Not Her Cup of Tea: Aromanticism in Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women
Romance has served as the foundation for English literary comedy since the days of Shakespeare and Chaucer, and the concept of a 20th century English novel written by a woman and featuring a woman as the main character inevitably summons images of romance and courtship. We picture determined and independent young women paired with rude and brooding young men. When we pick up a Jane Austen book, it is with the certainty that the story will end with a happy wedding regardless of the trials and tribulations along the way. Barbara Pym’s 1952 novel Excellent Women dares to buck these trends by portraying a woman who is not just resistant to the idea of marriage but utterly disinterested in romantic relationships altogether. The journey of protagonist Mildred Lathbury is decidedly aromantic when viewed under a contemporary lens. In comparison to alloromantic people who fully experience romantic attraction, aromantic people do not feel the tug of romance at all. Through a comparison of Mildred’s experiences to those of the novel’s other unpaired characters, and through an examination of her interactions with supposed romantic interests, we can discover that her path is not one of temptations resisted and passions quashed but one of aromanticism firmly asserted. This is not a typical story of a single woman struggling to find love. Instead, Excellent Women shares the rare perspective of an aromantic woman trying to find her purpose in a world dominated by romantic concerns.
In order to judge Mildred’s characterization in an aromantic context, we first need to define what aromanticism is. Aromanticism falls under the broader umbrella of asexuality. Although the latter term is more well-known, it provides too general a description for the character of Mildred. In their essay “Reconsidering Asexuality and Its Radical Potential” which featured in the journal Feminist Studies, queer asexual scholar CJ DeLuzio Chasin establishes that “most people on the asexual spectrum do experience romantic attraction that is usually directed toward people of specific genders and identity…still, aromantic asexuals (those who do not experience romantic attraction towards anyone) should not be overlooked" (Chasin 407). Under this suggested dichotomy, sexual attraction and romantic attraction are treated as separate concerns that do not necessarily have anything to do with each other. Understanding this context is important because it tells us that assigning Mildred the broader label of “asexual” is premature in a novel as chaste and sexless as Excellent Women. Like the Austen novels from which it draws inspiration, Mildred’s world does not concern itself with sexual activity at all, and we are only given knowledge of Mildred’s romantic thoughts or lack thereof. Due to the current lack of specifically aromantic scholarship, however, several of my research sources will refer to “asexuals” in a broad sense that includes aromantic individuals like Mildred. Her status as either an asexual or sexual character is questionable due to the lack of evidence that sex exists at all in Pym’s mundane portrayal of a soft post-war England. Mildred’s status as an aromantic character, however, can be much better supported.
First we must distinguish Mildred from other unmarried characters in order to distinguish her aromanticism from other conditions that may appear similar to the uncritical eye. Although Mildred is assigned the label of “spinster”, it is an ill-fitting word tacked on to her by a world that has not yet experienced any sort of sexual revolution. The commentary on her status by research sources reflect this search for a label. Robert Graham argues in his essay “Cumbered with Much Serving: Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women” that the novel serves as “an evaluation of marriage and singleness as inherently positive or negative states and an assessment of marriage as an imperative to experiencing life fully” (Graham 143). This is a succinct description of aromanticism, and the novel’s plot follows Mildred’s investigation of these driving questions. She approaches the idea of romance in a unique light compared to other unpaired characters. We can best observe the difference by comparing Mildred to the anthropologist's assistant Miss Clovis, who Mildred doubts “ever had the opportunity of entering into this bondage [of marriage]” (Pym 159) and Mildred’s close friend and local vicar Julian Mallory. She is stunned when Julan begins to pursue a relationship with newcomer Allegra Gray. This conflict between Mildred and Julian arises not out of jealousy that Julian has found a prospective partner and Mildred has not, but out of misunderstanding. Mildred believes Julian possessed the same disinterest in romance as she did, when his unmarried status was instead due to the same lack of opportunity that Miss Clovis experienced. When Gray enters the scene, Julian is more than ready to entertain her advances. He was not aromantic, but merely unaware of his romantic possibilities.
In comparison, Mildred herself is presented with many opportunities to pursue romance with men both unmarried and married: Rocky Napier, Everard Bone, and Julian himself all provide her with romantic hooks that any courtship novel protagonist would envy. Rocky casually says “she must come and stay at [his] cottage one week-end” (Pym 148) but Mildred never once feels the strong urge to take him up on the offer. She similarly rejects Everard’s offer to join him for dinner, and defuses Julian’s clumsy attempt at romance with a joke at which “Julian laughed…and the slight embarrassment which [she] had felt between [them] was dispelled” (190). Romance is clearly not the driving force behind Mildred’s decisions in any of these cases, or else she would express more regret than relief at having turned the men away. In her essay “Compulsory Sexuality”, scholar Elizabeth Emens contends that “an important idea among asexuals is that they are not resisting their desires” (Emens 318). We see that Mildred is not particularly tempted to pursue romantic relationships with any of these men. Curiously, she thinks of herself a few times as a rejected woman, but Mildred does more rejecting than any other character in the novel. These dismissed advances inform us that her ultimate state of solitude is not due to her unattractiveness as a romantic partner. For Mildred, aromanticism is not a desperate explanation of last resort for a woman doomed to spinsterhood, but a guiding principle that she routinely tests and affirms. She is only fond of the idea of romance, which is natural in a world that assigns such high value to romantic relationships. Under this overwhelming pressure to pair up, Mildred seeks out a like-minded individual who is equally indifferent to romance.
This individual is William Caldicote, a man she was once set up with long ago as a potential romantic partner. Mildred takes comfort in the idea that their relationship “had settled down into a comfortable dull thing” (Pym 58). The lack of romance is a clear positive force in this instance, rather than a negative one. He is the best candidate in the novel for a male aromantic character, and he serves as a guiding model for Mildred. Edens argues that “the one who does not share the…dispositions of her neighbors–like the atheist or agnostic in a profoundly religious community–may feel impelled to…convene allies to seek recognition for their mutual experience of alienation from pervasive assumptions" (Edens 346). For Mildred, William serves as this small but vital representation of a world not dominated by romantic concerns. He is the reassuring sign that she is not alone in the world and that there are other individuals who share her unique point of view. Despite his lack of a partner, William finds fulfillment in his work and in the feeding of pigeons, and never once complains about his single status. He is the male character that Mildred is most at ease with, and she reflects that “William was not the kind of man to marry, and…[she] did not mind in the very least” (Pym 58). She does not have to play the tiresome game of romance with William because both of them are utterly uninterested. William’s purpose, and the purpose of the discord between the married Napiers and the engaged Julian and Allegra, is to show us that Mildred’s unhappiness is not the result of her unmarried status. This neatly explains the novel’s ending, in which her forlorn state is repaired not by a wedding or proposal, but instead by a renewed pursuit of other interests that Mildred believes will help compose a full life.
The most important aspect to analyze when considering Mildred’s potential aromanticism is her feelings towards her potential romantic partners. After being teased by Julian about her potential attraction to Rocky, Mildred thinks “[she has] never been very much given to falling in love and [has] often felt sorry that [she has] so far missed not only the experience of marriage, but the perhaps even greater and more ennobling one of having loved and lost” (38). A romance with her attractive new neighbor never even occurs to Mildred until someone else mentions it, and then she only considers the matter with regret at not having felt the passion society expects from her. Professor Jean Kennard argues in her essay “Barbara Pym and Romantic Love” that Pym “works systematically to undermine her readers' expectations of the romantic love plot” (Kennard 47). Instead of a melodramatic scene of lovesick pining one would expect from such a plot, we get Mildred’s cold and careful analysis of her various romantic potentials.
If Mildred’s desire to remain unmarried was motivated purely by social and economic reasons, or if she just preferred to live alone, one would expect her to constantly be pushing down feelings of attraction and love. In regard to Everard, Mildred reflects that “one might love him secretly with no hope of encouragement, which can be very enjoyable for the young or inexperienced” (Pym 82). Notably, Mildred considers this thought with the distance of a third-person perspective. Love for Everard is judged only in the theoretical sense, like a scientific problem. Robert Graham suggests “that the machinations of courtship and marriage shape the testing ground for a spinster's speculations about the relative merits of matrimony and singleness” (Graham 148). Mildred is aware society expects her to seek out romantic opportunities, and it is this societal pressure that provokes her to even entertain the idea of romance without ever feeling passionate desire. Perhaps most striking is her realization fourteen chapters into the novel of “how stupid [she] had been not to see it like that, for it had not occurred to [her] that anyone might think [she] was in love with Julian” (Pym 114). In typical courtship comedies, the protagonists do not usually have to be told that they could potentially be falling in love. This is not an oblivious woman destined to fall in love once she takes notice of all the men pining for her, but a person totally removed from the world of romance and ignorant of its complex language and customs.
Based on these conclusions, it is clear that anyone who believes Mildred will someday meet the right man is mistaking the apathy of the disinterested for the hesitance of the undecided. Julian Mallory, Everard Bone, and Rocky Napier are wildly different men. The impact of this variety is to destroy any thought that Mildred might be waiting for a fitting partner to come along before she settles down. She is not a child leaning over the ice cream counter, carefully considering which flavor to choose. Instead, she took one look at the door to the ice cream parlor and walked right on by. What Mildred chooses instead is the path of platonic community love, in which she throws herself whole-heartedly into her friendships and community works. Kennard argues that “in place of the values implied by the [romantic love] plot, Pym offers us an ideal of community based upon what she argues is a more genuine form of love” (Kennard 47). Although I agree that Mildred does well to seek out platonic love that feels more genuine to her, I would not necessarily describe any form of love as more genuine than another in a broader sense. Mildred is not better or worse than romance-concerned characters like Julian or her nosy maid. She is only different.
Excellent Women is not a story of self-discovery, and it is not a courtship novel that merely lacks a satisfying conclusion. Instead, it is an odyssey of self-affirmation for an aromantic woman under siege by a society that does not yet understand her. Mildred’s ultimate choice not to marry after weathering the trials of courtship is a triumph as worthy of celebration as any climactic love affair or wedding ceremony.
Works Cited
Chasin, CJ DeLuzio. “Reconsidering Asexuality and Its Radical Potential.” Feminist Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2013, pp. 405–26.
Emens, Elizabeth F. “Compulsory Sexuality.” Stanford Law Review, vol. 66, no. 2, 2014, pp. 303–86.
Graham, Robert J. “Cumbered with Much Serving: Barbara Pym’s ‘Excellent Women.’” Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature, vol. 17, no. 2, 1984, pp. 141–60.
Kennard, Jean E. “Barbara Pym and Romantic Love.” Contemporary Literature, vol. 34, no. 1, 1993, pp. 44–60.
Pym, Barbara. Excellent Women. Penguin Classics, 2006.
Revision Report
Based on the encouraging and helpful letters and comments I received from Nathan and Emily, I made several minor corrections related to citations throughout the essay. Both of them also suggested I might explore how Mildred’s relationship with religion informs her romantic choices or lack thereof, but I chose not to make any moves in that direction so as not to distract from my major arguments. Also, I believe adding any more content to the paper would unnecessarily bloat it. I chose not to bring up Jane Austen any more than I did for the same reason, and also because I think that would turn the essay more into an author-to-author comparison that probably deserves an entire paper of its own. Nathan also suggested I share my own personal perspective on Mildred’s journey of self-exploration, and after reading Kumar’s Every Day I Write the Book, that proposal really intrigues me. However, I originally wrote this essay under my long-standing belief that the author is far less important than their ideas and should be best kept invisible, so such a radical reconstruction is not possible so late in the process.
