There’s a long history of rape, “rape fantasy,” and other permutations of lack of consent in the romance genre, tracing back to the early days of The Sheik (1919)—or even further back to Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740). Publishers, adhering to the social mores of the day, once believed the only way audiences would accept pre-marital sex was if the woman was forced. The trope of the rapist who is “reformed” by his love for the heroine and eventually marries her became as common as they come in historical romances. As the larger conversation around sexual assault has shifted, that trope has largely started to fall away.
The Duke and I, however, was written 20 years ago—and it seems clear from context that what Daphne does to Simon is assault. If you check Goodreads for reactions to the novel from contemporary readers, you’ll find a good deal of disgust levied at this plot development. The top review, which gives the book zero stars, reads: “why would you ruin a perfectly good romance with a rape scene. just because it was a guy doesn’t mean it’s not rape!!!!”
For her part, Quinn wrote very explicitly and progressively about consent throughout the rest of the Bridgerton series. Netflix, understandably, handled the scene a bit differently. For one, Simon is neither drunk nor asleep when his wife does what she does. Actress Phoebe Dynevor plays it as if Daphne is plotting her move all through dinner. She becomes the sexual aggressor when she and her husband reach the bedroom and, in a move familiar to fans of season one of Game of Thrones (which has its own issues with marital rape), she pins him down. This delights him until it horrifies him. Though somewhat inarticulate, Regé-Jean Page as Simon is clearly in distress, saying thinigs akin to “wait” and “stop.”
But Daphne ignores him. She accuses him of lying to her and taking advantage—and so, she says, she did the same to him. The show version of Simon clarifies that he never meant to lie to her, that he mistakenly thought she had learned her birds and bees before they married.
In the book, at least, Daphne recriminates herself for what she’s done. But TV Daphne remains certain that she was right. She accuses Simon of bringing this on himself. The show’s narrator Lady Whistledown—voiced by Julie Andrews—makes her own commentary. She is seemingly speaking about another character in a voiceover played while footage of a forlorn Simon and Daphne plays: “Desperate times may call for desperate measures, but I would wager many may think her actions beyond they pale. Perhaps she thought it her only option. Or perhaps she knows no shame. But I ask you, could the ends ever justify such wretched means?”
Bridgerton attempts to sidestep tackling this toxic plot point by asking a question it never intends to answer. It’s a misstep for a series trying to provide frothy, addictive holiday entertainment that puts female desire front and center.
TV Daphne never apologizes for taking advantage of her husband, and the pair quickly become embroiled in trying to help the rest of Daphne’s family escape another scandal. As they struggle to find their way back to each other—and she hopes for a pregnancy that will compel him to stay by her side—she continues to accuse Simon of lying to her. She’s convinced that he shouldn’t let his father’s toxicity infect his current happiness. And she is right on that front! But she never reckons with the violating behavior she committed on her way towards her happy ending—which, yes, eventually involves having children with her Duke.