Renaissance Verona · Shakespeare's play, c. 1597
Romeo & Juliet
The universal archetype of forbidden love
The teenage lovers of two feuding families whose deaths became the universal archetype of forbidden love.
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Category
Forbidden love
To love against the world
Quick answer
Forbidden love is born where family, class, religion or law say no. From Romeo and Juliet to Selena and Chris Pérez, these are the stories where loving was an act of rebellion.
Love stories
7th-c. Arabian legend · Nizami's poem, 1188
Layla & Majnun
The poet driven mad by love
The poet driven mad with love for Layla, married off to another by force; his longing became a Sufi allegory of the soul seeking God.
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Portugal · 14th century
Inês de Castro & Pedro I
The queen crowned after death
The lover murdered on the orders of the king's father, whom Pedro — once king — by legend exhumed and crowned queen after death.
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France · 12th century
Abelard & Heloise
The most famous love letters of the Middle Ages
The philosopher-teacher Abelard and his brilliant student Heloise; their love produced a son and a secret marriage that ended in castration and religious life — and in some of history's most celebrated love letters.
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USA (Tejano) · eloped in 1992
Selena & Chris Pérez
Amor prohibido, the Tejano anthem
The Queen of Tejano and her band's guitarist defied her father Abraham's disapproval and eloped on April 2, 1992; she was murdered on March 31, 1995, at 23.
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UK / USA · 1930s
Edward VIII & Wallis Simpson
He gave up a throne for love
King Edward VIII signed the abdication on December 10, 1936 to marry the twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson, declaring he could not reign "without the help and support of the woman I love."
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China · Han-dynasty origin
The Cowherd & the Weaver Girl
A bridge of magpies once a year
The mortal cowherd (star Altair) and the heavenly weaver girl (star Vega), separated by the Milky Way and reunited once a year, on the 7th day of the 7th lunar month, by a bridge of magpies.
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Inca world, Peru
Ollantay & Cusi Coyllur
The Inca love with a happy ending
The common-born general Ollantay loves Cusi Coyllur ("Joyful Star"), daughter of emperor Pachacútec; rebuffed for not being royal, he rebels for a decade while she is imprisoned, until the new emperor pardons and reunites them.
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China · Eastern Jin
The Butterfly Lovers
The Romeo and Juliet of China
Zhu disguises herself as a man to study; Liang never realizes she is a woman; she is betrothed to another; he dies of heartbreak and she throws herself into his grave, from which they emerge as butterflies.
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Medieval legend · 12th century
Tristan & Isolde
The potion that doomed two lovers
The knight who escorts Isolde to marry his uncle, King Mark; on the voyage they mistakenly drink a love potion and fall into an impossible passion that destroys them.
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Arthurian legend · 12th century
Lancelot & Guinevere
The love that toppled Camelot
The greatest knight of the Round Table and Queen Guinevere, King Arthur's wife: an adulterous love that, once discovered, sinks the ideal kingdom of Camelot.
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Argentina · 1847–1848
Camila O’Gorman & Ladislao Gutiérrez
A socialite and a priest, shot for love
The young Buenos Aires socialite and the Jesuit priest who fell in love, fled together in 1847, and were captured and executed by firing squad on Rosas's orders in 1848 — Camila eight months pregnant.
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Greek myth
Paris & Helen
The face that launched a thousand ships
The Trojan prince Paris abducts — or seduces — Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world and wife of the king of Sparta, igniting the Trojan War.
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Spain · 13th-century legend
The Lovers of Teruel
A kiss that came a day too late
Penniless Diego leaves for five years to earn the right to marry Isabel; he returns a day too late, when she has already wed. He dies of grief and she dies kissing him over his coffin.
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Babylonian myth · Ovid
Pyramus & Thisbe
The love that spoke through a crack in the wall
Two Babylonian neighbors forbidden to love by their families, who whisper through a crack in the wall; a tragic misunderstanding leads them to a double suicide, sixteen centuries before Romeo and Juliet.
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Colombia · "Pasión de gavilanes", 2003
Juan & Norma
Passion, revenge and three brothers
The Reyes brother who approaches Norma Elizondo to avenge his sister and ends up hopelessly in love: the most scorching telenovela of the new millennium.
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Why are we so drawn to forbidden love?
Because it pits desire against duty. The obstacle — the feuding family, the law, the class divide — makes the love more intense and turns it into myth. It is the oldest narrative engine in culture.