Even though Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet suggests that teenagers can handle marriage and aren’t infatuated, much of today’s teens are mistaking love and marriage with infatuation.
Although in Shakespearean times life expectancy was short and teens had to get started early in life, Romeo and Juliet’s relationship suggest otherwise: “‘Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet,/ and she, there dead, that Romeo’s faithful wife’” (Shakespeare 5.3 241 - 242). Their relationship went to fast and over a couple days the couple ended up dead. Along with Friar Lawrence’s remark about their relationship, he also mentions, “‘So soon forsaken? Young men’s love then lies/ Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes’” (Shakespeare 2.3 71-72). As Friar Lawrence suggests Romeo’s love is only from his eyes and not truly love for a relationship. After all, only a day had passed after …show more content…
An instance of teen marriage and infatuation occured in Afghanistan: “The trouble started this summer, when Rafi Mohammed, 17, and his girlfriend, Halima Mohammedi, who thinks she’s 17*, were spotted together in a car in Herat… a group of men yanked them out into the road and interrogated them: Why were they together? An angry crowd of 300 surged around the couple, calling them adulterers and demanding they be stoned to death or hanged” (Healy). In our modern day society, teens mistake love with infatuation. Rafi and Halima became infatuated and brought trouble upon themselves when they began their “adventure”. Infatuation is described as “Infatuation gives you goosebumps. It puts that silly smile on your face that you can't seem to shake. It fills your mind with wonderful daydreams” (Sexuality Resource Center for Parents). Teenagers like Rafi Mohammed and Halima Mohammedi are given that “silly smile” everytime, as well as Romeo and