I have only been able to see excerpts of Lugan-Dardigna's article, so unfortunately I haven't got a good overview of it, though it does begin by stating that romance has a didactic function, for example heroines may be taught the error of their ways and learn to "se plier aux conventions sociales de son rôle féminin" (285)" (conform to social conventions about the role of women). However, another aspect of this article is characterised briefly in Luneau and Warren's Love Stories Now and Then:
Until the 1960s, in the Quebec literary tradition, a woman had to attract a suitor by playing with a more or less subdued eroticism, while denying her own sexuality: the more a man loved, the more he tried to preserve the "virtue" of his chosen one. According to a hypothesis formulated by Anne-Marie Lugan-Dardigna, this attitude is rooted in a French romance tradition in which the woman is more likely to love before she desires, whereas in the English romance tradition, the woman is more likely to desire before she loves. (13-14)
I have only been able to see excerpts of Lugan-Dardigna's article, so unfortunately I haven't got a good overview of it, though it does begin by stating that romance has a didactic function, for example heroines may be taught the error of their ways and learn to "se plier aux conventions sociales de son rôle féminin" (285)" (conform to social conventions about the role of women). However, another aspect of this article is characterised briefly in Luneau and Warren's Love Stories Now and Then: