/karen/

The problem of romance

Tuesday, 29 April, 2003

I'm thinking through the issue of romance. I mean “romance” in its contemporary sense—romance as in chick flicks (Ever After, When Harry Met Sally and Bridget Jones's Diary), fairy tales (Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast and The Seven Swans), Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, candlelit dinners, walks along the beach at sunset, serenades by moonlight and surprise notes that say, “I love you”.

Here's what I've been thinking about:

On the one hand, I'm reading about Irene's struggles to break an addiction to romance novels. I'm finding her entries heaps encouraging as she brings this area of sin under the lordship of Jesus.

On the other hand, I am evaluating one of my own habits which has to do with self-control and the mind. I can be quite restless and am always trying to find something to occupy my brain—especially during those moments before sleep when you're just lying there with your eyes closed, trying to drift off but often not quite succeeding. I tend to make up stories and plot them along in my head, often picking up where I left off the last time or going back and revising what I previously “wrote”. The stories are usually quite formulaic and they involve a boy and a girl and the aim is to get them to fall in love with each other and marry. All sorts of other variables come into play; he might be a prince and she might be a servant; they both might be students at a fencing school; she might be a vagabond that he happens to run into while travelling. The setting is usually not realistic but the stuff of fairy tales—castles, mountains, forests, rivers—but magic isn't part of the landscape. I am aware that there are dangers in this sort of occupation but sometimes I think I can avoid them. I'm not sure if the practice is something that I should be giving up altogether.

On the other other hand, I have just finished reading The Single Issue (also known as Singles at the Crossroads) by Al Hsu which has a chapter called “Rethinking Romance”. He writes,

We must ... recognize that the concept of romantic love is a relatively late development in history. One scholar writes, ‘The idea of romantic love itself should be recognized as a late, rare, and morally dubious product of Western society, which in many cases does more to destroy marriages than to preserve them.’ Clapp agrees:

It is only since the Middle Ages that romantic love has been prized as an ideal, the sine qua non for marriage and the fully vital human life. Marriage in history has more typically been arranged between families than chosen merely by a man and a woman ‘in love’. In fact, in most of Western history the sweeping intensity, confusion and absorption of what we have come to know as romantic love was considered a misfortune.

For example, while modern-day readers might see Romeo and Juliet as the epitome of romantic love stories, we ought to remember that Shakespeare classified the play not as a romance but as a tragedy. He titled it The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. The story does not glorify the wonder of romantic love. Instead it depicts its dangers. Two starry-eyed teenagers fall in love and kill themselves because of it. The conclusion of the matter is, ‘For never was a story of more woe/Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.’ This is no romantic fairytale of ‘happily ever after’. Shakespeare was not depicting the beauty of romantic love but rather the emotional dangers of being in love too much. Romeo and Juliet shows how romantic love, when taken to an extreme, can cause destruction and tragedy.

Hsu goes on to talk about three different stories in the Bible that “illustrate the dangers of romantic love”: Samson and Delilah (Judges 16), David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11), and Amnon and Tamar (2 Samuel 13). Then he states,

We must refuse to accept the idolatry of romantic love. When love songs on the radio proclaim ‘You're all I need,’ we must rebuke that statement as misleading and untrue. We are multi-faceted, complex beings, and no one person can ever meet al our psychological, emotional, intellectual and social expectations or needs. It is simply impossible ...

Even later on in the same chapter, he says,

While pornography may tend to be a typically male temptation, a female equivalent could be called ‘emotional pornography’. What visual pictures of scantily clad women do for men, romantic novels and soap operas can do for women. Both can be just as unhealthy. ‘The romantic image of the damsel swept off her feet by the white knight is no more realistic than the pornographic image of the inexperienced prude turned sex-crazed woman by a macho man.’ An addiction to romantic novels can be just as destructive as addiction to visual forms of pornography, consuming time and money and masking emotional pain or the lack of a real love relationship.

Al Hsu, The Single Issue, Inter-Varsity Press, 1997, p. 158-9, 160, 172-3.

Whoa, that's very strong language! But is it really fair to put Cinderella on the same level as Playboy? Is watching Bridget Jones's Diary just as destructive as watching Confessions of a Sadomasochist? I did what I usually do when I can't work something out or just want to think aloud—I talked to Ben. We had a very strange conversation and, according to my flawed memory, it went something like this:

Karen: Do you think that it's bad to watch romantic movies like Bridget Jones's Diary and Serendipity?

Ben: It's unhelpful.

Karen: Why?

Ben: Because they make people think that love is all about how you feel so you should find someone who makes you feel good. It's a lie.

Karen: So ... what about romance in marriage? Is there a place for it?

Ben: In marriage, it's not romance. It's “delight”. Delighting in the other person.

Karen: So ... is there a place for doing romantic things in marriage? Like walking along the beach at sunset or giving surprise gifts?

Ben: Only if it's for the purposes of delight.

Karen: What do you mean?

Ben: If you're doing it to enjoy the other person, then it's for delight.

Later on I asked Ben if he thought that romantic movies were a form of “emotional pornography” for women. He said he'd have to think about it.

I guess what I am really wanting to know is

1. Is romance bad? In "Christian Romance Novels—confessions of an ex-reader", Louise Jonker says that there are two problems with the romance genre: a) they give you unrealistic expectations about relationships and romance and b) they make the wedding your idol and encourage you to see the wedding as your “primary goal” in life. She writes, “Just once I'd like to read one that starts post-wedding, and deals with the real grit of staying married, or about a girl who decided to stay single (1 Cor 7:25-26). It seems that people are pretty good at getting together—the thing we need help with is staying together.” She does have a point; it is awful to think of life as being fun up until and during the wedding, but then, afterwards, it's no fun anymore. I don't want to be part of society's ethos which seems to regard marriage as being largely unattractive (nagging wives, boarish husbands, years and years of endless tedium).
2. If romance is bad, what should I be doing about it? It's no secret that I'm fond of the genre. I don't have an addiction to romance novels (which I regard as trash and badly-written—the greatest crime ever!) but I do like reading books and watching films with romantic plot elements. If you take a look at my favourite things, you'll see that one of my favourite movies is When Harry Met Sally and one of my favourite books is Beauty by Robin McKinley (of which I own three copies). If romance is bad, should I eliminate these things from my life? Should I never watch another romantic comedy ever again? Should I burn or give away my books? Should I stop plotting such stories in my head?

What do you think?

Update: Irene has written some good points in response to my post. I'm still thinking ...

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