If you are familiar with Clint Eastwood’s first movie, a musical called Paint Your Wagon you’d realize that a woman having more than one husband is not a recent idea. If you recognize “polyandry” as an ancient Greek term for the woman’s version of polygamy, you’d know that this concept is far older than most current romance authors claim.

Therefore, It surprised me when I saw an author on Facebook bemoaning remarks from a reviewer that hadn’t detected that the plot would revolve around this often castigated behavior of polyandry at the beginning of her fantasy novel. When I read the author’s description I understood why. The author indicated that the heroine has no resources to deal with the stress of deciding between multiple suitors. That would indicate a problem or conflict. As the conflict is a key component of the plot, it becomes disappointing when the problem simply becomes “no problem.” The men are all fine with being part of her “harem.” This leaves the reader with no real resolution.

I could see why a reader might criticize a book that does not have the complete plot arc for a romance. A conflict that turns into no problem is usually only an acceptable conclusion in children’s books and literary works. And, the book in question was obviously not either one of these. This brings up the question: what exactly comprises a romance novel? If the struggle is not finding the right person, even among multiple possible lovers, and ultimately overcoming the problems to get together with the right one, should the book be classified as a romance?

Dr. Zhivago is the story of a man torn by his love for two women, at least in the movie (there’s a third one in the book). What genre is this famous novel by Boris Pasternak? You should not consider it a romance, but a historical literary novel. Pasternak received the Nobel Prize for Literature after he smuggled this novel out of the Soviet Union. The fictional doctor’s romantic liaisons are woven in between a detailed record of pain and suffering caused by the Communist Revolution.

It doesn’t really seem to matter if the novel concerning a woman struggling over which man (or men) to choose is written by a male or a female. Both Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert and The Awakening by Kate Chopin end up as tragedies. It doesn’t always have to be that way, as Paint Your Wagon is a musical and a comedy. But, are any of these really considered romances? 

So what should be the genre of a book dealing with polyandry or polygamy?

_{Photo: “Мечты Стеллы Марис” by Stella Maris – https://500px.com/photo/86751947/in-dreams-by-stella-maris. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons}