ABSTRACT
The author considers whether women who idealise their fathers, sometimes referred to as an Oedipal fixation, have a tendency to be erotically attracted to unobtainable or forbidden objects of desire. She asks if the enduring attraction of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice may be fuelled by this common Oedipal fantasy – the attraction of a moody, charismatic, seemingly unavailable man and the desire to be the one who saves him from the dark recesses of his troubled character and sets free his hidden passions. She considers the danger of how this stereotype reinforces the desirability of the patriarchal male and asks what message is being given to modern men. She looks at the ways attachment theory can help us understand women who have idealised their fathers who died or abandoned them when they were children. She tells the story of a therapy group for women who have a pattern of hopeless, destructive or self-destructive love relationships. She describes how the group explored the connections between their mainly painful love stories and their childhoods dominated by their longing for love from their absent, abandoning or abusive fathers.
