This article by Joanna Krzyszycha is based on her MA thesis from Professor Irmina Wawrzyczek's Seminar in Cultural Studies at the Uniwersytet Marii Curie-Skeodowskiej. The article will also appear in a forthcoming publication, a collection of MA papers, entitled Studying "New" Britain: Popular Culture and Ideology, and edited by Professor Wawrzyczek and Dr. Zbigniew Mazur.

 

The aim of this paper is to investigate how the highly formulaic genre of popular romance reflects social change, especially the change of gender roles in society. A comparative analysis of popular romance texts produced about 15 years apart will help to demonstrate the dynamic nature of the genre on the one hand, and the formula’s inherent conservatism on the other.

            The most popular paperback romances in the British Isles are Mills & Boon publications. The British readers tend to refer to any single paperback simply as ‘a Mills & Boon,’ using the name of the publisher as a generic term. Due to the massive publication and distribution these forms are also known as mass-market romances. They are constructed on the backbone of a formula, constituting a skeleton for individual stories within the genre. The plot of each romance concentrates on the development of heterosexual love relationship of the ‘love with obstacles’ type.

            The material analysed in this study is Mills & Boon romances published for the English-speaking readership in two non-consecutive decades. It consists of 20 novels, ten published in the 1970s (including the year 1980), and another ten published in the early 1990s (between 1989 and 1993). The choice of texts published so many years apart was deliberate since the aim of the study is to demonstrate the impact of cultural change on a highly conservative genre of the formulaic romance. Ten years seems a sufficient time perspective to trace the process, especially the transformation of the concept of masculinity and femininity in British culture over the two decades of cultural ferment.

Theoretical inspiration for my project comes from feminism and gender studies. These critical approaches in cultural studies offer appropriate conceptual apparatus for the analysis of the representation of the sexes in various texts. The methodology is a combination of structuralism, semiotics, quantitative and qualitative analysis, and close reading. My treatment of the romance as a narrative formula is essentially structuralist. Semiotic interpretation will be applied to the visual material of book covers, while the remaining procedures will be used for the classification and presentation of textual evidence. They are expected to ultimately demonstrate the transformation of the romance hero, the heroine, and the quality of the relationship.

 

I. The Heroine: From the Virginal Temptress to the Liberated Heroine.[1]

 

            The romance caters for various needs of its female readers, at the same time being a potent ideological tool validating and recommending a specific social order. The genre reaffirms traditional values and mores, openly condemning the people who do not observe them. The sexual relationship between the male and female protagonists is strictly regulated by the formulaic rules. According to them, women are innocent and submissive. Men, on the contrary, are domineering and seek carnal pleasure. The romance protagonists are heterosexual and their love affair is concluded by marriage. Romances do not feature characters who are critical of the institution of marriage (only villains are); neither lesbianism nor homosexuality fit in the formula’s conservative ideology. Yet, for all its conservatism, the romance allows for a certain degree of flexibility in adjusting to the changing social context. It seems that the adjustment is most evident in the heroine.

The results of the comparison of the texts of the 1970s and the 1990s revealed certain areas where the differences between the female protagonists are most pronounced. They fall into the following categories: age, job, self-reliance, and previous sexual experiences. Table A contains the evidence of the transformation and is followed by a detailed discussion, separate for the 1970s and the 1990s.

 

Table A. CHARACTERISTICS OF HEROINES OF THE MILLS AND BOON ROMANCES

 

 

1. Age

            The romance heroines of the 1990s are generally older than those featured 20 years before. The average heroine of the 1970s is 22 years old, while her counterpart in the 1990s is 3 years her senior. The female protagonists of the earlier decade are generally young, some of them are still in their teens (Dear Professor, House of Glass, Prisoner in Paradise) or have just turned twenty (Six White Horses, Kiss of Tyrant). Two heroines who are older than 22 were in the past involved with the hero, either as wife (For Mike’s Sake) or lover (Dangerous Rhapsody). As for more recent romances, most female protagonists are in their mid-twenties (6), which is an indication of the change in the appropriate age for a woman to settle down:  “Women over thirty are still desirable, and people are beginning to recognise that,” one of them remarks.[2]

The 1970s preferred younger protagonists, since their age guaranteed virginity and innocence. Despite the first whispers of feminism in Britain, a young woman was handed over from one man (her father) directly to another one (her husband), treated like a chattel and confined to the home, and her main ambition was first to be a good daughter and then a perfect wife and mother. She could not wait too long with her decision to get married for fear of being perceived as unattractive, or as a social misfit. Older unattached women were likely to hear the following comment: “if I were you I’d try my darnest to get the ball rolling again. After all, darling, you are twenty-five, and most girls are married by then.”[3] Women were thus anxious to take up family responsibilities as quickly as possible. The romances of the 1990s have changed considerably in this respect: their heroines are older and freer to decide when they want to marry. They were written in the times when the social norms regulating women’s roles changed, and women were allowed some time off before they decided to marry and start families. However, the new heroines are made to realise that there is no use waiting too long with the decision to marry. Although social pressure is not exerted on them any more, their longing for children and security offered by marriage is stronger than the attractions of a career and independence.

 

 

 

2. Professional career.

            The romance heroines of the 1970s are working women in the sense that the majority of them have jobs and are able to support themselves. Out of ten female protagonists featured in randomly selected paperbacks from that decade only one (Dear Professor) does not work outside her home. Another (House of Glass) has no qualifications and training and accepts the position of a companion because it is the only possible way of earning her living. As for other heroines from that period, they perform such jobs as: a secretary (3), a nurse (1), a housekeeper (1), a model (1), an interior decorator (1) and a rodeo rider (1). Apart from the last one, these occupations can be classified as ‘feminine jobs,’ traditionally perceived as suitable for women.

 

Many jobs women took were of course a direct extension of work in the home: cleaning, washing, cooking and serving meals or making clothes. Others provided services to people - shop assistants or receptionists - or provided assistance to a male employer: secretarial work. Professional jobs emphasising health, education and caring also reflected the traditional role of women in looking after the sick, the young and the old.[4]

 

            The nurses and the housekeeper found in the analysed texts fall neatly into the categories listed above. The remaining occupations – the model, the interior decorator, and the rodeo rider – make use of women’s special disposition (fitness, courage, glamour) or talent (good taste, artistic sensitivity). In the times of women’s confinement to the domestic sphere they were treated as hobbies or pastimes.

            Most of the working heroines of that decade are amateurs, only some of them have taken specialist courses (typing courses, secretarial courses, or gourmet cooking courses) qualifying them for employment. Others rely on their instinct and gather professional experience by imitation and by following the instructions of their bosses or older colleagues. On the whole, the 1970s heroines treat their jobs as temporary occupations, sometimes as a pretext to leave their parents’ house, or an opportunity to seek an eligible man. Most of them gladly give up their work at the instant when their beloved proposes and offers financial responsibility for their future household. The understanding is that she will concentrate solely on her domestic duties of homemaking and bringing up children. The belief in the woman’s crucial responsibility as wife and mother makes her give up her job and sacrifice her ambitions connected with it for the sake of a higher good, her family. The hero of The Beach of Sweet Returns is determined to terminate the heroine’s modelling career after their marriage, and his low opinion on working women is typical of the opinion of most of the heroes in the 1970s romance novels:

 

‘... but how much does this career of yours mean to you? I’m no Victorian chauvinist – heaven forbid that I should ever wish to stifle all your independence of spirit and personality – but I’m not prepared to let my wife spend half her time riving the globe with a rag trade circus, while I spend mine wondering how many men are trying to succeed where I failed for so long.’[5]

  

            Occupations represented by the romance heroines of the 1990s are much more varied than those of their 1970s predecessors. Among them there are scientists (a zoologist, an oral historian), bureaucrats (a civil servant, a tax accountant), secretaries (now called personal assistants) and models. The women are generally better qualified and better educated, treat their jobs as a challenge and are set on careers. Most of the heroines expect to be promoted or already hold managerial posts (Such Dark Magic, Two-Timing Man). One heroine runs her own business - a cafe, on learning which the hero favourably comments:

 

Certainly she was nothing like the women he was used to dealing with. It wasn’t just that she worked for her living. Many of the women he knew ran galleries, or boutiques, or were involved in public relations or modelling. One or two of them even owned their own business, though nothing quite so physical as running a cafe.[6]

  

            The heroines’ attitude to work is serious, they want to prove that they are reliable and competent employees, conscientious and fair bosses, and that they are able to perform the same duties and take the same responsibilities as men, and be successful even in the male dominated environment. However, they realise that, in the present social order, their fight for absolute equality is not easy. One heroine voices this opinion bitterly: “Women in science ... might gradually be gaining more and better jobs, more and better recognition, but it was an uphill battle all the way, especially with chauvinistic, career-protecting bosses like her own.”[7]

            The 1990s heroines are a new generation of women without the inhibitions of their mothers, and strongly convinced about social equality of men and women. This is a new generation, eager to take up new challenges and prove their talents. They no longer treat their jobs as temporary stops on their way to marital bliss. This new attitude and ambitions are well illustrated by one of the heroines:

  

when one or two of her friends were already thinking of getting married and settling down, she was thinking of making a career for herself in big business. As top student in her class, she had a feeling for office procedures, and thought she had quite a lot to offer to an employer.[8]

 

3. Self-sufficiency

I have adopted two criteria of determining the degree of the heroine’s self-sufficiency, at least in the economic sense: an independent household and ability to support herself (her own independent income). According to these criteria, most of the 1970s heroines are only partially self-sufficient: they are able to earn their own living, yet the salary they receive is so poor that only two out of ten manage to run their own independent household and break from their parents. This situation reflects a traditional assumption that a young woman should live with her parents until the day of her wedding, thus, in a way, avoiding possibilities of her moral depravation. The day of marriage is the moment of passing from one dependence (on the parents) into another one (on the husband). One of the heroines, after getting married to the hero, feels that “she was no longer an individual, but merely a part of Garth’s luggage trailing in the wake of his wheelchair from train to boat, from boat to car.”[9] Her feelings about getting married are far from euphoria, but she sees it as a way of escaping from poverty and a cruel employer, who closely resembles the evil stepmother from a fairy tale.

            In the world of romance of the 1990s, social restrictions concerning women’s independent existence significantly loosened. Not only do all the heroines possess their own sources of income, but, with two exceptions, they live on their own. They are independent and intent on proving that they manage well without anybody’s assistance. When one of the heroines wants to try living on her own and her parents offer financial help, she kindly refuses:

   

‘I don’t want you to give me an allowance, Dad,’ she had told him then, and, addressing both her parents, ‘I’d like to stand on my own two feet if I can.’

   Fourteen months later after she had said these words, Jolene faced the fact that she was having a struggle making ends meet. ... But, having gained her independence, she did not want to ask her parents for help.[10]

   

In their jobs, the 1990s heroines are also independent decision-makers. Though their decisions may sometimes seem controversial, they are justified and in accordance with the rules on which their profession operates. One of the protagonists, an oral historian, faces the demands from her sponsor: he wants her to erase a tape with a discreditable piece of information on it. She strongly opposes:

  

‘I want this tape erased.’

   He couldn’t demand this! Driven back on her heels, Antonia said stiffly, ‘Then, I’m afraid you must accept my resignation. I can’t be a party to censorship,’

   And knew that she had surprised him. It was her face ... those delicate features ... and a gently voluptuous figure, that made men think she was an empty-headed little blonde, easily manipulated and influenced. She rather enjoyed disabusing this illusion.[11]

   

Summing up, the romance women of the 1990s have gained access to satisfying professions, receive satisfactory pay and are allowed to make independent decisions and voice their opinions freely. They are no longer confined to their parents’ house, as respectable unmarried women were a decade earlier, but are allowed to live on their own and exercise all freedoms stemming from that fact. Paradoxically, this prepares them for the future role of a wife equally well, or even better than the confinement to the parents’ house favoured in the 1970s. They learn to be responsible and take full responsibility for their actions.

 

 

4. Sexual experience prior to encounter with the hero

            The survey of the 1970s romances reveals that the majority of the heroines (7 out of 10) are virgins. Among the remaining three, one is divorced, one has been involved with the hero before but since then “there had been no men in her life of any consequence,”[12] and the remaining one is a model  - the profession in which fleeting affairs are not infrequent even in the 1970s. The premarital chastity of the heroines reflects the traditional view favoured at that time that a man could be sexually experienced, yet a young woman was expected to restrain from sexual contacts until the wedding day since her future husband “has no respect for a permissive woman.”[13]

            The situation in the 1990s underwent significant changes: the majority of heroines (6) had had sexual experience before they met the hero and only four are still virgins. With one exception (Frozen Enchantment), none of them waits until the wedding day to make love with the hero, quite unlike the virginal brides of the 1970s. Premarital sex carries fewer stigmas in these romances than it used to 20 years before, and not only men, but also women protagonists can have sexual partners before they settle down in a formalised relationship. Moreover, the 1990s romances feature heroines who are single mothers or divorcees. The heroes of the 1990s seem to accept the fact that their beloved had slept with other men before. When one of the heroines wants her partner to tell how he felt about her not being a virgin, he answered, stressing the physical rather than moral aspect of virginity:

    

‘I wouldn’t have cared if you’d had a hundred men before me. I didn’t want a virgin, I wanted you and you alone. But you were certainly tight and small enough to be virginal as any man would want, if he was hung on it.’[14]

    

The previous sexual experiences of the protagonists fade into insignificance once they discover that their present relationship is more than mere sexual attraction. They both stop dating other partners and remain sexually faithful to each other. 

            Another important issue concerning women’s sexual experience that changed considerably in the romance fiction is sexual harassment, especially at the workplace. In the 1970s, the heroine of Kiss of Tyrant loses her job because she resists the sexual advances of her boss. In the 1990s, in Frozen Enchantment, the man harassing the woman sexually is fired because the heroine decides to complain about it to the head of the company. It shows how popular social attitudes towards the sexual abuse of women have changed. Harassed women refuse now to be passive victims of men who take advantage of their privileged positions as bosses.

 

II. The Hero: From the Powerful Brute to the Caring Partner.

            The position of men in contemporary British society has not changed so dramatically as that of women. The feminist ‘revolution’ of the 1970s seemed to threaten male domination, yet it turned out that women are still too weak to eradicate the existing social order based on patriarchy. Men have been forced to accept some of the women’s demands, and modify their attitudes to female partners, yet they retained the dominant position in the crucial areas of social life. Table B presents the general profiles of the romance heroes in the texts studied.

 

TABLE B. CHARACTERISTICS OF HEROES OF THE 1970S AND 1990S MILLS AND BOON ROMANCES

	1970s	1990s
Average age	35	33
Profession - landowner - a businessman - other	4 4 2	1 7 2
Attitude to women - a master - a partner	8 2	3 7

 

It is evident that the most significant change in the romance heroes took place in the sphere of attitudes towards women. Indeed, the domineering brute of the 1970s transformed over the years into a caring partner. Yet other aspects of the male protagonists did not remain the same either.

 

1. Age

            A visible change in the male romance protagonist is his age. The 1970s romances feature heroes who are all above 30, the average age being 35. By the contemporary standards, men of that age were “hardly old at all. Her [the heroine’s] father had been that age when he had married her mother, but her father had never seemed as old as this to the day he died.”[15] This remark would not be so striking if it were not for the fact that the heroine is only 19. She is half the hero’s age but accepts the difference as natural. His maturity (in comparison with her youthfulness) evokes the heroine’s memories of her father and makes her feel secure and cared for. Her lover is built into a kind of a respectable father figure and that makes her obey him. He represents the old-fashioned views on gender roles in marriage and will not let her go on working the moment that she becomes his wife. His mature age guarantees his stable financial position and responsibility.

            In the 1990s, the tendency has changed: the heroes do not have supreme maturity and experience by virtue of being much older than the heroines are. The average hero is now 32 years old (while the heroine is 24); three out of ten heroes are below 30. Thus they lose their fatherly appeal, which is something that the mature and independent heroines no longer look for in their lovers.

 

2. Occupation

            Mills and Boon romances feature heroes who perform a variety of jobs which fall into three main categories: landowners, businessmen, and other professions, such as scientists or artists. The comparison reveals that in different periods of time different professions were favoured. In the 1970s, four out of ten heroes in the analysed books are landowners: horse breeders, ranchers, or members of the landed gentry. They own big ranches, which they manage, and at the same time put their masculinity to constant test. Their power stems from the land and they give much of themselves to it by hard physical work. Their commitment to the land is also the means of expressing their traditional views on the family and the roles of men and women in it. None of the landowner characters allows his wife to keep the job in the city; the women dedicate themselves to the same struggle in which their husbands are involved, and constantly support them in their efforts.

            The 1990s heroes prove their masculinity in a different way. The romances of that decade feature only one landowner, a horse breeder in The Wrong Kind of Man. Their domain is now predominantly business, which provides constant challenges and opportunities to test their abilities as managers, entrepreneurs, and company owners. The criterion of physical fitness is not decisive for the hero’s success in business (though all heroes are lean, fit and sporty). They have to display managerial skills and high resistance to stress. They are ruthless, cut-throat businessmen without sentiments because they fight for survival in the tough world of business competition, and their ambition is to win.

 

3. Attitude to women

            In all of the studied romances the hero’s privilege is to be in control of the relationship and to be responsible for it. However, the way in which he exercises his right is changing. Two models of treating the heroines by the heroes are observed: a master and a partner. The former prevails in the 1970s (7 out of 10), while the latter in the 1990s (8 out of 10).

            The hero of the 1970s is intent on proving at each step that it is he who dominates in the relationship and who takes the upper hand. He is a rather threatening figure and his sight makes the heroine shiver and feel faint. His charm and occasional gestures of softness make him more humane. However it is clear that he will not put up with any independence on the part of the heroine. He is very traditional and conservative, and set in his ways. He persuades the heroine to submit to him, as it is the only way she can be happy and secure.

            The partner hero of the 1990s is a response to the independent, emancipated heroine of that decade. She does not want to be dominated or threatened, but rather needs a tender and mature lover who will provide her with a strong shoulder to lean and to cry on (if she feels like crying). This new man teaches no lessons of obedience. He still dominates the relationship, but the heroine does not perceive it as an attack on her independence. None of the traditional attributes of a perfect man are missing but they are given a new and more acceptable wrapping. In this way we get a man who is “[r]enowned throughout his industry as an innovator, a mover and a shaker, a cut-throat businessman and yet a man known for strange, inexplicable gestures of softness.”[16]

 

III. Semiotics of the Covers

 

            The covers of Mills and Boon romances are very characteristic and designed to attract the attention of potential readers (and buyers), and to inform about the contents of the paperback. The typical front cover of a pocket-sized novel shows a handsome couple in an amorous pose.

            Every so often the cover design undergoes certain modifications. The recent major change occurred in 1984 and was preceded by the campaign launched to prepare the readers for the metamorphosis of the Mills and Boon packaging. On the one hand, a new, rejuvenated and refreshed image of Mills & Boon novels is needed to attract new readers and secure constant popularity of the genre. On the other hand, the conservatism of the formula limits the scope of the alternations. Thus, most of the changes may seem of a cosmetic nature: new attractive designs of the publisher’s logo and of the rose emblem; the publisher’s slogan (on the back cover) rephrased from ‘Mills & Boon - paperbacks that please’ (1970s) to ‘Mills & Boon - the rose of romance’ (1990s); and more attractive cover illustrations.

            However, a close look at the Mills and Boon cover illustrations reveals a deeper cultural message about changes in the pattern of male-female relationships. Not only do these pictures reflect proper codes of femininity and masculinity at a particular period of time, but also encode the type of power relations between the sexes.

            Interpreting cover illustrations, which are treated here as visual ‘texts’, requires a special analytical apparatus. The key term of the semiotic analysis is the sign, the smallest unit of communication within a symbolic system. It consists of two aspects, the signifier and the signified. Mills and Boon cover illustrations contain signs whose interpretation will allow to reveal distinctive features of the relationship propagated in the popular romances of various decades. The elements of the illustrations such as the clothes, facial expression, positioning, etc. (the signifiers) will be interpreted in terms of what they mean (the signified). Samples from each decade are discussed separately and then compared.

 

1. The covers in the 1970s

            The cover illustrations of the Mills and Boon romances from the 1970s look more like sketches or drawings. The figures of the man and the woman are in the centre, and in six out of ten paperbacks the presentation of persons is limited to the heads and shoulders. The background of the illustrations is not always easily discernible, and in five cases the identification of the setting of the cover scene is impossible. Moreover, the covers are characterised by a limited and very modest range of monotonous colours. Only in two instances, The Beach of Sweet Returns and Dangerous Rhapsody, was a wider palette of colours used.

            Three randomly picked 1970s cover illustrations have been chosen for the analysis: Prisoner in Paradise, Devil on Horseback, and Six White Horses. All three covers present handsome, well-groomed couples whose clothes and hairstyles are in accordance with the fashion of the day, though not extravagant. A certain similarity in the choice of clothes on two covers (Six White Horses and Prisoner in Paradise) is observed. The people are dressed casually: the men are wearing shirts opened at the neck, the women - low-cut blouses. The couple on Devil on Horseback cover look quite formal by comparison: the man is wearing a suit and a tie while his companion is clad in a red long-sleeved blouse with a scarf tied round her neck.

            There is little indication of intimacy and of physical contact between the men and the women; only the Six White Horses cover features a woman resting her head on a man’s shoulder. In Prisoners in Paradise the couple are not touching each other at all, and in Devil on Horseback a physical barrier is placed between them (the back of a chair). In all three cases the man literally dominates the woman, either looming over her (Devil on Horseback) or being considerably taller than she is. He is well built and powerful, a contrast to the fragile woman, who has an air of vulnerability and innocence, the effect achieved by trusting, wide-open eyes.

            Another common feature of the 1970s Mills and Boon covers is the lack of eye contact between the lovers. They seem to be preoccupied with their own thoughts, with the women having “an inward focus while he surveys the outer world.”[17] In Devil on Horseback the man is looking at the woman, but in other cases they either eye each other abstractedly (Six White Horses), or their heads are turned in different directions (Prisoner in Paradise). Generally, their facial expressions are very stern and solemn, they are not smiling and do not manifest visible joy of being together.

 

2. The covers of the 1990s

            The 1990s Mills and Boon cover illustrations are very colourful and more realistic than their predecessors. These are “more detailed illustrations, using an almost photographic style. The couple on the cover embraces more passionately and background colours are much warmer and more vibrant.”[18] The persons are portrayed from a distance and a fuller view of their bodies is provided. Moreover, all the covers from that period provide an identifiable setting: a boat deck, a restaurant, a bathroom, or a kitchen. The scenes depicted on the covers are so true to life that they resemble snapshots from a family album. The cover illustration of Frozen Enchantment, for example, reflects in every minute detail the descriptions of people and places provided in the text: “forested hills in the background, with wooden-built snow-tipped bungalows and picket fences scattered in the foreground. And there in the middle ... was a wide snowy path that looked every bit as though it led up to the village church.”[19]

            The 1990s covers are discussed on the basis of three paperbacks: Arafura Pirate, A Matter of Trust, and Two-Timing Man. Lean and muscular men accompanied by slim and curvaceous women wear more casual and scarcer clothes than their predecessors: a man in a jacket worn over a polo shirt, and a woman in a silk blouse (Two-Timing Man) are the most formally dressed couple in the studied samples. The other two pairs have leisure clothes on: the Arafura Pirate illustration presents a man in a tight-fitting T-shirt and jeans, and a woman wearing a bikini bra and a sarong round her waist. On the cover of A Matter of Trust, in the bathroom scenery, a bare-chested man with a towel on his right shoulder is accompanied by a woman wearing a blue shirt opened at the top. She is not wearing a bra underneath and the outline of her breasts is clearly visible under her garment.

            Unlike in the 1970s, there is a tendency to depict men and women close together, without any objects separating them. The persons are either both seated (Two-Timing Man) or stand side by side. However the man is always taller and looks down at the woman. Each couple is pictured in a different pose: in A Matter of Trust the woman is leaning against her beloved; in Arafura Pirate the female is resting her head on his shoulder; and in Two-Timing Man the man touches the woman fondly on the shoulder. Only one of the three women answers to the man’s caressing gesture by putting her hand on his (Arafura Pirate). The other two women do not actively return the caresses, yet the pleasure they derive from the man’s sensual touch is evident, and their receptive pose indicates that they anticipate more intimate contact.

            The dominant expression on all the faces is a smile. The couples maintain intense eye contact (A Matter of Trust, Arafura Pirate) looking lovingly into each other’s eyes or, as it is in Two-Timing Man, listening attentively. There is no indication of anxiety or fear on the faces. They are relaxed and seemingly enjoy each other’s company.

 

3. The signified – the 1970s and 1990s

            The men and women on the covers of Mills and Boon paperbacks represent contemporary views on the romance and sexual relationship. The type of clothes not only mirrors the current fashion; it also indicates the moral and social standards regulating the type of clothes appropriate for both sexes. The 1970s illustrations provide evidence of the existence of a rigid taboo on the display of sensuality and sexuality, especially in women: only the heads and shoulders of the women are seen. The understated nature of physical sexuality is well rendered in the following fragment of a romance novel:

 

He looked her over, plainly liking the lavender-and-white freshness of her dress, liking even more the hidden, yet hinted at, attractions beneath it.[20]

 

            The moral code of the 1990s apparently allows for a less restricted presentation of female sexuality and sensuality on the book covers from that period. Women are presented in ‘various states of dress and undress’, and the chief attribute of their femininity, the breasts, is clearly visible (the woman wearing a bikini top) or at least well-marked under the shirt. Women become aware of their sexuality and consciously emphasise the assets of their bodies:

 

‘In that outfit you’d melt the heart of a misogynist!’

…A navy and white chalk-striped trouser suit ensured her knees were covered, while the narrow cut emphasised the slender curves of hips and legs. Beneath, a white cashmere polo-necked sweater was the perfect foil for the full curve of her breast, and a navy Chanel bag and shoes completed the picture of executive efficiency.[21]

 

The above quotation illustrates two important ideas: firstly, the romance heroines dress up to stun the hero; and secondly, in their pursuit to impress him they always make sure that their outfit is appropriate for the occasion, and that the present-day morality standards concerning the proper code of dress (covered knees in formal attire) are observed.

            Physical contact between the sexes, especially in public places, was another taboo area in the 1970s. The moral principles precluding such manifestations of love as kisses, hugging and close embraces in public are reflected in the covers from that period. The contact between the man and the woman is hardly indicative of physical passion, and even if the couple are depicted close together (Six White Horses), their embrace is free from passionate sexual undertones.

            In the 1990s, the poses indicate the importance of outer manifestations of romantic involvement. The women in the illustrations do not conceal their pleasure stemming from the men’s sensual touch and, unlike their predecessors of the 1970s, do not suppress their sexual drives. Some of them even take the initiative in their sexual contacts:

 

When their lips met, it wasn’t a matter of Race kissing her. She kissed him. She initiated the move, she lifted her lips to meet his, she invoked the taste of him, the touch of him.

    But he ended the kiss, and worse, he did it with a single, brutal, backward step. Jinx was caught almost off balance and nearly stumbled fair into his arms.[22]

  

            Domination and submission in sexual relationships is rendered in a fairly conventional way in the illustrations from both periods: the man is always visibly taller than the woman. In the 1970s, his figure is not only dominant but also somewhat menacing. His authority is unquestionable and there is no visible indication on the part of the woman to challenge his supremacy. The illustrations are symbolic representations of male power, well supported by the texts of the novels, where the man hardly ‘asks’, instead he ‘commands’ or ‘orders’. He does not hesitate to use his physical force to dominate the heroine, and sometimes he even means to scare her into submission.

 

‘I have a car waiting,’ he said, and gripped her arm to lead her across the hospital forecourt. She wondered if he knew the strength of his own hand, and if he intended the hurt he was causing. Wincing, she began to feel like a prisoner in custody, being led off to unknown horrors. They arrived at the waiting car and he bundled her in unceremoniously and got besides her.[23]

 

            The physical domination of the man over the woman is still present in the illustrations of the 1990s, but in a less menacing form. The men and women look and smile at each other, and there seems to be better understanding between them. The fact that they regard each other rather than concentrate on their own thoughts suggests better mutual understanding and concern about the partner’s welfare. Also the textual part shows that contemporary women no longer appreciate selfish macho types, but want something more from their men:

    

How could any woman ever know that a man really shared her emotions, that he really understood her vulnerability, that he really knew what it was for her to trust and want him enough to put aside centuries of inbred caution and to allow him the freedom to love her and with it the potential to hurt and degrade her?[24]

  

On the whole, the 1990s couples look much happier than their predecessors, with the strongly implied and no longer forbidden pleasures of physical contact and lovemaking (the bathroom scene in Matter of Trust).

 

Conclusion

 

The analysis of the select Mills and Boon paperbacks reveal that the change observed between the publications of the 1970s and the 1990s touches only the syntagmatic level of the romance formula and concerns mostly such details as the age and occupation of the protagonists and a more permissive attitude towards sexual expression and intimacy. However, the paradigm of romance remains largely unaffected. The changes were necessitated by the rapidly changing socio-cultural context of Britain in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, especially as related to the position and roles of women, their rights and new consciousness. Yet they did not alter the fact that popular romance fiction remained a tool of indoctrinating women readers into the patriarchal value system and the concept of gender roles it implicates.

            The main impulse for the change was the feminist movement of the 1970s and its aftermath: the changes in British moral codes and social norms. The feminist movement reached Britain in the late 1960s, and gave rise to the campaigns for the equal rights and treatment of both sexes. Over two subsequent decades, those feminist postulates were gradually accepted as norm. Women have gained unlimited access to education and better work opportunities. More and more ambitious women with good qualifications enter the areas earlier reserved for man only, and more women openly demand and receive equal pay and equal treatment. Moreover, the feminist movement has had a strong impact on women’s position and treatment in marriage and family, as well as on women’s right to sexual expression and fulfilment. Due to a natural time-lag between the actual socio-economic and legal changes and their penetration into the cultural system of the British, the romance also reflects them with some delay.

            Despite many profound cultural transformations brought about by feminism, there are still issues involving and concerning women that generate controversy and have not been incorporated into the mainstream British cultural system. It is in relation to such issues that the conservatism of the romance formula becomes particularly evident. It has admitted single mothers and divorcees as heroines, allows for episodes of premarital lovemaking, yet does not permit cohabitation or homosexuality on its pages. Heterosexual marriage is still the only legitimate institution which can best provide for all the sexual and emotional needs of men and women. These needs are still the same in the 1990s as they were in the 1970s: security in women, and sexual satisfaction in men. Popular romance does not explore new moral horizons. It merely functions as a barometer of current popular social attitudes.

            The radicalism of feminist ideas and the conservatism of patriarchal ideology clash in the romance. On the one hand, its paradigm is still strongly based on the assumption of male supremacy and authority; on the other hand, this assumption is no longer acceptable to female readers today and has to be made less obvious. Therefore, the formula comes up with the new, independent heroine who enters the relationship with the new hero on terms with partnership. Yet her independence is very much an illusion: she is still dependent on him in many important respects. The new heroines are free to decide when to become sexually active, but are warned that a relationship without love and serious commitment will not satisfy their need of emotional security. Moreover, even the women holding managerial positions never act entirely on their own, or without male supervision in the form of a boss or a partner. The new heroines are independent and ambitious in pursuing careers, but their ultimate happiness and sense of satisfaction seems impossible without the support and stability provided by the man.

            Despite the inherent ideological incongruity, or perhaps because of it, popular romance fiction in Britain has not lost its appeal to female readers. The authors, following the publishers’ precise guidelines, provide simple narratives that skilfully combine the experience of an average young woman with her escapist romantic fantasies. The time for an alternative type of popular women’s fiction has not come yet.