Goodreads asked Jennifer Bohnhoff:

Who is your favorite fictional couple, and why?

Jennifer Bohnhoff Sad as their relationship is, I think my favorite fictitious couple are Dorothea Brooke and Edward Casaubon, in George Elliot's Middlemarch. Dorothea is a young and enthusiastic idealist who wants to save the world. Rather than marrying the rich young lord who would have allowed her to build cottages for the peasants, she falls for an older scholar, whose incomplete manuscript promises to answer all the questions plaguing man since the beginning of time. Soon after marrying him, Dorothea realizes that her husband's manuscript will never be completed, and it is not going to answer anyone's questions. He is a hopeless bumbler who refuses any assistance from her. Stuck in a loveless marriage, Dorothea perseveres stoically, and in the end is rewarded.

This couple isn't romantic nor ideal, but I think the message about looking deeply at the one who's attracted one's attention is an important message for all idealistic women.

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