Inbreeding.
Posted on 04/18/2007 8:46:28 AM PDT by dead
Poor Kate Middleton, dumped by the second in line to the British throne then displayed humiliatingly to the world as Prince William's "practice chick", the mere recipient of some of his wild oats. But judging by the astonishing Pommy snobbery unleashed in the week since the break-up of her almost five-year relationship, Middleton, 25, is well off out of it.
British newspapers are full of quotes from the supposed upper classes about how Kate was too "common" to marry William, 24.
Her mother, Carole Middleton, was "pushy, rather twee and incredibly middle-class", according to a royal source quoted by the Daily Mail.
Mrs Middleton's crimes? She says "Pleased to meet you" instead of "How do you do", "toilet" instead of "lavatory" and "pardon?" instead of "what?".
Senior courtiers at Buckingham Palace were said to be whispering that Carole, a former flight attendant who married a pilot, was really "not the thing". Therefore, nor was her daughter, despite the fact that Kate has behaved impeccably in the five years since she met William at university in Scotland and moved in with him.
Another element of Toiletgate, as it has been dubbed, is the claim that William's friends used to mock Middleton by whispering "Doors to Manual" whenever she entered a room, a dig at her mother's trolley-dolly past.
"There'd be jibes asking Kate if she was going to wheel in the trolley and when the food service would start. All pretty juvenile stuff, but these are former Eton chaps who are permanently stuck in that sort of humour."
The snobs are anonymous but there is a ring of truth to the slurs, which have a long history in Britain, as a contrived way of separating the anxious U (upper classes) from the aspirational non-U, terms immortalised by the English author Nancy Mitford in a 1956 essay.
The U might be under threat of extinction in the new classless Britain but the fact its secret code remained un-cracked by bourgeois Carole Middleton and her daughter apparently is cause for crowing celebration in the aristocracy, a sign that all is not yet lost.
"I am a firm believer in people marrying into the same class," the self-described aristocrat Kishanda Fulford wrote this week in the Daily Mail, which described her as "the wife of Francis Fulford, whose family has lived in their stately home for 800 years", and obviously has never had to buy his own furniture - another distinction between U and non-U.
"There is no confusion over what time 'dinner' is and what to call the 'loo'… There are many pretty girls from the lower and middle classes who have married into the aristocracy, indeed, Duchesses past and present have bloodlines which could be considered as ordinary as Kate's - but they never ended up queen."
According to another "insider": "Carole's whole approach is very aspirational. But re-laying your front drive and trimming the wisteria around your front door isn't going to make your home, or your daughter, fit for a prince."
Ouch.
Seen from a middle-class meritocracy such as Australia, the attacks on the Middletons are bafflingly petty, especially when William, his brother, Harry, and their mates are so often seen behaving with as much class as Paris Hilton.
Last month, for instance, British tabloids ran a front-page photo of William posing for the camera while squeezing the breast of a young woman - not Kate. His pick-up line is reported to be: "Hi, I'm going to be king; d'ya fancy a pull?", which may, of course, be an urban myth.
The more we see of the Queen's descendants, the less suitable they appear to be to reign over an egalitarian country such as ours.
Of course, there is goodwill and sympathy for William in Australia, mainly because of the tragic end of his mother, Princess Diana. And it is silly for the British press to chastise him for doing what practically every other man his age does - extending his promiscuous bachelor days as long as possible.
Still, as the British TV agony aunt Denise Robertson wrote this week of the break-up: "There are undertones of 'droit du seigneur' - a maiden dishonoured and then discarded."
It is an old-fashioned concept, but Middleton's fate is a salutary lesson for young women contemplating shacking up with the love of their lives rather than holding out for a firm commitment.
In 2005 the median age at marriage for Australian men was 32 (up from 26 in 1985), and for women it was 29.7 (up from 24) and leaving a shrinking window of fertility. In the expanding period of singledom, cohabitation has become an almost mandatory stepping stone to marriage. A whopping 76 per cent of couples (69 per cent in NSW) who married in 2005 had been "living in sin", as they used to say.
But the idea of "try before you buy" gives all the advantages to men, who get the benefits of marriage with none of the responsibilities. They get sex on tap, domesticity, companionship, and probably nutritional and hygiene improvements. They can test-drive the merchandise for as long as they like.
But for women, the immovable biological fact of declining fertility means the deal is inevitably unfair. And if marriage comes at all, it often is a utilitarian choice after all the magic and mystery has been used up in a tenuous coexistence in which neither partner fully trusts the other and one foot is always out the door.
If Middleton had really wanted to marry William she never should have set up house with him. Smart girls don't give away marital perks free.
devinemiranda@hotmail.com
That was about the smartest thing the broad said in her entire essay.
why? Residing there myself - and being an optimist - I know anything from the gutter is only looking up.
Inbreeding.
Cow, milk, whatever.
Hormones (ticking clock that they try to subvert with birth control) and Desire to have a mate/friend - even though in this culture you're not supposed to recognize that at a young age.
Because women “bear the burden” when nothing “works”. Sorry, it’s much worse for women. But not so great for men. Also, the men are usually the 1s seeking it; women usually just “go along”.
Nope, JugEars married the daughter of an earl. The rest of them did marry commoners, but they weren’t (and aren’t) in line for the throne.
Because most of them think it will lead to marriage. Wrong.
In Britain, ‘Pardon me’ is what you say when you pass gas.....they snicker at yanks because we often say it in lieu of ‘Excuse me’. You would get some pretty funny looks if you say ‘Pardon me’ after bumping into someone....here’s a fun site with British slang http://www.effingpot.com/slang.shtml
Maybe now she can relax and eat a box of doughnuts.
I’ll go out with her!!
I agree on most of what you say, except one thing. It's a myth that women are cleaner than men. Study after study shows women carry around and live in a much filthier environment. Sure, they may LOOK cleaner, but neat and tidy does not translate into clean.
If you look, there are a few articles about that in FR archives.
I meant Chuckie’s second marriage to Camilla. She is a middle/upper middle class woman who is going to serve as queen eventually. Maybe Camilla’s background is considered more “U” than the Middletons.
Yeah, but this is Britain we're talking about. You have to lower the standards of what to expect, morally.
But the idea of "try before you buy" gives all the advantages to men, who get the benefits of marriage with none of the responsibilities. They get sex on tap, domesticity, companionship, and probably nutritional and hygiene improvements. They can test-drive the merchandise for as long as they like.
But for women, the immovable biological fact of declining fertility means the deal is inevitably unfair. And if marriage comes at all, it often is a utilitarian choice after all the magic and mystery has been used up in a tenuous coexistence in which neither partner fully trusts the other and one foot is always out the door.
If Middleton had really wanted to marry William she never should have set up house with him. Smart girls don't give away marital perks free.
Let them snicker. At least most Americans are polite enough not to pass gas in public in the first place.
I don't know if the other royal's spouses had members of the peerage on their mothers' sides -- didn't bother to look.
“Pretty, though to me there’s something sorta unattractive about her eyes.”
She has eyes? I was distracted by the bikini
Wrong end.
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