Romance Novels (1970s)

St. Valentine's Day is a fitting day to show you some of the novels that pandered to women's romantic fantasies during the 1970s.

Same Job Less Pay (1970) tells the story of a woman who falls in love with a co-worker. When she finds out that he earns twice as much as she does, she's so relieved she doesn't have to carry around all that heavy money that she bakes some pretty little cakes and falls pregnant.

Biological Necessity (1976) is about a woman who, having failed to meet a partner with an emotional IQ higher than a sandwich, takes an evening eugenics class in which she learns that romance is an overvalued social construct and that she is in fact most compatible with men who have a strong EPAS1 gene and an income of more than 100k per annum.

Carcinoma Equals Inheritance (1971). A woman encourages her husband to smoke in a bid to kill him for the substantial inheritance. When he dies, she suddenly remembers that she was the wealthy one all along. Shortly afterwards, a young, penniless con man falls in love with her and proposes marriage. On the honeymoon he encourages her to get drunk on vodka and take part in a series of dangerous sports.

Set in the year 1620, Tortured In The Name Of God's Unconditional Love (1974) is about a woman who falls in love with a pious town elder. She tries to tell him and other backward villagers about rudimentary first-world concepts such as interpersonal communication skills and oral hygiene. She is subsequently tortured and killed by a devout lynch mob, headed by her would-be lover, whose grasp of such things extends to believing that the demonic spirits of pigs can destroy crops by hiding in your nose.

"Romantic Bile Awareness" (1979)

The romantic bile awareness campaign was launched on Valentine's Day, 1979. It came about following medical research into "that pernicious malady: love", which scientists believed was responsible for the secretion of a mysterious black bile produced in the hearts of the afflicted.

The bile perplexed experts, some of who claimed it to be sentient, though all agreed that it caused irreparable damage to internal organs including the lungs, kidneys and luncheon balls. But it was the brain that was the most susceptible to the bile which could trick the sufferer into demeaning acts such as befriending foreigners and other undesirables.

While the state did turn a blind eye to restrained fondness between its citizens, it could not permit love, requited or otherwise, to go unchecked. As the poster states, all relationships required authorisation from local councils and sexual proficiency was evaluated by a social worker.

In addition to relationship management, Scarfolk council also drew up a definitive list of human traits that it deemed attractive, thus potentially dangerous. Anyone who fulfilled more than three attributes was forced to attend a plastic surgery course during which they were taught self-surgery techniques and given a sterilised Swiss army penknife to ensure compliance with the government's guidelines on physical attraction.

Happy Valentine's Day from everyone at Scarfolk Council