Love and Marriage in A Midsummer Night's DreamThere is something to be said for the passionate love of young people, and Shakespeare l 'said in Romeo and Juliet. The belief that any action can be excused if one follows one's feelings is a sentimental notion not endorsed by Shakespeare. Thus, Theseus' suggestion in § 1.1 of A Midsummer Night's Dream that Hermia should marry a man she does not love rather than "live a barren sister" all her life would seem to make perfect sense to contemporaries of Shakespeare. Shakespeare writes for an audience that views marriage without sentimentality. . At all levels of society, from king to commoner, marriage is entered into for commercial and dynastic reasons. People marry to increase their assets and secure their inheritance. Discerning parents, who can dispose of their children in marriage, will of course endeavor to avoid marriages which the contracting parties find intolerable, but there are limits to this. On the other hand, children have a duty of obedience. And the husband that Aegeus proposes to Hermia is by no means unattractive; his main fault is that he is not Lysander, whom Hermia loves, perhaps in an intemperate way. The play shows how the ideal relationship is one in which the affections and the reasonable mind are in harmony. At the beginning of the play, Demetrius and Helena are clearly at fault. Demetrius allowed his love for Helena to diminish; she, by flattering him, is guilty of adoration, which exacerbates his aversion. An honorable man would keep his promise and attempt to rediscover his love for Helena, and this is what prompts Lysander's taunt that Demetrius is "stained and fickle." In time, perhaps, Demetrius might reconsider Helena's merits, but in the brief moment...... middle of paper ... "with mud", for example; we learn of "the furthest slope of India," of Oberon's various favorites. Against the beautiful, lyrical and exotic tale of the changeling's pregnant mother, we have the warm cheerfulness of Puck's pranks about the "fat, bean-fed horse" or "the wisest aunt." Oberon gives us numerous descriptions of settings: of the "bank on which wild thyme blows", of the "beautiful vestal virgin" that Cupid's shaft failed to reach, and of Titania "seeking sweet favors for this hateful fool” (bottom), among others. Here Shakespeare shows us what can be. “in this manner,” lest the failure of Pyramus and Thisbe lead us to the conclusion that theater can only represent what can be literally staged. it should be remembered that it was first performed in open-air theaters, in broad daylight!