ABSTRACT
The family and tribe are humanity's oldest and most enduring institutions. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet provides a compellingly powerful observation of the collision course between the fragility and fickleness of the individual's will and the sturdiness of families. Insofar as his corpus constantly contrasts loving service with selfishness and pride, he is a thoroughly Christian playwright dedicated to ever reminding of the Christian alternative to tragedy. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare brings out the difference between the love that is required to build up a family and romantic passion. The virtues required for marriage are patience and obligation—romantic love has no time for these virtues. Indeed, romantic love wants to storm the gates of time, those gates which make separation from the beloved unbearable, and which would transform passion into the more durable form of constancy. The Christian view of society conceives us all as potentially loving and hence suffering servants of each other.
