SOURCE: Goldstein, Martin. “The Tragedy of Old Capulet: A Patriarchal Reading of Romeo and Juliet.” English Studies 77, no. 3 (May 1996): 227-39.

In the following essay, Goldstein suggests that the driving force of the play is not the ancient feud between the Capulets and Montagues, but rather a conflict internal to the Capulet family, specifically, the disagreement between Capulet and Lady Capulet over who and when Juliet should marry.

‘I know not how Capulet and his Lady might agree, their ages were very disproportionate; he has been past masking for thirty years, and her age, as she tells Juliet … is but eight and twenty’.

Samuel Johnson, in Notes to the Plays

Romeo and Juliet provides the paradigm—or myth, in one sense of the word—of a love affair between members of rival houses caught up in the implacable hostility of a feud. Versions of this myth have appeared in...