From a long ago post about an incomplete Nanonovel, the concept of romance novel tropes in a sedoretu.
As a quick refresher: a sedoretu originates in several of Ursula Le Guin’s short stories. It is a four way marriage in a society with moieties, in which the woman of the Morning and the man of the Evening have a sexual relationship, as do the woman of the Evening and the man of the Morning, as do both women, and both men. However, the two adults of the Morning and the two of the Evening are prohibited from a sexual relationship by an incest taboo that applies moiety-wide. The entire society as a result essentially revolves around matchmaking, and anyone whose gender or sexual identity is a poor fit for this is in a difficult place (see Le Guin’s Mountain Ways).
Luzula has one in Puzzle Pieces:
When she was a teenager, she’d devoured romance novels by the dozen. They were the type where the swooning Morning heroine and her faithful Evening friend and sidekick were abducted by an evil villain and then saved by a handsome mysterious Evening man, and then of course it turned out that the mysterious man was the long-lost love of the heroine’s brother, on whom her friend had had a crush all her life. And at the end of their adventures, the heroine and her friend fell into each other’s arms and realized that their friendship had turned into romance. And they all made a sedoretu together and lived happily after ever.
Arranged marriage/marriage of convienience: essentially universal, given the unlikeliness of four separate interlocking romances forming spontaneously. Le Guin deals with “please marry this person because you’re in love with this other person” in Unchosen Love, in which the protagonist is both being pushed towards his lover’s lover’s lover sexually, while also being socially rejected by his lover’s lover. There’s also: “please marry these two people because they’re both in love with this third person and three isn’t a socially acceptable number of people for a marriage”, “please marry these three people because they have a farm to share with you and we don’t”, “please marry these three people because the love of two of their lives just died and they don’t have sufficient children yet.”
Romance bet: two notorious rakes and famous rivals, of the Morning and Evening, make a bet with each other that they’re the one who can hold out on making a suitable match first. Each of them, naturally, falls in love with a delightful lady within days, and each spends the bulk of the novel trying to woo his beloved and scramble to put a sedoretu together while concealing her existence from his nosy friend. In the climax, it emerges that the two women have been lovers for years, and have been filling each other in on the whole thing. Not to mention waiting more and more impatiently the two men to finally realise their undying love and lust for each other and complete the foursome.
Secret parentage: two characters who seem to be members of the same moiety due to secret parentage/adoption fall in love, much to the horror of them both, and presumably scandalising their lovers of the other gender too. Of course, in the final act, all is revealed and their love isn’t incestuous after all.
Secret identity: a character has to go undercover as a member of the other moiety due to police work or some complicated clause in their parents’ wills (why not both?!) and finds themselves falling in love with individuals who are a moiety-brother and moiety-sister of their cover identity. Their actual moiety-sibling, who is also the only person who knows of their real identity, and also loves the same two individuals, watches helplessly due to the importance of the secret.
Healing love: a tragedy has struck a sedoretu with the death of one of its members. All three survivors have been lost in their own grief and the other marriages are on the brink of collapse, is the quiet visitor to the farmhold the answer?
Confirmed bachelor couple marriage: a Morning and Evening man have steadfastly held themselves out as a couple marriage for many years, to the despair of matchmaking uncles, nosy grandpas, and innumerable lovely pairs of women. Will this pair of mysterious strangers teach them what true love is at last?
Leaf Litter 