Juliet is the Better Lover Essay

Romeo and Juliet is Shakespeare’s greatest love story. With all the characters mixed up in love, hate, war and friendship, the bard’s tale spearheads a current debate on whether Romeo or Juliet was the better lover. This paper attempts to prove why Juliet is by far the better lover compared to Romeo. Experts have reason to believe that Romeo and Juliet were actually juveniles. Romeo was fourteen and Juliet was thirteen. This was evident in Elizabethan royalties where sons and daughters of the rich found themselves pre-arranged to sons and daughter of the same class. Girls were allowed to marry as young as 12. Between Romeo and Juliet, Juliet sacrificed more because she had to pursue her love to Romeo given the fact that she was a girl and was the younger of lover. Being a woman, much less a girl during the Elizabethan times meant following very strict rules. Breaking of these rules meant dishonor, disgrace and punishment from her parents. Although the Romeo deserves the same fate from his parents, the gender difference makes all the difference. â€Å"Elizabethan Women were totally dominated by the male members of their family. They were expected to instantly obey not only their father but also their brothers and any other male members of the family. The punishment for disobey was the whipping stool – the Elizabethan girls were beaten into submission and disobedience was seen as a crime against their religion. † (2005) Of the many definitions of love, Scott Peck describes it in his book The Road Less Traveled as; â€Å"The will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth. † (Peck, 1978) In this definition between Juliet and Romeo, it is Juliet who has extended herself. Trusting her life to the poison of the priest, she totally follows the plan hoping that through her sacrifice, Romeo and herself can live happily ever after. During those times when total faith is expected and practiced in society, the belief in earthly concoctions is almost equal to belief in witches’ ways. But because of her love for Romeo, Juliet allows her heartbeat to stop for three days choosing a life with her Romeo than a well-off life with her parents and Paris. Compared to the sacrifice of Romeo and Juliet, it is Juliet’s sacrifice that can be considered weighty because she became consistent with her selflessness for her lover. Romeo couldn’t sacrifice his vengeance for his friend who was killed by Juliet’s cousin which made the turns in the story. If love is self-sacrifice then Romeo is a better lover because he killed himself for the love of Juliet but love is not self-sacrifice per se. Love is the act of expanding oneself so that one could evolve from something to something better. To note, Juliet died twice for her Romeo. The first time was when she drank the poison and the second time was when she stabbed herself. So in the matter of the number of times the lovers tried to kill themselves for the love of the lover, it is still Juliet that outnumbered Romeo. She not only outnumbered Romeo in the time she killed herself but in the ways she did it. Romeo only used the poison once but Juliet used the poison and used the dagger to lead her to bleed to death upon her realization that her Romeo was dead. Juliet is the better lover because she was the first one who had to endure a lover’s loss. When Romeo was banished, she grieved for her Romeo more than for her cousin. If Romeo did not instantly grieve the death of his friend, maybe Juliet’s cousin would still be alive, but then again the greatest love story would not have been told. Romeo grieved for Juliet only upon knowing of her death, which made very dramatic and weighty due to his committing suicide. However, the drama did not climax at the end of his suicide but it further gained heights when Juliet took the dagger and impaled it into her chest. â€Å"Suicide is not something that happens for a simple reason. It is impossible to rap up in a nutshell the many reasons a person may want to die. The reasons for suicide range from critical injury and fatal illness to momentary sadness or a sudden and emotionally jarring shock. Some reasons may seem logical (if you are in pain and dying anyway, why prolong the suffering? ) while others seem ridiculous (a crush dumped on you in front of friends and you feel humiliated) but whatever the reason, to the person thinking of suicide, they are unbearable. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of suicides are the result of a complex combination of circumstances, emotions and a psyche in turmoil. † (Hardcastle, 2007) For Juliet, it was definitely a combination of perplexities during that very moment. But surely among them, she had the option of just continuing her life free of anything and everything. She could start anew because she was dead to her parents and families anyway. However, since she was also young and in shock about the death of her Romeo, the dagger was a quick solution to make her be eternally together with Romeo. Juliet definitely chose love. Physiologically, Juliet is more capable of being the better lover. At fourteen, boys will be boys as could be proven by the rage Romeo had when his enemy killed his friend. The clouding of the mind, never mind if he was about to kill his bride’s cousin but the rage of testosterone controlled Romeo. There are physiological differences between girls and boys that would prove their capability of experiencing true and mature love, as explained by Dr. Gurian, 1999. 1. Adolescent boys are four times more likely to be diagnosed as emotionally disturbed than adolescent girls. Given this, Romeo most likely had decided to kill himself but that decision may have been influenced with disturbed thoughts. 2. Adolescent males are four times as likely to commit suicide as adolescent females. Given this data, the suicide of Romeo would not count so much as Juliet’s suicide due to gender difference. 3. Adolescent males are routinely found to channel other primary feelings; hurt, pain, grief, into anger. Given this, there would be a possibility for Romeo to have committed suicide due to anger at the whole world than due to love for Juliet. 4. Adolescent boys are 15 times as likely as adolescent females to be victims of violent crime. Adolescent boys commit violent crime at a higher rate than adult offenders. Given this data, the suicide of Romeo does not count more in intensity than Juliet in terms of the violence confronting the adolescents. The shock, fear, courage and other emotions of putting the dagger towards her heart has more weight due to the gender difference. 5. Millions of adolescent boys experience post-traumatic stress due to family, cultural, and socio-economic situations. A post-traumatic boy is ten times more likely than his female peer to act out in a way that is dangerous to another person. Proving who the better lover is most difficult but like in any debate, the definitions must be stated clearly. For this paper, love has been defined as the act of self-sacrifice in the most mature circumstances. Love is an act where a person would consistently show in her actions and decisions that she is bound to another because she wishes the other person expansion of himself with her along with him. The sacrifice of Juliet comes early on in the play as can be taken from the excerpt; â€Å"O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name, or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I’ll no longer be a Capulet. † The line illustrates that Juliet will decide not to be Capulet if Romeo do not relinquish his name. This decision also illustrates how Juliet was ready to sacrifice her whole identity just for the sake of her lover. Maybe, for Romeo to become the better lover, he should have been more mature than Juliet. Meantime, the bard’s tale is a unique example of truly big women’s capacity to love is. References: †¦. , 2007. Elizabethan Women. http://www. william-shakespeare. info/elizabethan-women. htm Peck, Scott. M. MD. 1978. The Road Less Travelled. P. 81. Touchstone New York Hardcastle, Mike. 2007. Teen Advice. http://teenadvice. about. com/mbiopage. htm Gurian, Michael. PhD. 1999. Ten things each of us should know about adolescent boys.