Count me among those who felt a twinge of excitement when the news broke Tuesday of the long-awaited engagement between Prince William and Kate Middleton. This excitement has very little to do with being a British citizen. For all intents and purposes, I am culturally American — but Americans have a long-standing fascination with the House of Windsor and their goings-on, and in that regard I am no different from most.
I can’t help but do what so many are doing, which is compare this engagement announcement to the one that came nearly thirty years ago from William’s parents, Charles and Diana. As I’ve written before, I was not quite fourteen when I first saw the future Princess of Wales on television, and I promptly fell into the strongest and most passionate celebrity crush of my adolescence, surpassing even Kristy McNichol. Like millions of others, I stayed up all night on a warm summer evening in July 1981 to watch live coverage of the royal wedding from London. I was absolutely captivated, my normal pubescent cynicism replaced by wide-eyed and unabashed romantic fascination. I never quite lost my fascination with Diana over the years, and when I learned of her death (in Manchester Airport, just after I had arrived in the UK to give a paper) I was rocked to my core. Though it always surprises people when I say it, I consider the events of 9/11 to be only the second most shocking news event of my life; the first happened four years earlier in a Paris tunnel.
In 1981, much was made of Diana’s purported virginity. Much was also made, but hardly ever in a critical way, of the age gap between Lady Spencer and Prince Charles. He was 32 when they were engaged, she had just turned 19. And much would be made, in retrospect, of their painful awkwardness together, including their infamous answers to an interviewer who inquired whether the couple were very much in love; Diana offered a blushing “Of course”, Charles, a devastatingly diffident “Whatever love is.” As we would eventually discover, he was already very much in love with the woman to whom he is at last now married, Camilla Parker-Bowles.
The difference between the Charles/Diana and William/Kate engagements — and more importantly, between the relationships themselves — says a great deal about the evolution of our society in the past thirty years. Very few people think Kate Middleton is a virgin, and no one in their right mind likely cares. Equally important is the difference in the narrative arc of the two courtships: Diana and Charles were the poster children for rushing into something, while Kate and William have been very much young people of their generation, showing no interest in hurrying to the altar. As most folks know, the young couple have dated for eight years since meeting at university, and took a much-publicized “break” along the way. A great many young people in the Western world today will be able to identify with such an extended courtship that has had such obvious ups-and-downs. The sensible modern idea that sexual compatibility should be determined before marriage, and deep intimacy already established before walking down the aisle, is made manifest in the story of newly engaged couple. This is to be applauded.
And of course, I’m pleased that we’ve got a marriage between chronological peers. While Diana was thirteen years Charles’ junior, Kate is six months older than William. I’ve made the case again and again that older men/younger women relationships, for all their culturally-constructed allure, are frequently problematic, even exploitative. This is especially true when the younger woman is below, say, the age of 25 while the man involved is a decade or more her senior. (As was very much the case with Charles.) It certainly ended disastrously for Diana, not merely because her husband was unfaithful, but because she and the Prince of Wales were, like so many other age-disparate couples, manifestly incompatible. It’s no surprise that the great love of Charles’ life, Camilla Parker-Bowles, was his same age (actually, as with Kate and Wills slightly older than the prince.)
While attraction, fueled by fantasy and need, can offer flourish across a significant age divide, deep and enduring romantic compatibility can rarely survive that divide when the younger partner hasn’t even reached full adulthood. (And the rental car companies are right — most of us, as the brain research suggests, need until our mid-twenties to hit that full adulthood.) Charles lacked the courage to push against the culture and the palace in order to marry the woman he loved, but the heartbreaking example of his tragic first marriage seems to have made a considerable impression on his elder son and future daughter-in-law. Kate and William, despite colossal media pressure, have allowed their relationship to unfold slowly, have allowed themselves their very public doubts, and have built a bond based on both the eros and shared experience of the sort that is really only possible with a generational peer.
As a feminist, I worry for Kate — but I’m hopeful as well. Diana tried to fashion a more modern vision of royalty, and met with spectacularly mixed success. Middleton will face tremendous pressure to conform to a traditional ideal, and the fear is real that she may find her individuality disappearing behind the royal veil. But if she and William can be as different from his parents in their married roles as they were in their engagement process, then there is real hope that she can be a more modern and egalitarian icon than we’ve yet seen.
So here’s to their marriage, but more so, here’s to the route they’re taking to get there.
A. Where did Brooke Shields rank between Kristy and Diana?
B. Do you recall a certain young friend sitting next to you at the ranch watching that same wedding?
I was pretty surprised that it is being reported that they live together, but without acting like that’s at least vaguely scandalous. Admittedly I’m in the American South, but my experience has been that while it’s a big deal in more conservative families, it’s still a bit transgressive in all but the most permissive families. People know it’s modern and practical, but they still won’t openly condone it or treat it as morally neutral. My SIL’s dad still doesn’t know she cohabitated before getting married 10 years ago. I have friends who have a sort of DADT policy with their grandparents. I have LOTS of friends that live with their significant other, but have to sleep in separate rooms when they visit the folks. I’d think the royal family would be a bit more traditionalist about it.
Bill, I do indeed remember watching it with you.
And the royal family’s openness (whether genuine or forced) to the cohabitation of Wills and Kate is indeed cause for joy. These are two romantic icons for a slightly more enlightened and egalitarian age.
I think the biggest problem with Charles and Di’s marriage was not that it was rushed or whatever else. It was an arranged marriage. To do one’s duty for the country is not a marriage. It’s a job.
Di did a great job, for what the job was, and for somebody who was chosen to do the job based on her virginity and nothing else. I always liked her. She was radically human, not a glass dolly like royalty is expected to be. She grew into her role beautifully. I agree that her death was tragic, and maybe just a little too convenient, if you know what I’m saying.
That’s the part that’s really crazy. As ambivalent as I am about the tradition of keeping the royals around (you folks have your gun issues, we have our issues with the monarchy) I think Camilla was the one who was more qualified to deal with the politics right from the get-go. She should have been Charles’ first wife. Who knows what else Di could have been without him? Alive maybe? A noble of lesser status, but probably with the means to have done some of the good work she did anyway, without having to deal with the criticism for touching the starving third world children, and all the other “un-royal” things the family criticized her for.
Charles and Camilla are kind of tainted for me now, especially after the tabloids caught his “wish I was your tampon” speech. ICK!! It would have been much less icky if he were saying that to Princess Camilla and not cheating on Di.
Wills&Kate are a perfect match. The whole institution of inherited royal status is losing its appeal anyway. I think the public will give the young couple plenty of room to express themselves. After Harry’s <:-/ Nazi uniform stunt, I think the public will forgive Wills&Kate for anything short of actually BEING Nazis. They’ll have lots of leeway to redefine what Royalty is.
Oops,I hit submit when I was trying to scroll.
Having their age and a common group of peers and life experiences seems to work well for Wills&Kate, but like I said, there were other problems between Charles, Di and Camilla. Age doesn’t always make that much difference. 19 and 32 aren’t so far apart.
Admittedly I’m in the American South, but my experience has been that while it’s a big deal in more conservative families, it’s still a bit transgressive in all but the most permissive families.
That’s very much not the case in New York (where I grew up) or California (where I live now). Even here in Orange County, which is conservative for California, living together before marriage is pretty much standard operating procedure, taken for granted, and for the most part people who are openly living together aren’t, these days, going to be put in separate rooms when they visit family (if they are, their peers will shake their heads and commiserate over their families’ conservatism).
(On the other hand, when those couples living together are ready to have children, in the circles I move in a large majority of them will marry first, and those who don’t marry first will probably marry soon after.)
William & Kate are approaching their marriage in about the way I see people around me doing it; Charles’ and Diana’s engagement and marriage was already old-fashioned by ordinary people in NY and CA standards even back then.
Hi Hugo, I’m not a royalist, but I nearly shed a tear for similar reasons, especially because they are using Diana’s ring. To me they’ve taken something good of her out of that earlier, tragically empty marraige and made it representational of a genuine enduring love between two real people – something it seems she never quite found. And like you I love that William is strong enough to go his own way, perhaps Diana – along with his parents’ experiences – made him that way. I just hope Kate can hang onto herself under the glare.
Well said.
I also found it interesting that the “royals” are marrying the upper middle class.
The broad middle class concept in Europe is one I suspect we may see arrive in the US in coming years.
*GASP!* They’re using Diana’s ring?!? Now that is tragic.
“The sensible modern idea that sexual compatibility should be determined before marriage, and deep intimacy already established before walking down the aisle, is made manifest in the story of newly engaged couple. This is to be applauded.”
Isn’t it a bit presumptuous to claim to know what William and Kate are or are not doing behind closed doors?
In your world, bmmg, it is indeed entirely possible that they’ve been dating for eight years, traveled around the world together, and lived together (as they essentially do now) while remaining entirely chaste. Without knowing the details of — or having much interest in — their sexual lives, the fact that they’ve shacked up for so long before considering matrimony is all to the good, and part of the point I’m making. I feel confident that sexual compatibility (whatever that means to you) has been established, and rejoice most particularly in the fact that no reasonable person is lamenting their current premarital cohabitation. If you remember 1981, Diana’s virginity was much in the news. Kate’s isn’t. This is progress to be celebrated.
It seems as though you are contradicting yourself. If whether or not to cohabitate or copulate before marriage is no big deal, then you wouldn’t have your thumb on the scales to benefit the “yes” side. You (we) would merely say, “Whether or not they’re living together before marriage, and whether or not they’re sexually active together, we give them our blessings.”
I think what’s important is not whether or not they’re actually sleeping together, but whether or not public perception is that they’re chaste. And whether or not the fact that they appear to probably not be in a chaste relationship is seen to be a problem. And it isn’t.
What CS said. The royals are icons — and in the perception that they are premaritally sexually active (a perception they have done nothing to counter) they are a helpful example to us all. If they are totems of change, then the blessings are all the more fervent on their behalf.
Saying that it’s progress if people don’t care one way or the other is different from saying that it’s more “sensible” to go one route instead of another…so…just to clarify, if they lived separately and had announced that they are both chaste and plan to remain so until they wed, would your reaction to them be the same?
No, it wouldn’t, bmmg, as they would be following a script that was in keeping with tradition, rather than developing a new standard by which this most iconic of families can now live.
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What is your problem with people remaining chaste before marrying? It has worked for tens of thousands of years and you act as though it is a bad thing. Why?
Tens of thousands of years? Hardly. Male pre-marital chastity has only rarely been expected in the last two millenia. Female pre-marital chastity honored as much in the breach as in the observance, as birth records indicate. (Ask any early modern historian what percentage of first-borns appeared less than seven months after their parents’ wedding in seventeenth century Europe and even Puritan America.)
Pre-marital chastity, when it is freely and happily chosen, is a fine option for some. When coerced or demanded, it is cruel. Not least because it pressures a couple to go from no intimacy at all to sexual intercourse in one night.