The Village Was Right: Beneath the Infinite Veil of Romance.

—OR

—Romance? It’s What We’re For.

Cultural Preservation Through Courtship and the War of the Sexes

“The world must be romanticized. Only in that way will one rediscover its original senses. Romanticization is nothing less than a qualitative raising of the power of a thing… I romanticize something when I give the commonplace a higher meaning, the known the dignity of the unknown, and the finite the appearance of the infinite.”

— Novalis

Oh, bless Novalis and his Teutonic longing! He understood, far better than our modern libertines or algorithmic courtship tacticians, that if you wish to keep something sacred, you must first veil it in beauty. You must, in a word—romanticize. And that includes (perhaps especially includes) the bewildering, baroque, blood-scented business of mating.

The War of the Sexes: A Hot Mess Without a Hearth

Yes, my dear poppets, reality is not pretty. That’s why they call it the war of the sexes and not the candlelit armistice of the sexes. But even wars need rules of engagement. Dueling codes. Floral tokens. Temporary truces over wine and the flicker of possibility.

It is precisely because of how difficult and awkward and brutal the modern hook-up landscape is that romance must be reinstalled. Courtship, once a delicate ballet, has been replaced by the bleeping chaos of apps, metrics, metrics about metrics, and a sullen, mutual suspicion.

The Men’s Rights Movement—in its literary wing—has rightly pointed out the injustices boys now face: courts stacked, expectations skewed, boyish virtues punished. And the “Game” wing—oh bless their spreadsheets—tries valiantly to train callow lads into plausible seducers with all the joy of training a Labrador to do calculus. Their intentions are noble: to protect the sons from the fangs of post-feminist ferality. But one cannot spreadsheet one’s way to transcendence.

For what they win in safety, they lose in soul.

And worse: they lose in offspring.

The Eugenic Imagination of Eve

Let’s be blunt. Women, dear things, are not innocent in this evolutionary stage play. They are the stage managers. Selective, shrewd, and utterly unforgiving. Nature, that merciless dowager, appointed them as the guardians of the egg vault. And when women get choosy, nations fall or rise accordingly.

It is the fairer sex, with its subconscious spreadsheets of height, jawline, income, and social fluency, that conducts the unofficial eugenics of the modern West. They select—and increasingly, they opt out. Why bother with messy children when one has travel, therapy, and niche cosmetics?

But my darlings, the genes must flow! The flirt must become fertilization. The comedy of manners must end with a christening. Not every woman is meant to be a mother—but enough must be, or we vanish.

Matchmakers, Not Machines

In days past, matchmaking was not an act of chaotic passion or sterile calculation—it was an art, often conducted by older women who knew the rhythms of their village, the temperaments of its youth, the lineage of its families, and the whispers of its wells. These wise matrons—midwives of both birth and betrothal—were the original algorithms, not of data, but of deep intuition.

They arranged unions not to enslave the lovers, but to prepare them. And what of romance? Did the youth feel robbed of their fluttering hearts and secret glances?

No. They romanticized it.

That is the secret.

A match arranged by Aunt Marta or Granny Elspeth was not seen as a prison—but as a promise. The couple imbued their pairing with meaning because it came with blessing. They grew into love because they knew its roots were shared. It wasn’t about individual bliss—it was about the song of the village. And when your love is part of something larger than yourself, you begin to treat it as sacred.

Romance, in this way, was not erased by arrangement. It was raised by it.

Romanticization as Demographic Strategy

European-derived peoples—my own dear stock—are in demographic retreat. We shrink while the world swells. And no culture survives long once it stops reproducing its own lovers.

So we must romanticize again. We must rescue:

The dance—that awkward, aching art of pursuit and refusal.

The marriage proposal—an act of sublime audacity, not statistical liability.

The father figure—not as laughing stock or jailer, but pillar, poet, and the consolation of his Dad joke.

The maiden—not as marketing demographic, but mystery incarnate.

We must permit ourselves the earnestness of love again, even arranged love, for it is not the how but the why that grants meaning.

A Word to the Gamers

To the “Game” writers—yes, yes, I see you. Your tactics are clever. Your warnings are warranted. But you’ve made the tragedy worse by pretending it’s a contest. The more men act like they’re just maximizing a funnel, the more women learn to act like filters.

And both sides end up dry, broken, and alone—at best, rutting like feral bureaucrats, checking the same boxes as their foes.

The Council urges you: turn back. Not to puritanism—but to poetry.

Future Counsel from Yours Truly (Coming Soon… if the Council grants it):

“A lady mustn’t give all her ideas away at once, but consider this my scented kerchief of intent tossed upon the editorial floor.”— Mrs. B.C.

❧ “The Auntie Algorithm Project”

A proposed revival of community-based romantic mentoring—modeled after the wise village matchmakers of old. Let us contrast this sacred tradition with today’s sterile dating apps and ask: who really knew us better—Grandmother Elspeth or Silicon Valley?

❧ “Letters from the Arranged”

An archival series featuring real letters, diary entries, and oral histories from couples in arranged or semi-arranged marriages. Spoiler: many fell deeply in love. The romantic wasn’t lost—it was invoked.

❧ “The Blush Rebellion: A Romance Revival for European Peoples”

A demographic and cultural campaign built around beauty, fertility, and sacred intimacy. Poetry posters, field kits, and intergenerational courtship advice. Because to blush is to belong.

Final Counsel: