Romeo & Juliet: Married to their Graves

In this post I want to look at chastity and marriage, death and suicide, topics that tragically intersect in Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet. 

At least four characters use metaphors in which the marriage bed and the death bed overlap, starting with Juliet’s comment about Romeo at the masquerade party before she even knows who he is or whether he is single. “If he be married, My grave is like to be my wedding bed,” she says. (Act I, Scene 5, lines 148-149.) The day of the pair’s secret wedding and the untimely killing of Mercutio leading to Romeo’s banishment, Juliet hopes fervently for a wedding night with her groom before he flees, and vows that if it doesn’t happen, “I’ll to my wedding bed, And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead,” (III.2.149-150). Even after their consummation, and the charming “lark and nightingale” scene, she looks at Romeo and her “ill-divining soul” imagines seeing him in a tomb (III.5.54-57). 

That very morning, Juliet’s mother unwittingly takes up the same theme in frustration when Juliet refuses the marriage to Paris that her parents have arranged. “I would the fool were married to her grave,” (III.5.145). As the argument continues, Juliet says—in what turn out to be her final words to her mother—that if her parents insist on this marriage they may as well “make the bridal bed” in the family tomb (III.5.213). The next day when Juliet’s father discovers the apparently dead body of his daughter, he laments to Paris, the intended groom, “Death hath lain with thy wife,” (IV.5.41-45). 

Away in Mantua the banished Romeo, who has heard none of this, has his own similar—but temporarily hopeful—forebodings. “I dreamed my lady found me dead” but brought him back to life as an emperor with her kisses, (V.1.6-10) Don’t miss the irony of what will actually happen soon as a result of Juliet kissing Romeo when she finds him dead! And of course within a few lines, Romeo will have heard the report of Juliet’s ostensible death, and will promise, “Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight,” (5.1.37). 

Suicide

Several of the lovers’ statements just cited imply or directly state that suicide will be the solution to their dilemma. This is probably the most problematic element of the play for Christian readers/ viewers and suggests that while the young people are honest and earnest about their love, and respectful of marriage and sexual fidelity as we shall see, they are immature in their understanding of God’s wisdom, love, and ability to provide the solutions for their problems.

Friar Lawrence, as the voice of the church and Christian orthodoxy, vehemently warns Romeo against “doing damned hate upon thyself” (III.3.128). Meanwhile Juliet is considering her own alternatives and clearly including suicide among them, (III.5.255). As soon as she can meet with Lawrence, she tells him she will kill herself if he has no better solution (IV.5.55-68) and even as she privately prepares to put the Friar’s scheme into effect, she sets the suicide knife at hand as the back-up plan (IV. 3.24).

Romeo, of course, makes specific provision for his death (V.1.37-91) calling the lethal liquid that he will swallow a “cordial [stimulating drink] and not poison” (line 90). When he does drink the mixture, it is in the style of a toast, “Here’s to my love,” (V.3.119). Both lovers have treated suicide as brave and virtuous under their circumstances, ignoring or unable to grasp the warning of Friar Lawrence or the reality of God’s sovereignty.

A High View of Chastity

I’ve addressed the point in a previous post that Juliet has a high moral standard when it comes to sexuality, and that Romeo, if he did not have one before meeting Juliet (think about I.1.216-232) certainly does after meeting her. See “Romeo & Juliet: Sexual Propriety and Impropriety,” dated 4-24-12, and “Sexual Morality” dated 7-22-10. Notice how Romeo in II.2.1 pivots quickly away from Mercutio’s bawdy joking about Romeo’s attraction to Rosalind (by then a non-issue anyway) and into the stark contrast of the famous, innocent garden and balcony scene. The young man is, on the one hand, covertly peeping in at this girl late at night from her back yard, but his private fantasy goes like this: “Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek,” (II.2.25-26). Later, in one of his most sensitive utterances in the play, he describes the “vestal modesty” of her kisses (III.3.39-41). Even the couple’s very brief “wooing scene” is an exchange of word play on religious terminology—shrine, pilgrims, saints, prayer, purging of sins (I.5.104-121).

A High View of Marriage

It should naturally follow that high respect for chastity means high respect for marriage as well, and in Romeo & Juliet it does. Draw your own conclusions as you survey statements made by the lovers and by Friar Lawrence in the following lines: III.2. 133-155, II.3.64-65, II.6.36-37, III.5.217-220, IV.1.56-60, 89-90. Of course, these good marital intentions on the part of all three characters are flawed by the haste and secrecy in which the marriage is entered, and that may well be the central explanation for why the story ends so tragically. At the same time that we take into account the extraordinary circumstances of the feud between the two households that drives the risky choices that are made, we can take from the play the kind of lesson that all tragedies are supposed to convey. In this case it seems to be a caution against ignoring the “unchanging counsel of God” in decision making. Psalm 33:11 promises, “The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart from generation to generation.” The corresponding warning is in Psalm 106:13, “They quickly forgot His works; they did not wait for His counsel.”