In Desmond's time in the martial sovereign world, it had become painfully apparent to him that in this world romance was not an important part of their culture.
To put it in simple terms, this world was extremely similar to the ancient east where men and women basically lived in separate worlds without interacting with each other until marriage was arranged between them.
This was especially the case for people who were born with some kind of status as their marriages will be decided by their relatives from a young age, because of this in this world there was no real need for romance.
Even with all of the above, it wasn't as if everything beautiful about love was dead, but broadly speaking public displays of affection or elaborate declarations were rare.
