ABSTRACT
Gender historians have long argued that the behaviors of men and women, who and how they are, are rooted not in biology or nature but in social and cultural practices and expectations. Although the notions of love and romance have long existed, romance was not always regarded as a positive force, and often, a more pressing practicality informed the formation of intimate relationships. Those adhering to the romantic ideal privileged the notion of authenticity. Real love required honest communication so that either partner could be sure that he or she was loved for his or her true self rather than an imagined ideal. But romance was confined not merely to marriage and not merely to heterosexual bonds. The emergence of the “New Woman” at the end of the nineteenth century signaled a sharp departure from the world of separate spheres inhabited by her mid-nineteenth century counterpart and directly affected notions of love and romance.
