Last Tuesday, Prince Charles of England officially announced the engagement and impending marriage of his eldest son William to his long-time girlfriend Kate Middleton.
Pandemonium ensued in the press on both sides of the pond, in journals ranging from questionable to respectable.
Of course, everyone wants to know about the ring, the dress, and the date.
But the more interesting questions are those being asked more quietly—what does a royal family look like in 2010, and what did we learn from the failed marriage of William’s parents Charles and Diana?
Those with opinions have argued that William’s marriage to Middleton will bring some much-needed fresh air into the royal family, as she comes from the petit bourgeois and not the titled or privileged set that Diana did.
But if shaking up the centuries-old institution requires upending those same centuries-old traditions, ought not the question be “Why do we need a monarchy?” instead of “How do we revive the one we have?”
A “revival” of the monarchy is inherently problematic. Those in favor of the monarchy argue for it because of tradition. Tradition and monarchy are, in fact, inseparably intertwined.
But the match of Middleton and William seems to defy almost every tradition imaginable. Besides the question of social class, there is the question of propriety. It is widely known that the couple has been permitted to cohabitate, something that would certainly never have been allowed for Diana and Charles in the 80s.
Diana, in the great royal tradition, was also obliged to receive official certification of virginity in order to satisfy the question of lineage so important to a royal line. Yet I cannot imagine Kate agreeing to be subject to such an offensive, outmoded examination.
Diana and Charles’ marriage seemed to be based on tradition from the start. They may not have been madly in love—Charles infamously muttered something about “whatever ‘in love’ really means” when he was asked if he was in love with his future bride—but they did follow tradition, for the most part. Diana produced male heirs, and Charles kept his requisite monarchical mistresses on the side. Such a “traditional” royal marriage in the 20th century inevitably ended in heartache and ultimately tragedy.
Stifling tradition of that sort will not work for the future royal couple. But neither would complete modernity. There seems to be a gaping need to explore a balance between tradition and modernity, the tension between which drive the difficulty of such a marriage in the first place. But this again brings back our original dilemma—without tradition, is there really room for a monarchy at all? In a post-debt-crisis world, is a royal wedding really what we need now?
Rebecca Quinn is a senior art history, Spanish and French triple major. She can be reached for comment at [email protected].
