Sergio Rinaldi, Politecnico di Milano, Italy, and International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenberg, Austria
Fabio Della Rossa, Politecnico di Milano,Italy
Pietro Landi, Politecnico di Milano,Italy

Abstract: A mathematical model is proposed for interpreting the love story between Elizabeth and Darcy portrayed by Jane Austen in the popular novel Pride and Prejudice. The analysis shows that the story is characterized by a sudden explosion of sentimental involvements, revealed by the existence of a saddle-node bifurcation in the model. The paper is interesting not only because it deals for the first time with catastrophic bifurcations in romantic relation-ships, but also because it enriches the list of examples in which love stories are described through ordinary differential equations.

Keywords: love dynamics, mathematical models, dynamical systems, catastrophic bifurcations, saddle-node bifurcations, Pride and Prejudice