Harlequin

Harlequin sells a lot of romance novels — about 160 million in 1998 to an estimated 50 million readers worldwide. In the last three years, a number of successful Harlequin books have focussed in particular on fatherhood. With titles such as Do You Take This Child?, The Secret Baby, McCallister’s Baby, and The Father of Her Child, these books offer an interesting glimpse into the current state of courtship, marriage, and romantic fantasy in our society.

Here is the basic plot line. They meet. The situation gets hot, she gets pregnant. The situation then gets very cold. Maybe he’s not ready to commit. Maybe circumstances keep them apart. Maybe she doesn’t even tell him about the baby. She is facing a life of loneliness; her baby is facing life without a father. Then, at the very last moment, he (or some other guy) confesses his love for her, they get married, and they live happily ever after.

In Do You Take This Child?, Dr. Sheila Pollack is an unmarried mom-to-be, about to give birth to the baby conceived on her one night of passion with Slade Garrett. As she feels the contractions coming on, and is preparing to go to the hospital, she murmurs to the baby inside her, “I have no idea what your dad is like, except for sexy and pushy. Very sexy.” But then, in the hospital maternity ward, something amazing happens. Slade shows up, proposing marriage! For it turns out that Slade has been doing some thinking. There are certain things he wants in life after all: a wife, a child, a chance to rejoice in everyday routines, time “to stop and smell the baby powder.” Sheila is very reluctant at first — “Slade, I don’t believe in marriage” — but soon enough, just before the baby is born, she says “I do.” Can their “nick-of-time nuptials” last forever? Well, not to give away the ending, but the answer is yes.

What should we make of this story? In some ways, it’s quite old-fashioned. The lady is rescued by her Prince Charming. Sexual passion is redeemed and elevated by romantic love, which, when all is said and done, takes the shape of marriage.

But in other respects, this story is quite new. For one, the sequence of events is very modern, maybe post-modern. The old chronology was love, marriage, sex, baby. The chronology in Do You Take This Child? is sex, baby, marriage, love. In other similar Harlequin books, the order may be different, but it’s never the old order. We thus see in these stories the complete disappearance of any culturally defined courtship roles and stages, and only the most tenuous and idiosyncratic of connections between marriage and procreation — but still, a happy ending.

Second, not only does Prince Charming rescue the lady, but he does so despite her plans and intentions. This is a big change. In the older courtship story, men were formally the initiators — he asked her out on a date, not the other way around — but women typically had much (I believe most) of the power, and the women knew what they wanted. In the new story, women have sex with men and have babies, all while anticipating and planning on getting along without husbands: “Slade, I don’t believe in marriage.” It’s now the men who figure out that relationships are important and thereby saves the day. This is not romance. It’s fantasy. 

Lonnae O’Neal Parker, “The books of love,” New York Post, February 27, 1999. Marie Ferrarella, Do You Take This Child? (New York: Silhouette Books, 1996), 38, 47.

First published Fall 1999.