There was more to The Texas Billionaire's Pregnant Bride: An Evolutionary Interpretation of Romance Fiction Titles than a few tables of statistics suggesting women like babies, commitment, money and men from the rural southern states of America, although the majority of the paper did seem devoted to suggesting that. Amongst all the data and well-educated conclusive opinions hid a few paragraphs that attempted to make sense of the grandest question of all, the conundrum that has riddled generations for generations. Why do our collective female population keep buying these terrible books and is the answer more complicated than that many women buy romance novels for the same reason that many men watch Zack Synder movies? Simply put, the human species is really lousy and we are all doomed.
Not so, say Anthony Cox and Maryanne Fisher, or, more likely, not just that. On page two of their paper they enter into the nitty gritty of examining the inexplicably enduring success of the genre. They quote Deborah Camp, from Rita Gallagher and Rita Clay Estrada's Writing Romances: A Handbook by the Romance Writers of America, to help point out that said novels help to satisfy an 'insatiable appetite for love in all its guises.' Not all of its guises, of course, merely the most idealised, joyous and treasured kind of eternal love that knows only easily-surmountable, amateurishly-contrived obstacles, and only love as it is first discovered to then flourish most brightly against all the odds between very beautiful people in a series of expensive and exotic locations. 'Past analyses of romance novels have extensively relied upon socio-cultural interpretations. For example, Camp writes, '(The) stories appeal to females because they teach lessons of nurturing, of aspiring, of following your heart, and of finding success.''
This is correct, but the attribution is over-simplified. Stories with female protagonists learning, daring to dream and being rewarded for enterprising behaviour are not exclusive to the romance genre, albeit a heroine's tale usually revolves around sex-specific mating interests and therefore will invariably concern love and reproduction. Yet how about those age-old tales of small-town girls heading to the big city with dreams of a career in the lucrative, empowering business of dance or musical theatre, where they inevitably struggle against mean-spirited, bitchy rivals and only find support in the cultivating arms of an attractive male, usually portrayed on film by Cam Gigandet's torso? Speaking of patriarchal interpretations to further denigrate feminist principles that women can be more than mothers, nightclub dancers and wives, there's also this. 'Feminist scholars such as Germaine Greer propose that the stories reflect women’s acceptance of their “chains of bondage” to patriarchy rather than their true selves. Likewise, Brownmiller, when talking about the occurrence of sex in romance novels, states, “the fantasies are usually the product of male conditioning” rather than an accurate reflection of women’s true desires. Modelski contends that the books provide an “outlet for female resentment” whereby heroines rebel against male authority figures.'
Bewildered Heart has sensibly steered clear of this debate for fear of revealing an embarrassing misconstruction of feminism. More importantly, however, we don't wish to guide the weblog away from its original intention of making fun of romance novels. Nevertheless, such subject matter can only be ignored for so long until accusations of misogyny or stupidity are heard from the many readers of the site. The central argument of The Texas Billionaire's Pregnant Bride is that the novel titles accurately reflect women's true desires, and as the majority of the authors are women either they are held down by these chains of bondage (Surely only in Mills & Boon Spice!) and are not manifestly free from male oppression or these stories are female fantasies and should be merited as proof of psychological evolution or dismissed as unadulterated fairy-tales that should not be taken seriously. As those who believe in evolution can attest to current human philosophies of life and aspiration represent our true selves and only the dismantling of romance literature, entertainment, magazines and centuries of religion, capitalism, and whatever else is happening out there, will bring about definitive change to thought processes and stop women from aspiring towards what they already aspire to.
Are Mills & Boon authors holding humanity back with out-dated fantasies entirely constructed around the desires of males, and if so, why are all men written as commitment-phobic and chivalrous for the initial one hundred and eighty pages? Is the alternative more likely, that the authors are merely feeding into the hopes that already exist and that a gorgeous, wealthy, sturdy, physically-immaculate man with dark, enigmatic eyes, ridiculously long, thick eyelashes and no visible signs of pattern balding is the evolutionary goal for every woman, and as the basis for a genre of fiction is more offensive to the emasculated male of the species unaware of these books than the ladies who read them, foolish and misguided enough to form any unrealistic expectations from their titles, covers or contents?
Besides this, 'These interpretations do not satisfactorily explain why romance novels, and Harlequins in particular, have remained so incredibly popular across time and cultures.' Too right, Cox and Fisher. The Feminists are free to their righteous intolerance, but frankly they are not helping to answer the initial proposition. 'An alternative explanation is that these novels are consistently addressing topics that have universal appeal to women. Evolutionary psychology offers insight into human universals, and suggests that women and men have sex-specific mating dilemmas.' We couldn't have put it better ourselves. Perhaps male conditioning can be interpreted as human nature and we, as people, are naturally predisposed to procreate to further our family trees. Harlequin and Mills & Boon take this evolutionary impulse, slap a seductive title and photograph on the cover and call it pure reading pleasure. Likewise, we have even evolved to finding a sense of humour and a picturesque, though nonsensical, green map background attractive so even bitter and unwanted websites are able to sow their seeds through links.
'Across cultures, women tend to be the primary caregivers. Furthermore, women have notably lower limits on the number of children that they can have, as compared to men. These differences have led evolutionary psychologists to propose that women tend to seek commitment from their mates, and prefer mates who have a propensity to accrue resources since they will need these resources while they tend to the children. Therefore, we propose that a better interpretation for the success of Harlequin romance novels is that the books are addressing women’s sex-specific, evolved, mating interests,' explain Cox and Fisher, although they cannot specifically argue that the romance publishers, or their readers, are overtly aware of this. In truth, it matters not, because evolution has defined our idea of a happy ending and despite this doing little to explain what words men look for in book titles, it does at least help us resolve that nagging issue of why women read Mills & Boon by the truckload, and that's because they are evolutionarily predisposed to do so for the benefit of humankind. Therefore, to malign the genre, and the weblogs that have resulted from its existence, and to call for its end, is not only feather-brained it is practically apocalyptic.
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