Hearts and Minds: Canadian Romance at the Dawn of the Modern Era, 1900–1930 (review)

In his ambitious book, Hearts and Minds: Canadian Romance at the Dawn of the Modern Era, Dan Azoulay seeks to understand the romantic desires and experiences of ordinary Canadians at the dawn of the modern era. He asserts that there has been limited exploration of the history of heterosexual romance in Canada, in part because the sources for such studies are both rare – personal diaries and correspondence – and “skewed toward the elite . . . literate and well known individuals whose writings were more likely to be preserved for posterity” (p. 3). To fill this lacuna and to de-centre the elite, Azoulay uses as his primary source material “magnificent collections of letters” (p. 9), correspondence and advice columns from Western Home Monthly and the Family Herald and Weekly Star, Winnipeg and Montreal-based magazines, respectively, with extensive distribution (p. 1 and p. 9). Azoulay makes excellent use of these sources to bring us new insights into the romantic desires and tribulations of men and women of this era but, not surprisingly, his book cannot provide definitive answers to our questions about romance in the past. Nor does it fully overcome the biases of previous works on romance. As Azoulay himself admits, the men and women who made use of correspondence and advice columns were literate and English-speaking, with the money and time necessary for reading magazines and writing to either seek companionship or guidance on romance (pp. 11–12).

In his first two chapters Azoulay uses the personal columns, an “inexpensive and easily accessible method of finding a mate” (p. 10) to determine what characteristics men and women wanted in life-partners (and advertised when describing themselves). He asserts that men were very clear “about the qualities they wanted in a wife” (p. 21). First and foremost, they sought women “with the skills and dedication required to run a household: to cook, clean, sew and care for children” (p. 22). Men looked for women who were “modest or reserved” (p. 29), expressed desire for “cultured companionship” (p. 35) and opposed “vanity and superficiality” in their mates (p. 43). Azoulay asserts that it is “less clear what Canadian maidens wanted” in their romantic and marital partners. In part, this is because the modesty demanded of women required them to be less direct in stating their preferences in correspondence. It is clear, however, that women wanted men who were “industrious” and willing to work (p. 54), who would “abstain from certain vices, especially alcohol” (p. 61), who were neat and well-groomed (p. 66) and “kind and considerate” (p. 69). While Azoulay briefly refers to the notion that the husband was “head” of the house, he does little to connect this issue to women’s emphasis on industriousness, temperance and kindliness. Women were clear that they did not want to be mere “household drudges”, but they must also have feared the potential violence and desertion of men. These issues deserve more contextualization.

Azoulay’s third chapter explores the romantic advice provided by the editor of the Prim Rose column in the Family Herald to explore the dos and don’ts of dating and romance. He asserts that romance etiquette was “complex” (p. 123), but that men, not women were expected to “take the initiative” (p. 123) in gift-giving, conversation, correspondence and intimacy. Women were believed to require protection and considerable power was “assigned to a young woman’s parents” (p. 124); chaperones remained common in the years before the Great War. What is less clear from such advice columns is the degree to which individual couples accepted and followed these exacting standards.

While the rules of romantic etiquette provided “minor frustrations” (p. 125) for courting couples, Azoulay’s fourth chapter demonstrates that much greater challenges inhibited romance. In particular, he explores the loneliness experienced by Western bachelors who lived in isolated circumstances in which opportunities for meeting mates were severely limited (pp. 128–144): “isolation, time...