ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter, Nora slammed the door in A Doll’s House (1879) to transform herself into what was termed the New Woman. But if women were to seek individualistic self-realization, what should men do? Romantic love had portrayed the sexes as complementary halves who should merge into a whole and self-realize through the breadwinner-housewife model. Hjalmar Söderberg’s oeuvre explores who the New Man should be as a response to women’s legal, sexual, and existential empowerment. The Serious Game (1912), famously praised as Sweden’s only important love novel, centers on how the long-drawn-out transition to confluent love triggers a crisis for women whose response compels also men to search for a new identity. Söderberg offers insights into why confluent love contributes to increased singledom and promiscuity while disincentivizing reproduction. This chapter also analyzes three film adaptations (1945, 1977, and 2016) and one parallel novel (1973), which explore the consequences of this new mating morality as it transforms modern Sweden.
