The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast 16th and 20th Century ideas about love and marriage as portrayed in the 1989 film AWhen Harry Met Sally@ and the 1998 film AShakespeare in Love.@
In both the 16th and 20th Centuries, marriage is only legally binding when sanctioned by the state. In Elizabethan times the Queen or monarchy was the state, as portrayed in AShakespeare in Love.@ Although the institution of marriage in Western culture underwent tremendous changes in the 20th Century, marriage still must be authorized by the state. Whether the marriage ceremony is civil or legal, the person performing the marriage must say, Aby the power invested in me by the state of...I now pronounce you husband and wife.@ Therefore, in both the 16th and 20th centuries, marriage is essentially a social practice reflecting the purposes and character of the society of its time. The concept of romantic love as the key foundation for the institution of marriage is a modern idea. In AShakespeare in Love@ the young lovers Will(Joseph Fiennes) and Viola (Gwyneth Paltrow) have a passionate love affair outside of marriage; he is married and she is engaged to another man. Their love affair, however, is doomed and they are star-crossed lovers like Romeo and Juliet. Unlike Romeo and Juliet, Will and Viola=s love is doomed because of the differences in their social classes and the interests of the state. Will Shakespeare is a penniless, rising young writer of the lower classes. Viola is a noblewoman and she must marry Lord Wessex (Colin Firth) at the command of her father as well as of Queen Elizabeth (Judi Dench). Viola has no choice. In the 16th Century, marriages were not love matches but social, political and economic matches.
In the last part of the 20th century, marriages were considered love matches, and when couples were no longer in love, society basically approved of divorce. Such a concept was irrelevant in the 16th Centu...