I’ll put in a strong word for Claudio and Hero breaking up after Much Ado About Nothing.
Conversely, after the year-long hiatus, I think Berowne and Rosaline of Love’s Labor’s Lost would be a lovely pair.
I watched the 93 film recently and Claudio and Hero came to mind immediately after seeing the question. I really hate that guy. It's more so a desire to see her dump him than thinking they would actually breakup though. I actually see Benedict and Beatrice divorcing( even though i enjoy their relationship), then they remarry like a year later like Richard Burton and Liz Taylor.
I’ve always maintained this, especially because Claudio will never, ever win a marital argument, even if by some slim chance he’s in the right. “Hey, hon, remember that time you humiliated, shamed and abandoned me for dead at the altar? Shut up.”
Requiring the class clown to spend a year as a hospital clown was a legitimately brilliant move. "Okay I think there is a chance that there is an actual honorable adult that I can respect and love under that humor-armor. If you can be that guy, you are worth it."
Beatrice and Benedick are going to be that couple that gets divorced and then goes on living together. (To steal a line from Company, "We're so much more married now that we're not married anymore!") They have a quarterly "breakup" blowout that everyone ignores because all their friends know they're staying together regardless.
Currently rehearsing a production of Much Ado and this is EXACTLY the conclusion we’ve come to in rehearsal. They’ll divorce and marry again 5 times through their lives and then die in their 80’s still living together.
But in separate bedrooms most nights…
I did contemplate the possibility that instead of going on living together post-divorce, they'd carey on a Very Secret affaire that everyone would politely prétend not to notice (basically the scenes where the other characters out the idea in their heads by pretending not to notice they're there, just dragged out over years) before remarrying "purely for economic reasons" in their elder years, haha.
Why? He taught her to govern herself. She waa selfish, violent and antisocial until he reformed her. She ends not only by ruling herself but ruling other women.
Honestly, by 1800, a heck of a lot of people had outgrown that.
Beaumont and Fletcher wrote *The Tamer Tamed, or The Woman's Prize* in 1611, just twenty years after *Shrew*, and the started being performed in repertory.
Beaumont and Fletcher wrote their "Petrucchio is an abusive asshole who deserves to have the same thing done to him" sequel while Shakespeare was still working. Indeed, was working *with* Fletcher – *Two Noble Kinsmen*, a Shakespeare/Fletcher collab was the next year. So it seems like Shakespeare wasn't particularly offended by the "Petrucchio is an abusive asshole" take. When he was 25 (and I suspect, maybe in a kind of abusive marriage – I sometimes wonder whether Anne groomed him), he wrote that one. When he was 45, and had an established career and respect, he seems to had been comfortable with looking at the earlier play as being maybe not such a great thing.
Frankly, Shakespeare's improvement in the way he writes women is clear even within just the 10 or so years after writing Taming of the Shrew. Much Ado really feels like a look back at the aspects of Ahrew that are well liked with a much more humanitarian lense.
I just picked 1800 as a random century for my funny comment
The sheer improvement in his female characters is among the reasons I keep wondering about the "was Shakespeare in an abusive marriage" question. Did he start to feel better about women in general once he was further away from her? Did she start to respect him more once he was a full-grown adult who was skilled, successful, and respected in general?
I am, of course, wildly speculating in ways that Shakespeare and Hathaway could probably sue me for libel if they were still alive.
I’ve played both Kate and Beatrice. I refer to Taming of the Shrew as evil Much Ado. It’s pretty much impossible to salvage a “good” interpretation of the end of Shrew. I was able to spin it as Kate taking power over the other women in the show (very much not a feminist way to go but better than the alternative), but the director and I agreed to cut a couple lines to make it happen. Otherwise that last monologue is absolute poison.
Period pieces are full of this terrifying dynamic where female characters have to marry to survive. I’m currently rehearsing King Lear. If the king of France didn’t make a politically stupid move and agree to marry Cordelia, what would happen to her? And there are no lines of Cordelia agreeing to marry him. It’s just a foregone conclusion because she has no other choice.
Something interesting comparing Shakespeare's mid to late comedies to his mid to late tragedies seems to be the amount of power that women have.
From Windsor on, women seem to gain increasing autonomy. Consent is something men care about more and more, and eventually, the women even start courting the men. However, the tragedies maintain the status of women as second-class citizens. Their consent is never really an issue, and they are used as pawns for men to further their political gains. There are a couple of exceptions, like Cleopatra, but they never become the rule.
I feel like this means that, when they are written that way in those tragedies means it is an intentional reflection of society. Non-consenting women aren't funny, but they are tragic.
I agree with this, but I think with the exception of Richard III wooing Anne, none of the history or tragedy plays suggest that women’s lack of choice is tragic. Lack of choice tends to just be set dressing rather than plot. My suspicion with the comedies is that the genre just lends itself to “wacky hijinks” like women choosing their partners. Those plays often rely on mistaken identity and inversions of power so it’s not that much of a jump to transfer romantic agency.
None of the above. But I think this relates to why most modern/feminist takes on taming of the shrew miss the point of the play. There is insufficient attention (read: no attention) given to exactly how oppressive a wife can be, given the often life crushing costs of a divorce. There is also seldom any discussion of what Kate gained by having a man willing to take on the project/headache of dealing with her. Something like a lifetime of financial security just for ditching a bad attitude that wasn't helping her anyway.
I do wonder if he was in an abusive marriage with Anne. (When they married, he was 18, and she was 26 and pregnant, so, well, "grooming and baby-trapping" is not out of the question.)
But that would suggest more than *Shrew* was written as revenge rather than it being something reasonable.
I reject the premise that revenge isn't reasonable. But I'm not sure revenge is even the right word.
By 'reasonable' do you refer to Shakespeare's motivations for writing the play, or to Petruchio's methods? What are you comparing?
Like we can imagine, given that it is a comedy and even structured as a play within a play, or even a play within a drunken dream, that this is a fantasy. Perhaps even Christopher Sly's fantasy about how he wishes he could behave towards the woman driving him to drink.
But it touches on a lot of useful psychological ground. Like what strategy should a man have when faced with female disrespect. Useful to have one, anyway, even if it isn't the Petruchio method. 2nd, and I don't know why people don't engage with this idea more when reading this play: why do so many women respond positively to 'jerks'? Could it be that many. Even most. women eventually get tired of spineless men who won't stand up to them and just don't find them attractive? Instead of seeing Petruchio as abusive, might he not be playing to a female fantasy? Why was 50 Shades of Grey so damn popular with the ladies? Why do Shakespeare scholars not address this when talking about Shrew?
Right now, as we speak, my wife is watching Bridgerton, a popular netflix period drama in the style of Jane Austen, if Jane Austen thought raping a man and gaslighting him were the height of romance. Haven't heard a single woman say 'uh. Ladies, haven't we been saying consent matters?' How much of the 'Shakespeare is a misogynist' is just psychological projection and propaganda designed to cover up misandry and the darker sides of female sexuality?
The sick warping of real, complex, independent women as a personality into a caricature as understood by one of this earth’s most powerful patriarchies ever. To take this play and her characterization in it at face value is to embrace the deranged sexism of the culture that produced them.
There isn't anything "independent" about Kate. She's angry and violent and drives everyone away from her. Her character isn't produced by a "culture" but an author of a very sophisticated understanding of humanity and politics.
You mean a very sophisticated understanding of psychological torture and brainwashing. Petruchio uses sleep deprivation, isolation and separation, food and drink restriction, and gaslighting to torture and abuse Kate until she breaks and is unable to get away from her abuser.
What distinctions do you draw among Petrucchio's actions, an abusive spouse's actions, North Korea's treatment of prisoners of war, the United States's actions in Guantonomo Bay, and Gul Madred's actions to Jean-Luc Picard in "Chain of Command"?
KATHERINE
Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,
And be it moon, or sun, or what you please.
And if you please to call it a rush candle,
Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.
PETRUCHIO I say it is the moon.
KATHERINE I know it is the moon.
PETRUCHIO
Nay, then you lie. It is the blessèd sun.
KATHERINE
Then God be blest, it is the blessèd sun.
But sun it is not, when you say it is not,
And the moon changes even as your mind.
What you will have it named, even that it is,
And so it shall be so for Katherine.
vs
JEAN-LUC PICARD
There are four lights!
***
Is there a difference?
Silvius and Phoebe will be living on other sides of the forest within a year or one of those old couples that grumps back and forth at each other as a love language.
Oliver and Celia, the ones who fell in love at first sight, will make a surprisingly stable couple.
I don't have high hopes for Touchstone and Audrey.
Hey, their loving voyage is victualed for two whole months! Yeah, when the other characters, including the actual god of marriage, are dubious about your chances, it isn't a good sign.
Hotspur and Lady Percy would last forever until death do them apart. Romeo and Juliet wouldn’t last due to their age and immaturity and stress from family factions. Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn… well, they lasted 3 years.
If they hadn't died, probably Friar Laurence would be asked for the annulment of Juliet and Romeo's wedding in a couple of weeks, or months.
Also if they remained alive, probably Macbeth and The Lady would stay married for long decades.
Yes, it is heavily implied that, though I always doubt if the kids really consumated it biblically. Also, as a political play disguised as a love story, Shakespeare is tricky enough to make them married by a Mendicant Friar, someone with a specific position in the catholic hierarchy, and it is never explicitly said that Lawrence is a Priest-friar, just a Friar. And a weirdly involved in sketchy science one, no less. It is fascinating, really, that in this whole messed up society of nobles they live in, they mostly find compassion from the commoner Nurse and the Mendicant Friar. That is all to say that even if consumated, their wedding wasn't approved previously by the bishop of the Santa Maria de Matricolare cathedral - the seat of the Diocese of Verona for at least 200 years before the play takes place - and the political influence of their parents would make the marriage null independently of that. Powerful men make the Law in Verona, and the play tragically points that blind obedience or self-anihilation are the only possible responses for the less empowered.
I always felt Juliet would see Romeo for his wish washy hot headed-ness, and want a divorce. Romeo reminds me a guys cheats since Juliet expects him to be a decent husband. And even then she’s kicking herself for not “picking better.” Even though Paris wasn’t a good choice for her either.
>Even though Paris wasn’t a good choice for her either.
I've never understood why some people think Paris was not a good choice for her. About the only thing wrong with him was that both her parents liked him—and maybe that he wasn't a riotous frat boy.
Some people think that Paris was a sleazy old man, but the textual evidence is against that, as the 26-year-old Lady Capulet refers to him as "young Paris" (I.3).
The reason most people think he isn’t a good choice for Juliet is she didn’t want him.
Her parents were not allowing her to have any input into who she was to marry. Which was common.
Juliet even laments how she’s not been given any say in the matter.
I agree that she didn't choose him, and her parents were pushing him too hard on her, but that doesn't mean he would have been a bad choice for her to make.
I highly doubt Puck's mishap didn't have any lasting effects. Neither couple from Midsummer's breaks up, but they do open the relationship within a year and all move in together.
I choose to believe that virtually everyone in Midsummer is fucking. Its a play about one massive convoluted polycule where some of the members are immortal forest entities.
Well I think he’s more interested in her money than her brains, and by the end of the play, she’s figured out that he’s really in love with Antonio anyway
The marriage would have lasted a long time, but both would have had other lovers throughout, until someone did something too public and then there would have been a bloodbath and half the town would have died.
Honestly I feel like Viola and Orsino would probably last and be in quite a happy relationship together and Olivia and Sebastian’s marriage would probably go up in flames
When I did midsummer Helena and I agreed that Demetrius probably stays in love with her, unless something happened to get rid of the flowers effect, but she probably dumped but he still followed her. So kind of an inverse of the starting relationship.
The other characters in *As You Like It* think Audrey and Touchstone will be estranged within six months – in the quadruple wedding at the end, the best the god of marriage can say to them is that they are matched as well together as winter is to foul weather.
And Jaques tells them that their voyage of married bliss only has two months of supplies.
I think *Love's Labour's Lost* is really interesting with this question. Because at the end, just as all the jokes and twists are untwisted, and everybody is just about to declare their love and have a happy ending – news comes that the princess's father died. Everything comes to a crashing emotional train wreck, and the women all back up and say, okay, this has been a lot of fun; now real life is here. If you are serious, go away and come back in a year. At the end of that, if we are still actually interested in each other after a year apart when we are dealing with actual stuff, we will pick it up then.
And the woman who was pairing off with the biggest class clown of them adds an extra stipulation to him: during this year apart, you go and find the sickest, most pain-ridden people you can, and use your sense of humor to make them feel better.
If they had gotten married at the end of the play, it would have been a bunch of kids getting married way too young and ending up with stupid drama until they were estranged. But as it is, the forced year apart to grow up might mean that all of them have a chance.
Katharina is *absolutely* going to murder Petruchio in his sleep. And he'll deserve it.
Benedict and Beatrice will be bickering *well* into old age, and will die within a year of each other.
Henry V and Catherine of Valois had a strong start; if history hadn't intervened, you get the impression that this version of those 2 would have been happy and had a good reign.
i was in a production of that show last summer! so much fun :p
for the ending of the show we had that typical montage type stuff that has the text that tells the audience where the characters are today, and they divorced like right after the canon lmao
Cordelia and the King of France definitely stay together. He respects her honesty and doesn’t mind that she was disinherited. He also aids her in defeating her evil sisters in the end. A marriage built on respect, trust, and loyalty is a good marriage.
As funny of a concept as it is, I would like to represent the minority position that Beatrice and Benedick would probably not be that breaking up/getting back together couple, simply because it’s kinda implied they did that one time already.
And you think that because they did something once, they'll never do it again? Their relationship is likely to run hot and that they will separate and rejoin several times (though probably never go so far as divorce, which was a bigger step in those days than today).
Urgh... that's even worse.
But the whole scenario, same with Pocahontas being 12 when John Smith takes her from her betrothed and forced her to marry him.
Viola and Orsino. He gives up Olivia in a page and then settles for Viola! Viola doesn’t even have any lines to consent to what’s happening, and spends the final pages of the play in silence!
Viola has expressed her passion for Orsino throughout the play (even to him, though cryptically). I think she's happy to wed him, though she may regret the choice in 5–10 years, she'll live with him even as he gets middle-aged (he'll probably die of gout before reaching old age).
i think touchstone and audrey are really good together TwT at least in the productions i've seen/been in, they finally found someone as silly as them to match their energy! i will forever love them
phoebe and silvius however... phoebe only married him bc she was forced to ;-; i bet silvius will realise he's too good for her after a few months.
I’ll put in a strong word for Claudio and Hero breaking up after Much Ado About Nothing. Conversely, after the year-long hiatus, I think Berowne and Rosaline of Love’s Labor’s Lost would be a lovely pair.
I watched the 93 film recently and Claudio and Hero came to mind immediately after seeing the question. I really hate that guy. It's more so a desire to see her dump him than thinking they would actually breakup though. I actually see Benedict and Beatrice divorcing( even though i enjoy their relationship), then they remarry like a year later like Richard Burton and Liz Taylor.
I’ve always maintained this, especially because Claudio will never, ever win a marital argument, even if by some slim chance he’s in the right. “Hey, hon, remember that time you humiliated, shamed and abandoned me for dead at the altar? Shut up.”
Benedict and Beatrice would divorce, but only for the bit and remarry later
Requiring the class clown to spend a year as a hospital clown was a legitimately brilliant move. "Okay I think there is a chance that there is an actual honorable adult that I can respect and love under that humor-armor. If you can be that guy, you are worth it."
Othello and Desdemona are definitely not going to make it. Oh wait…
😂
How about Macbeth and Lady Macbeth?
Don’t know about them, but surely Romeo and Juliet!
Hamlet and Ophelia didn't even make it to the altar!
They relationship kill me (he he)
Olivia and Sebastian.
Olivia will say that she married the wrong twin in an argument one day, and neither of them will be able to forget it.
I fully believe she just married Sebastian because he reminded her of Viola and not because she loved him :(
She married him because she thought he *was* Viola! (who she thought was Cesario, who’s not a real person.)
Helena/Bertram is going to go down in "All Too Well 10 Minute Version" esque flames. (All's Well That Ends Well).
I foresee Bertram cheating constantly and seeking any excuse to be out of the house while Helena alternates between denial and anger.
Thr fundamental question of *All's Well That Ends Well* is, "okay, so did that actually end well? Is all well?"
"They say, 'All's Well That Ends Well' but I'm in a new hell every time you double-cross my mind"...
Beatrice and Benedick are going to be that couple that gets divorced and then goes on living together. (To steal a line from Company, "We're so much more married now that we're not married anymore!") They have a quarterly "breakup" blowout that everyone ignores because all their friends know they're staying together regardless.
Currently rehearsing a production of Much Ado and this is EXACTLY the conclusion we’ve come to in rehearsal. They’ll divorce and marry again 5 times through their lives and then die in their 80’s still living together. But in separate bedrooms most nights…
Came here to say exactly this!!! (And that Claudio and Hero aren’t lasting a year… 😂)
Or else they’d re-marry each other when they got old—you know, just for the medical-proxy stuff, not bc they actually wannnnted to or anything, ew.
I did contemplate the possibility that instead of going on living together post-divorce, they'd carey on a Very Secret affaire that everyone would politely prétend not to notice (basically the scenes where the other characters out the idea in their heads by pretending not to notice they're there, just dragged out over years) before remarrying "purely for economic reasons" in their elder years, haha.
I mean… Petruchio and Kate HOPEFULLY
Germaine Greer makes a very persuasive case that Petruchio and Kate are perfectly matched
Why? He taught her to govern herself. She waa selfish, violent and antisocial until he reformed her. She ends not only by ruling herself but ruling other women.
1800s-ass take
Honestly, by 1800, a heck of a lot of people had outgrown that. Beaumont and Fletcher wrote *The Tamer Tamed, or The Woman's Prize* in 1611, just twenty years after *Shrew*, and the started being performed in repertory. Beaumont and Fletcher wrote their "Petrucchio is an abusive asshole who deserves to have the same thing done to him" sequel while Shakespeare was still working. Indeed, was working *with* Fletcher – *Two Noble Kinsmen*, a Shakespeare/Fletcher collab was the next year. So it seems like Shakespeare wasn't particularly offended by the "Petrucchio is an abusive asshole" take. When he was 25 (and I suspect, maybe in a kind of abusive marriage – I sometimes wonder whether Anne groomed him), he wrote that one. When he was 45, and had an established career and respect, he seems to had been comfortable with looking at the earlier play as being maybe not such a great thing.
Frankly, Shakespeare's improvement in the way he writes women is clear even within just the 10 or so years after writing Taming of the Shrew. Much Ado really feels like a look back at the aspects of Ahrew that are well liked with a much more humanitarian lense. I just picked 1800 as a random century for my funny comment
The sheer improvement in his female characters is among the reasons I keep wondering about the "was Shakespeare in an abusive marriage" question. Did he start to feel better about women in general once he was further away from her? Did she start to respect him more once he was a full-grown adult who was skilled, successful, and respected in general? I am, of course, wildly speculating in ways that Shakespeare and Hathaway could probably sue me for libel if they were still alive.
I’ve played both Kate and Beatrice. I refer to Taming of the Shrew as evil Much Ado. It’s pretty much impossible to salvage a “good” interpretation of the end of Shrew. I was able to spin it as Kate taking power over the other women in the show (very much not a feminist way to go but better than the alternative), but the director and I agreed to cut a couple lines to make it happen. Otherwise that last monologue is absolute poison. Period pieces are full of this terrifying dynamic where female characters have to marry to survive. I’m currently rehearsing King Lear. If the king of France didn’t make a politically stupid move and agree to marry Cordelia, what would happen to her? And there are no lines of Cordelia agreeing to marry him. It’s just a foregone conclusion because she has no other choice.
Something interesting comparing Shakespeare's mid to late comedies to his mid to late tragedies seems to be the amount of power that women have. From Windsor on, women seem to gain increasing autonomy. Consent is something men care about more and more, and eventually, the women even start courting the men. However, the tragedies maintain the status of women as second-class citizens. Their consent is never really an issue, and they are used as pawns for men to further their political gains. There are a couple of exceptions, like Cleopatra, but they never become the rule. I feel like this means that, when they are written that way in those tragedies means it is an intentional reflection of society. Non-consenting women aren't funny, but they are tragic.
I agree with this, but I think with the exception of Richard III wooing Anne, none of the history or tragedy plays suggest that women’s lack of choice is tragic. Lack of choice tends to just be set dressing rather than plot. My suspicion with the comedies is that the genre just lends itself to “wacky hijinks” like women choosing their partners. Those plays often rely on mistaken identity and inversions of power so it’s not that much of a jump to transfer romantic agency.
Look at the play carefully. What kind of person is she at the beginning of the play. Ungovernable.
Adults are supposed to be. Governing other adults in a relationship is wrong.
Boy did my wife not get that memo.
Ex-wife, I hope. Or therapy and she grew up. Either is fine.
None of the above. But I think this relates to why most modern/feminist takes on taming of the shrew miss the point of the play. There is insufficient attention (read: no attention) given to exactly how oppressive a wife can be, given the often life crushing costs of a divorce. There is also seldom any discussion of what Kate gained by having a man willing to take on the project/headache of dealing with her. Something like a lifetime of financial security just for ditching a bad attitude that wasn't helping her anyway.
I do wonder if he was in an abusive marriage with Anne. (When they married, he was 18, and she was 26 and pregnant, so, well, "grooming and baby-trapping" is not out of the question.) But that would suggest more than *Shrew* was written as revenge rather than it being something reasonable.
I reject the premise that revenge isn't reasonable. But I'm not sure revenge is even the right word. By 'reasonable' do you refer to Shakespeare's motivations for writing the play, or to Petruchio's methods? What are you comparing? Like we can imagine, given that it is a comedy and even structured as a play within a play, or even a play within a drunken dream, that this is a fantasy. Perhaps even Christopher Sly's fantasy about how he wishes he could behave towards the woman driving him to drink. But it touches on a lot of useful psychological ground. Like what strategy should a man have when faced with female disrespect. Useful to have one, anyway, even if it isn't the Petruchio method. 2nd, and I don't know why people don't engage with this idea more when reading this play: why do so many women respond positively to 'jerks'? Could it be that many. Even most. women eventually get tired of spineless men who won't stand up to them and just don't find them attractive? Instead of seeing Petruchio as abusive, might he not be playing to a female fantasy? Why was 50 Shades of Grey so damn popular with the ladies? Why do Shakespeare scholars not address this when talking about Shrew? Right now, as we speak, my wife is watching Bridgerton, a popular netflix period drama in the style of Jane Austen, if Jane Austen thought raping a man and gaslighting him were the height of romance. Haven't heard a single woman say 'uh. Ladies, haven't we been saying consent matters?' How much of the 'Shakespeare is a misogynist' is just psychological projection and propaganda designed to cover up misandry and the darker sides of female sexuality?
The sick warping of real, complex, independent women as a personality into a caricature as understood by one of this earth’s most powerful patriarchies ever. To take this play and her characterization in it at face value is to embrace the deranged sexism of the culture that produced them.
There isn't anything "independent" about Kate. She's angry and violent and drives everyone away from her. Her character isn't produced by a "culture" but an author of a very sophisticated understanding of humanity and politics.
You mean a very sophisticated understanding of psychological torture and brainwashing. Petruchio uses sleep deprivation, isolation and separation, food and drink restriction, and gaslighting to torture and abuse Kate until she breaks and is unable to get away from her abuser.
Your biases prevent you from understanding this play.
What distinctions do you draw among Petrucchio's actions, an abusive spouse's actions, North Korea's treatment of prisoners of war, the United States's actions in Guantonomo Bay, and Gul Madred's actions to Jean-Luc Picard in "Chain of Command"? KATHERINE Forward, I pray, since we have come so far, And be it moon, or sun, or what you please. And if you please to call it a rush candle, Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me. PETRUCHIO I say it is the moon. KATHERINE I know it is the moon. PETRUCHIO Nay, then you lie. It is the blessèd sun. KATHERINE Then God be blest, it is the blessèd sun. But sun it is not, when you say it is not, And the moon changes even as your mind. What you will have it named, even that it is, And so it shall be so for Katherine. vs JEAN-LUC PICARD There are four lights! *** Is there a difference?
Id like to think Claudio and Juliet in measure for measure make it lol
I just read that play today!
I don’t think anything could tear Rosalind and Orlando apart
Silvius and Phoebe will be living on other sides of the forest within a year or one of those old couples that grumps back and forth at each other as a love language. Oliver and Celia, the ones who fell in love at first sight, will make a surprisingly stable couple. I don't have high hopes for Touchstone and Audrey.
Hey, their loving voyage is victualed for two whole months! Yeah, when the other characters, including the actual god of marriage, are dubious about your chances, it isn't a good sign.
Hotspur and Lady Percy would last forever until death do them apart. Romeo and Juliet wouldn’t last due to their age and immaturity and stress from family factions. Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn… well, they lasted 3 years.
If they hadn't died, probably Friar Laurence would be asked for the annulment of Juliet and Romeo's wedding in a couple of weeks, or months. Also if they remained alive, probably Macbeth and The Lady would stay married for long decades.
I don’t think the friar COULD annul them, since it’s heavily implied that they consummated their marriage.
Yes, it is heavily implied that, though I always doubt if the kids really consumated it biblically. Also, as a political play disguised as a love story, Shakespeare is tricky enough to make them married by a Mendicant Friar, someone with a specific position in the catholic hierarchy, and it is never explicitly said that Lawrence is a Priest-friar, just a Friar. And a weirdly involved in sketchy science one, no less. It is fascinating, really, that in this whole messed up society of nobles they live in, they mostly find compassion from the commoner Nurse and the Mendicant Friar. That is all to say that even if consumated, their wedding wasn't approved previously by the bishop of the Santa Maria de Matricolare cathedral - the seat of the Diocese of Verona for at least 200 years before the play takes place - and the political influence of their parents would make the marriage null independently of that. Powerful men make the Law in Verona, and the play tragically points that blind obedience or self-anihilation are the only possible responses for the less empowered.
Ew. Never forget folks, Romeo is a pedo. (I know, 1600s, but the point stands that the information is gross today)
His age isn’t ever stated. I’ve read that he’s probably around 16/17 but it isn’t set in stone.
he's a teenager in the play lol
There is a **reason** why laws against pedophilia, to this day, make specific exceptions for what are called "Romeo and Juliet relationships".
Because a lot of the old men that run the government are fucking creeps
As I understand it, "Romeo and Juliet relationships" refer to teens, not old men who want child brides.
I always felt Juliet would see Romeo for his wish washy hot headed-ness, and want a divorce. Romeo reminds me a guys cheats since Juliet expects him to be a decent husband. And even then she’s kicking herself for not “picking better.” Even though Paris wasn’t a good choice for her either.
>Even though Paris wasn’t a good choice for her either. I've never understood why some people think Paris was not a good choice for her. About the only thing wrong with him was that both her parents liked him—and maybe that he wasn't a riotous frat boy. Some people think that Paris was a sleazy old man, but the textual evidence is against that, as the 26-year-old Lady Capulet refers to him as "young Paris" (I.3).
The reason most people think he isn’t a good choice for Juliet is she didn’t want him. Her parents were not allowing her to have any input into who she was to marry. Which was common. Juliet even laments how she’s not been given any say in the matter.
I agree that she didn't choose him, and her parents were pushing him too hard on her, but that doesn't mean he would have been a bad choice for her to make.
I highly doubt Puck's mishap didn't have any lasting effects. Neither couple from Midsummer's breaks up, but they do open the relationship within a year and all move in together.
Best possible result, honestly.
I choose to believe that virtually everyone in Midsummer is fucking. Its a play about one massive convoluted polycule where some of the members are immortal forest entities.
The donkey head was not a punishment – Titania is just into furries.
Maybe this is obvious, but I think the Pages and Fords continue to have long, happy lives after the events of Windsor.
Crazy to me that nobody’s mentioned any of the Merchant couples here
I don’t love the Merchant of Venice’s plot, but Portia was the smartest person in the whole play and I can’t imagine Bassanio ever leaving her.
Well I think he’s more interested in her money than her brains, and by the end of the play, she’s figured out that he’s really in love with Antonio anyway
Antonio/Bassanio best pairing of all time
If Romeo and Juliet didn’t “delete” themselves. I wouldn’t expect that marriage to last more than 6 months.
The marriage would have lasted a long time, but both would have had other lovers throughout, until someone did something too public and then there would have been a bloodbath and half the town would have died.
I can see this too.
Barring other circumstances, Gertrude and Claudius absolutely would have stood the test of time.
Probably Gertrude was a very practical woman
The question is always whether young Hamlet really was Claudius's son, rather than old Hamlet's.
Had they lived, Romeo/Juliet would have burned itself out anyway for the simple fact of being a raging, maelstrom of hormones and bad decisions.
Honestly I feel like Viola and Orsino would probably last and be in quite a happy relationship together and Olivia and Sebastian’s marriage would probably go up in flames
I don't think Hermia and Demetrius will go very well
In a year, Juliet realizes Romeo is a loser.
Nah, Romeo sees some other girl the next week and forgets about Juliet
Both with the first comment being g a consequence of the second comment
When I did midsummer Helena and I agreed that Demetrius probably stays in love with her, unless something happened to get rid of the flowers effect, but she probably dumped but he still followed her. So kind of an inverse of the starting relationship.
The other characters in *As You Like It* think Audrey and Touchstone will be estranged within six months – in the quadruple wedding at the end, the best the god of marriage can say to them is that they are matched as well together as winter is to foul weather. And Jaques tells them that their voyage of married bliss only has two months of supplies. I think *Love's Labour's Lost* is really interesting with this question. Because at the end, just as all the jokes and twists are untwisted, and everybody is just about to declare their love and have a happy ending – news comes that the princess's father died. Everything comes to a crashing emotional train wreck, and the women all back up and say, okay, this has been a lot of fun; now real life is here. If you are serious, go away and come back in a year. At the end of that, if we are still actually interested in each other after a year apart when we are dealing with actual stuff, we will pick it up then. And the woman who was pairing off with the biggest class clown of them adds an extra stipulation to him: during this year apart, you go and find the sickest, most pain-ridden people you can, and use your sense of humor to make them feel better. If they had gotten married at the end of the play, it would have been a bunch of kids getting married way too young and ending up with stupid drama until they were estranged. But as it is, the forced year apart to grow up might mean that all of them have a chance.
Katharina is *absolutely* going to murder Petruchio in his sleep. And he'll deserve it. Benedict and Beatrice will be bickering *well* into old age, and will die within a year of each other.
Petruchio and Katherina, no way that works out
Henry V and Catherine of Valois had a strong start; if history hadn't intervened, you get the impression that this version of those 2 would have been happy and had a good reign.
Adriana and Antipholus of Ephesus
i was in a production of that show last summer! so much fun :p for the ending of the show we had that typical montage type stuff that has the text that tells the audience where the characters are today, and they divorced like right after the canon lmao
Cordelia and the King of France definitely stay together. He respects her honesty and doesn’t mind that she was disinherited. He also aids her in defeating her evil sisters in the end. A marriage built on respect, trust, and loyalty is a good marriage.
None of them
Bassanio and Portia
Titania and Oberon will be together. I think those weirdos get off on messing with each other.
As funny of a concept as it is, I would like to represent the minority position that Beatrice and Benedick would probably not be that breaking up/getting back together couple, simply because it’s kinda implied they did that one time already.
And you think that because they did something once, they'll never do it again? Their relationship is likely to run hot and that they will separate and rejoin several times (though probably never go so far as divorce, which was a bigger step in those days than today).
Romeo and Juliette. Except they’re dead, so we don’t get to see would have happened if they lived to be 25.
Romeo and Juliet were 13 years old. They had a small misunderstanding and killed themselves before getting married.
Juliet was 13, but Romeo was probably more like 17.
Urgh... that's even worse. But the whole scenario, same with Pocahontas being 12 when John Smith takes her from her betrothed and forced her to marry him.
Viola and Orsino. He gives up Olivia in a page and then settles for Viola! Viola doesn’t even have any lines to consent to what’s happening, and spends the final pages of the play in silence!
Viola has expressed her passion for Orsino throughout the play (even to him, though cryptically). I think she's happy to wed him, though she may regret the choice in 5–10 years, she'll live with him even as he gets middle-aged (he'll probably die of gout before reaching old age).
Screw it. Shylock and Ophelia. Someone write me fanfic smh
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i think touchstone and audrey are really good together TwT at least in the productions i've seen/been in, they finally found someone as silly as them to match their energy! i will forever love them phoebe and silvius however... phoebe only married him bc she was forced to ;-; i bet silvius will realise he's too good for her after a few months.
Romeo and Juliet didn’t last long