, exactly, but as the sad but predictable result of the couple's own recklessness.

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16y ago

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