This chapter explores a survey of types and instances, including young victims and survivors of war and love, the new emphasis on childbirth and infancy, questions of gender and enigmas of identity. Romance gives some prominence to infancy and frequently foregrounds the experience of young girls; it treats the direct parent-child relationship in a different manner; above all, there is in romance poems a greater concentration on childhood and youth as a time of apprenticeship, quest and self-discovery. Childhood love does not, of course, always lead to death for the lovers, and the idyll of early life can sometimes be continued into maturity, with individuals triumphing over social pressure. While childhood and youth are almost exclusively male in the chanson de geste, the preponderance of girls gives romance much of its. They represent ideals and aspirations, and anchor romances in a world of social reality.