Was Romeo and Juliet's "romance" something normal in Shakespeare's time?

I think “Romeo and Juliet” was an allegory about human prejudice and ignorance.

I doubt it was any more typical for children of disparate families to fall in love then than it is now.

No. If it was normal, the story would’ve been meaningless.

The stories involving falling in love with the wrong soul are as old as stories and love themselves.

Arranged marriages were common throughout Europe up until the nineteenth century.

Well a couple of star crossed teenagers getting hitched wasn’t uncommon in those times when most people were dead by their 30’s. Juliet was not even 14 years old and Romeos age was never mentioned but probably mid teens, maybe 16–17?

The notion of love transcending familial, racial, political and religious conflicts is age old and will never ever go away as long as hatred for others outside their internal beliefs still exists.

Make sure to create an outline for this work or the car you speak of is headed for a cliff.

Because of the culture that prevailed – and still prevails in many parts of the world and across many cultures – “dating” was an unknown concept. Yes, we know that arranged marriages were and are still common, but maybe it’s not so well known that there was almost no chance for unmarried adolescents of the opposite sex to mix and mingle. Dating, mixers, dances (except at infrequent holiday festivals, for example) and parties of young people just didn’t happen. It’s not that people would not have done those things; they just weren’t part of their ken. For example, when was the last time you thought of eating a meal underwater? “It’s just not done.”

But obviously adolescent boys and adolescent girls could know of each other, might have a chance to see each other in passing or in other social settings, and who knows what sets off the spark for a chance meeting to result in both of them desperately wanting the other as a partner for life?

Captain from Castile, a potboiler novel by Samuel Shellabarger written in the 1940s, also described the arc of this kind of relationship, how it might begin and suggesting different ways in which it might end. Not great literature, but a fun read; I recommend it on that basis.

No, it wasn’t normal. Part of the conflict is that Juliet departs from normalcy by abandoning her engagement to Paris. But in any case, Romeo and Juliet wasn’t meant to be a depiction of contemporary society. It was a retelling of Pyramus and Thisbe, which was itself a retelling of a previous story. And all three stories were intended to be about the impulsiveness and stupidity of teenagers. They are not meant to be love stories.

It’s important to note that these are also stories focused on members of the upper class. Courtship among the lower classes would have been different.