Why are women so unromantic?

If you’ve bought a card for your partner this Valentine’s Day, I would guess you’re more likely to be a man. This is because men are generally more romantic than women, which is something that’s widely known but seldom acknowledged. It’s actually quite a serious issue. According to a female counsellor I once interviewed, one of the most frequent causes of marital discord – and sometimes divorce – is unromantic women.

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Not convinced? Think of heterosexual couples you know. Who would you say is the more romantic of the two? Now think of your favourite romantic songs. The vast majority will be paeans of love for a woman, written and sung by a man. Even those sung plaintively by women – for instance, Gladys Knight’s ‘Midnight Train to Georgia’, Roberta Flack’s ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ and Aretha Franklin’s ‘I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)’ – were written by men.

On Valentine’s Day, this truth becomes apparent. Not only will men be buying most of the cards, but they’ll also be buying the roses, the bottles of Bolly and booking the candlelit dinners. The truth of this observation can be found in the origins of Valentine’s Day itself. Despite being a priest, Valentine was a hopeless romantic, which put him at odds with Emperor Claudius II. The emperor believed that married men’s reluctance to leave their wives made them weak soldiers, so he banned marriage altogether. Valentine, however, carried out secret nuptials for lovelorn soldiers and their partners. When the emperor found out, Valentine was sentenced to death. But while he was awaiting execution, he fell in love with the jailer’s daughter – of course he did. On 14 February, he was carted off to have his head removed, but left his belle a love note signed ‘from your Valentine’. 

Maybe because the original ‘Your Valentine’ was a man, the responsibility for romance still rests with men. Or perhaps it has something to do with evolution. Men can procreate quickly and easily, so are more likely to fall quickly and easily in love. For women, there is a lot more at stake, starting with nine months’ hard labour, so they need to be more circumspect before removing a garment.

Possibly. But does that excuse really hold up today? One woman told me that if she shows her husband any physical affection, he’ll immediately take it as game-on for sex. Quite apart from this being a conceited thing to say, if a tender squeeze really does drive the poor man wild, could this be because such displays of affection are so rare?

And yes, of course men can be unromantic too. Plenty of romantic women are tethered to unimaginative dullards, but the proportion of unromantic men is almost certainly overstated because women are far more comfortable airing their spousal grievances. They’ll talk openly with their friends, take advice and go online to share their tales of woe.

It’s different for men. Romance may be what they want, but many would have to be tortured before they’d admit it. They know that complaining about a lack of marital romance would be viewed as a sign of weakness, even by men in an identical situation. So they’re more likely to suffer in silence, their disappointments unspoken and unresolved. It’s not that women don’t like romance – of course they do. But in too many cases, they seem to view it as an entitlement rather than a two-way process in which they might want to contribute.

Valentine’s Day may be schmaltzy and over-commercial, but it’s also a chance to demonstrate your love. This doesn’t have to take the form of a giant card with a red satin heart. Love is simply recognising someone’s needs and meeting them. And for most men – most people – those needs include romance.