More Understandable in Fiction Than in Real Life: The Guardian Lover

A variation on the protective lover is the guardian lover. 

A few examples are Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster, Bunny Drop by Yumi Unita, several novels by Georgette Heyer, including Regency Buck, and Why Don't You Eat Me, My Dear Wolf by Ao Koishikawa. 

The problem with guardian lovers is what I call the Woody Allen yikes factor. Woody Allen married Soon-Yi Previn in 1997. She was the adopted daughter of his ex-partner/maybe sometime partner Mia Farrow. Both Previn and Allen claim that he didn't start to associate with her until she was in the 11th grade. 

In fact, when Allen and Previn defend themselves, both argue that he was never a "father-figure" to her in any sense of that word. In the custody hearing that ensued, which terminology implies that Previn was under eighteen at the time, the issue was not whether she was under eighteen but whether or not she was over 21 when she and Allen commenced their sexual relationship.

There is a 31 year age difference.

It is more than likely that Pevin is a happy, willing spouse with Allen. She might even be the dominant partner. But the yikes factor remains. It carries with it the suggestion of coercion and dominance. It is the reason I object to novels where a person with absolute authority starts a sexual relationship with a person who, however much they might say, "Yes," really, really isn't going to say, "No," no matter what.

And yet I generally don't mind the guardian-as-lover archetype. 

Part of the reason, with fiction, is that readers can see into the protagonists' heads. We can rest assured that no psychological manipulation is taking place. 

I propose two more reasons. 

One, the guardian is not a parent. 

In all of the examples I've presented, Bunny Drop being perhaps the most controversial, the guardian is not only not a literal father (in the legal or biological sense) but, as Allen and Previn argue--perhaps disingenuously--not a "father figure." The guardian lover might take on certain fatherly duties (all my examples involve male guardians, not female guardians) but he doesn't actually assume that relationship. 

In Daddy Long Legs, the male guardian doesn't even realize--until he gets Jerusha's first letter--that he is perceived as a older, fatherly man. His uncertainty about how to proceed keeps him silent. 

This cover amuses me.

Heyer would have hated it.

In Regency Buck, Judith--the heroine--is an adult. Both she and her brother have assumed, like Jerusha, that their guardian is elderly. He isn't.

In Why Don't You Eat Me, My Dear Wolf? as in Bunny Drop, the relationship starts earlier. It becomes complicated when the younger partner hits puberty. Up till that point, Uru (the wolf) hasn't questioned his own restraint; likewise, Daikichi from Bunny Drop doesn't seem to realize that his charge is now a young woman. 

When the issue of attraction arises in the first case, Uru sends Taro away from approximately age fifteen to over eighteen. Taro then voluntarily returns. 

Bunny Drop raises more eyebrows. Although Rin makes the decision that she and Daikichi will marry--and she will obviously run the family going forward--it is hard not to question Daikichi's state of mind. Why doesn't he see her as his daughter? (The anime for Bunny Drop ends before Rin becomes a teen.)

Fiction does offer another solution to the guardian lover: Fate.  

Why Don't You Eat Me manages to sell this idea. After all, Taro was "sacrificed" by villagers nearly 100 years earlier to Uru. Their relationship, like Beauty and the Beast or Psyche and Eros, is too big and mythic to be gainsaid. From the beginning, they were fated to be together.

Unfortunately for Bunny Drop manga fans, non-fantasy has difficulty with this idea. Even in sci-fi, it raises unease (more, I would argue, with Americans than in other countries). Quantum Leap (1989-1993) attempted the fate approach in Trilogy, three back-to-back episodes. In the first, Sam is Abigail's father; in the second, he is her fiance; in the third, he is her lawyer. I honestly have never understood why the writers made Sam Abigail's father in Part I. If the relationship is fated, why not have him be the neighbor boy? 

The HBO series The Time Traveler's Wife should have worked but unfortunately, the writers spent far too much time fussing about whether or not Henry is "grooming" Clare, rather than simply saying, "It's fate--they're soulmates--let's move on" (consequently, the series fails to tackle some of the more interesting stories). 

In essence, the guardian lover is a Victorian problem: once the relationship has been labeled, people get very uneasy about that label changing. 

Historical and fantasy fiction, generally speaking, handle the guardian lover better.