ABSTRACT
It should be noted that, as several scholars argue articulately, marriage is not the ultimate goal, and very often is not the ultimate result in much of chick lit. However, it does occupy an idealized place in the minds of many chick protagonists. It is, in fact, a chick's problematic relationship to the codified and commodified institution of marriage that presents one of
The readership of chick lit identified closely with these social absurdities. Much of the wild popularity of these novels can be traced to the reality of their readers-young women who, after reaping the benefits of the opportunities secured for them by the fights waged during the preceding decades, found themselves in the virtually uncharted territory of being professionally powerful and relationally adrift. The thirtysomething women composing the large fan base of chick lit at once expected more than their mothers and grandmothers economically and professionally while also hoping for the same romance and family as the female generation that had come before. They wanted careers, economic stability, and self-determination because those were the things they were taught they had a right to claim. But they also wanted to have husbands and children, to be taken care of, and to be the caretaker, because those were the things they had been socialized to recognize as characterizing real womanhood.
