Baby, Baby, Baby! Fertility in Romance Novels

Every kid knows the jump rope chant “first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage.” Early romance novels, such as those by Georgette Heyer, followed this prescription with the hero and heroine sharing no more than a tame kiss and marriage being the final culmination of the love story. Here in modern Romancelandia, the order has changed to reflect the popular culture. What can be the culmination of love when sex has become a recreational activity? That’s right. Babies. With popular category titles like “The sheik’s virgin mistress’ secret baby,” have babies have replaced sex as the physical embodiment of the hero and heroine’s love? In our paranormal fantasies, fertility can apparently save the world.

The romance genre is written by women, for women, so it makes sense that fertility is a major theme. Having a baby can be the most significant life-changing event in a woman’s existence. I find this topic entirely fascinating, especially in paranormal romance novels. However, as I struggle to compose my thoughts, I realize I don’t have a thesis. What does the treatment of fertility in the romance genre say about today’s women? What does it say about our beliefs on motherhood and love? I don’t know. Maybe you can help me muddle it out.

Contemporary romance is chock full of Surprise Babies. (This Heart of Mine by Susan Elizabeth Phillips is one of my favorites.) Motherhood is a choice in this day and age, and often one that competes with the time and energy of a challenging career. While in Historicals surprise babies always lead to a quick marriage, modern women have the choice to raise the child on their own. But this surprise is a big upset to career and life goals, giving us Ta DA! Conflict, conflict, conflict! Conflict is, of course, what makes a story a story. I found an interesting article from the New York Times in 1991 that still applies to 2008 contemporaries, which illustrates:

A synopsis for an updated version of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” which many romance writers like to regard as a founding classic of the genre, might go something like this: Elizabeth Bennet, a spirited, single 36-year-old systems analyst in San Diego, Calif., signs up for artifical insemination. The proud Mr. Darcy, a disturbingly handsome corporate executive with his own yearnings for an heir, hires a surrogate mother; due to a mix-up at the fertility clinic, Mr. Darcy ends up impregnating Miss Bennet instead. They spar over custody for several chapters, come together in a torrid embrace, then marry — though not necessarily before he escorts her to Lamaze class and assists at the birth.

In Historical Romance there’s a big clue to whether you’re in for a “surprise”: if the hero and heroine talk about contraception you know they’re gonna screw up. If they don’t even consider it you can wait until the epilogue for the little bundle of joy. The moment when the hero realizes he could have knocked up the heroine is a major turning point in the love story. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read “Pride filled him as he imagined her belly swollen with his child.” This is the moment when the hero finally realizes that he doesn’t just want a tumble in the hay, he wants something lasting. He imagines building a life with the heroine, raising her above the position of mistress to be the mother of his children. Possible motherhood is a great excuse to use when you want to marry the girl but you don’t want her to know you want to, and maybe when you don’t know you want to either. Then you can rail against her, punish her for injuring your pride, and still tup her at your leisure. I learn all the great tricks from Regencies.

There is a very interesting dichotomy between the current environmental crises and the Paranormal genre’s proclamation that we can save the world through procreation.

Fertility in Paranormal world-building is an issue of catastrophic proportions. So many of the paranormal series have magical races that are dying out due to infertility issues. Christine Feehan’s Carpathians and C. L. Wilson’s fey, for example. have very few children born recently and, more importantly, very few females. Both races are unable to reproduce (at all or only female children, respectively) without their fated soul mates. Lara Adrien’s vampires are all male, and can mate only with the few female humans who carry the mating mark. Kresley Cole’s Immortals can only reproduce with their soul mates, and vampires can’t even have sex until they find their Bride. The heroine restores the hero’s manhood.

J.R. Ward’s vampires are only fertile once every ten years, with high fatality pregnancies. Ward’s characters Viscious and Phury struggle when the Scribe Virgin, the mother goddess of the vampire race, tries to take procreation out of the love equation by ordering them to impregnate her 100 vestal virgins. Having sex with countless women doesn’t bother them, but knocking up countless women does. Rhage’s mate Mary is saved from an early death to cancer by the Scribe Virgin who says:

I regret that your ability to bring forward life has been taken from you. The joy of my creation sustains me always, and I take great sorrow that you will never hold flesh of your flesh in your arms, that you will not see your own eyes staring at you from the face of another, that you will never mix the essential nature of yourself with the male you love. What you have lost is enough of a sacrifice, (Lover Eternal, p438).

In almost every paranormal romance book, the hero is tortured by his violent past and his dark future. The heroine is tasked with not only winning his love, but also saving his soul and saving his race. Blogger and book reviewer Mrs. Giggles writes in her review of C. L. Wilson’s Lord of the Fading Lands:

In the romance genre, ‘her private parts… will save the world!’…. I suppose in future books there will be a showdown between good and evil as our heroine’s special powers will heal the world while her special and tireless ovaries will repopulate the Fae like the beautiful breeding cow that she is.

Some have argued that dark paranormals are a regression to the days of he-man fight, she-woman birth. But I disagree. Modern paranormal heroines are not regulated to only breeding while men do all the providing. These heroines do not have to chose either/or. They must use all their strengths, embracing their compassion and sexuality as well as their fierce protective instincts and mental adroitness to fight evil. Men may be physically stronger, but only a woman can save the world.

I could go on and on with examples, but you get the idea. What do you think modern authors are saying about fertility? How is J.R. Ward going to repopulate the Brotherhood if Phury falls in love with the head Chosen? Or do you think he is going to fulfill his duties in Lover Enshrined? So far Z is the only one to have a baby. It’s going to be sloooow going if Wraith plans to rebuild his civilization.

And that’s enough rambling for today.

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Tags: "romance novels", C.L. Wilson, fertility, J.R. Ward, Lara Adrian, romance novel themes, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, themes

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