(Inspired by the introduction by Lucy Hughes-Hallet to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre)
The classic story is written with a beginning, middle, and end. Naturally, the end of a story is generally meant to satisfy the reader and bring the story to a logical close, which normally means tying together all loose ends. And while not everyone will admit it, most of us are suckers for a love story sealed with a kiss or wedding bells. But why? Why must the story end with requited love?
Despite what basic story structure suggests, very few stories have a decisive ending. Indeed, many leave readers wondering about the characters’ futures, even if the status of their relationships and quests are resolved. Yet in classic literature, many acts and scenes close with the hero and heroine falling in love. As Lucy Hughes-Hallet, a British cultural historian, suggests in her introduction to Jane Eyre, in “fairy tales, the fact that marriage is conventionally presented as an ending reflects a truth, that the autonomous girl’s life ends when the wife is called into being.” In other words, the heroine’s journey comes to a close in tandem with the death of her independence and therefore her identity.
Oftentimes, readers like myself will finish a book and lavish for days in the happiness the characters found in each other. The prospect of their relationships offers a vision of a lovely future – but those visions always include both halves of the couple. This is due to an unconscious connection of those two characters, a fusion of their respective identities into a single being. In this way, the classic ending of requited love becomes a loss of singular identity – one that usually has the most impact on the heroine.
Of course, marriage and relationship roles will change one’s identity no matter your gender, relationship status, and initial personality. Relationships draw out parts of ourselves we repress, are unaware of, or have never expressed before. Yet the nature of marriage specifically is one of male superiority; this is best demonstrated in the legal name of a couple (Mr. and Mrs. Man’s Name) and the binding words man and wife, which maintains man’s identity while stripping woman’s down to the role of wife. While modern day marriage is rarely so patriarchal in spirit, the foundations of the ceremony and its legal significance remain deeply rooted in the patriarchy and the concept of female submission to male power.
In the same way, the fairy-tale ending of two people in love, so common in both modern and historical literature, perpetuates the theme of a female character’s story ending by binding herself to a man. By no means are all modern authors attempting to degrade a woman’s identity and autonomy (although the same cannot be said of past authors), but the continuation of this trope keeps alive the sentiment that a heroine’s story ends with her being relegated to the role of wife (or girlfriend) rather than her own person.
Hughes-Hallet contrasts this trope to the unique story arc of Jane Eyre, in which Jane refuses to marry Mr. Rochester until she knows she can retain her personal power, confidence, money, and equality to her husband even in marriage. She initially struggles with the idea of “rush[ing] down the torrent of his will into the gulf of his existence, and therefore los[ing] my own.” Her greatest fear is the abandonment of her self; this fear is resolved when she achieves maturity, social status, self-respect, and confidence, allowing her the strength in identity and morals she needs to marry Mr. Rochester on her own terms rather than his or society’s.
I’m a shameless romantic and a fervent feminist; balancing these two ideals becomes difficult as I root for a happy ending for my favorite heroines. The ideal conclusion of a heroine’s story depends on both her happiness and self-growth, which provides a tricky line to walk between being emotionally dependent on a relationship (too romantic) and living an independent life with no one to share it with (too isolated, despite her undeniable strength!). The best couples of modern and historical literature are those founded on equality and independence between the two participants, capable of leading their own lives even as they find contentment in each other’s company.
examples: https://nnhswordpress.naperville203.org/krwatson/2020/11/03/examples-of-ideal-equal-couples-in-pop-culture/