Growing up, one favourite out of my hobbies was reading novels; romance novels in particular. Yeah, I know, I know, mushy right? Anyway, there was something appealing about reading about men who didn’t want to love, but couldn’t help but fall for this irresistible woman or the millionaire heiress in love with her bodyguard etc….. whew! Good times!!!
So I saw recently saw one with a friend of mine and I remembered a couple of things that came to me when I reflected on my ravish reading of romance novels. First, I noticed that in most (emphasis on most) of the novels, the heroine was old enough to take on the emotional responsibility that came with love. Maybe not willing or ready to, but she was mostly mature and capable of understanding that responsibility as she was of age already, mid twenties and above. Granted, some of the novels featured younger girls but the stories did not actively feature them in the love settings till they were of age.
The heroines were also stubborn, dogged, determined, fiesty, strong and stood up for what they believed in. This tells me they had minds of their own, could make their own decisions and stand their grounds and believe me, the men were always attracted to and loved these qualities in them. These qualities were sometimes, actually a lot of times, frustrating for the men, as of course, we know men like to be in charge, however, they always sought the opinions of these strong, smart women and valued them.
Another thing I loved about these heroines was that they usually had something doing and didn’t wait for any man to come riding in on his white horse to ‘save’ them. They owned their lives in every sense of the word. Even in the cases where they were helpless, they still did not thoroughly like or enjoy the fact that the men were doing the most work and always wanted to help in their own little way. This shows that they were not lazy people.
And finally for me, I loved that they did not ‘need’ any man to come in and transform their lives as they mostly already had good enough lives, working and making a living. They wanted the men for love and companionship, not needed them because they could not survive without them, except romantically, of course. Without these men, their lives were still fine, but the men just complemented who they were perfectly.
These four things were a part of most romance novels and they made a good point of teaching the younger generation that emotional maturity was key in love, that being independently-minded was attractive, that being lazy was not acceptable and that women could be whatever they wanted to be with or without men. So yeah, being a Mills and Boons heroine? Definitely not a bad idea!
Article by Soomto Ajanma
