Philip Larkin's parents provided an unsatisfactory model of romance. His father, Sydney, was a Nazi sympathizer who attended two Nuremberg rallies and dominated his wife, Eva. Larkin feared ending up as miserable as they were, and later came to believe that his lifestyle as a writer was "not suited" to marriage.
He had his first romantic relationship after graduating college at 21, when he became a librarian and began a relationship with a studious 16-year-old schoolgirl, Ruth Bowman. Larkin's famous gloominess would bother Bowman, who said "in our healthy twenties no other friends of mine gave death a thought, certainly not as a reality for us, and yet . . . it was never far from Philip's thoughts," later in their relationship. In 1948, shortly after his father's death, Larkin proposed to Bowman, but the two split up; Larkin never married. As a young man, he called marriage "a revolting institution," and sex "always disappointing and often repulsive." He also disliked children, which he saw as an inevitable part of marriage.
Larkin began a relationship with Monica Jones, a lecturer in English, during what seemed to be the happiest period of his life. The pair shared some, but not all, of the same literary interests, as well as a love of animals. They had attended Oxford together, but hadn't met while they were there. In 1983, after becoming ill, Jones stayed in Larkin's house, and remained there after his death in 1985 until her own death more than 15 years later. Jones herself provided the word "blazon" for "An Arundel Tomb."
But while dating Jones, Larkin also had a relationship with Patsy Strang, the wife of one of his colleagues, who she had an open relationship with. He later had romantic relationships with two other women, Maeve Brennan and his secretary, Betty Mackereth, as well, until 1978, when he and Jones became monogamous. Though it wasn't a marriage, their relationship had continued for 35 years.
Yet ultimately, Larkin was cynical when it came to love. "Love collides very sharply with selfishness," Larkin said, "and they're both pretty powerful things."
