ABSTRACT
In the Matched series the governing Society dictates that people must be classified as Matched, Single, Aberration, and Anomaly. Most people elect to be Matched rather than Single because the Officials groom the populace to believe the healthiest citizens are those who live in well-matched marriages. Although romance features heavily in YA fiction generally and individual couples in this fiction may face opposition from families or communities due to ideological differences, love itself rarely appears as the central cause of direct government intervention and as a means of ideological control. Young adult dystopian fiction frequently focuses on the labelling and classification of people often in hierarchies in order to keep a corrupt government in power. Both The Hunger Games and Divergent trilogies focus primarily on the fight against the authorities, and the romance serves as a subplot that nevertheless functions to undermine the power structure.
