What got me to understand this more than anything else was watching the start of "The Ancient Magus’ Bride" and thinking "Wow this is basically the full female fantasy."

Here's the wiki summary: Having been ostracized by both her relatives and partially by society, orphaned Japanese high school student Chise Hatori decides to sell herself at an auction in order for somebody else to take her in and have a new place to call home. At the auction in London, she is sold for five million pounds to Elias Ainsworth, a seven-foot-tall humanoid with an animal skull for a head. The magus, who seems closer to a demon than human, either brings her the light she desperately seeks or drowns her in ever deeper shadows in her new country, Great Britain. The series deals with a romantic slice-of-life storyline in a surreal and supernatural light.