Juliet

Juliet Capulet is the female protagonist in William Shakespeare's romantic tragedy Romeo and Juliet. A 13-year-old girl, Juliet is the only daughter of the patriarch of the House of Capulet. She falls in love with the male protagonist Romeo, a member of the House of Montague, with which the Capulets have a blood feud. The story has a long history that precedes Shakespeare himself. Juliet's age As the story occurs, Juliet is approaching her fourteenth birthday. She was born on "Lammas Eve at night" (1 August), so Juliet's birthday is 31 July (1.3.19). Her birthday is "a fortnight hence", putting the action of the play in mid-July (1.3.17). Her father states that she "hath not seen the change of fourteen years" (1.2.9). In many cultures and time periods, women married and had children at a young age. Lady Capulet had given birth to her first child by the time she had reached Juliet's age: "By my count, I was your mother much upon these years that you are now a maid." (1.3.74–75). Even Capulet tries to encourage Count Paris, a wealthy suitor, to wait a little longer before even thinking of marrying his daughter, feeling that she is still too young; "She hath not seen the change of fourteen years, Let two more summers wither in their pride, Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride". However, in the English poem the story is based on (Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke) Juliet is approaching her sixteenth birthday and Romeo is the same age whereas in the Bandello novella she is nearly eighteen with Romeo about twenty. The common English people of that age were very rarely in their teens when they married and even among the nobility and gentry of the age, brides 13 years of age were rare, at about one in 1,000 brides; in that era, the vast majority of English brides were at least 19 years of age when they first married, most commonly at about 23 years, and most English noblewomen were at least 16 when they married. That the parts of young women were played by pre-adolescent boys in Shakespeare's day also cannot be overlooked; it is possible that Shakespeare had the physique of a young boy in mind during composition, in addition to the fact that Romeo and Juliet are of wealthy families and would be more likely to marry earlier than commoners.