Friar Lawrence's Bad Choices

"Wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast."(II.iii.)

Although Friar Lawrence isn't one of the more important characters in Romeo and Juliet, without him, the story would be altered quite a bit. Friar Lawrence makes a lot of decisions that change the entire course of the story. For example, marrying Romeo and Juliet. Friar Lawrence was the adult in this situation. When Romeo came to his cell and begged him to wed him to Juliet, Friar could have easily said no. He could have told Romeo that he was just a stupid teenager pining over the "loss" of Rosalie. He could have told Romeo that he didn't want to go against what the families wanted and marry them without approval. By doing this Friar Lawrence just set himself up for disaster. He had made the relationship between Romeo and Juliet official. They were not just "two star-struck lovers" anymore. Now they were husband and wife. Another bad choice of Friar Lawrence's was making the plan for Romeo to go to Mantua after he was banished. If Romeo had hid out in Friar Lawrence's cell for a few days and then gone to the Capulet tomb and gotten Juliet, then there never would even have had to be the issue of getting Romeo a letter. However, Friar Lawrence doesn't think too far ahead. Romeo heads out to Mantua so he never gets the letter telling him that Juliet is still alive. He, of course, thinks she is dead and kills himself because he cannot be with her. Then Juliet awakes. She see that Romeo is dead and then our star, Friar Lawrence comes running in telling her to come with him and he will take her away to the nunnery and everything will be fine. Juliet, of course, doesn't follow him, and kills herself with Romeo's dagger. if Friar Lawrence had taken his time and thought about his actions before he actually did them, we wouldn't have ended up with two suicidal teenagers. Unless I'm just completely off and he planned so far ahead that he knew the families would make up after their kids died. That's another option.