Diana's age at time of marriage.

[Peedoffo]

I'm in my 20s so I really don't remember Diana. I did more reading on the subject and I can't believe the establishment thought it was ok to marry a 19 year old off to a man 13 years older than her who had no interest in her. No wonder she struggled this was the 1980s as well not the Victorian times! Could anyone around then tell me , why did her family back/support the marriage? Was there any concerns from the public ? I would be horrified at the thought of marrying my DD off at 19 to a much older man who wasn't really interest.

It wasn’t unusual in the 80s to get married very young. I got married in 1988 I was 21 and most of my friends were already married or getting married. The man I married was 13 years older than me, our marriage lasted 9 years. It was ridiculous to marry him looking back now but absolutely nobody advised against it! Everyone acted like it was a totally reasonable thing to do.

I agree. I was quite young at the time, but I do remember eyebrows being raised at the 13 year age gap, especially as Charles was one of those people who always seemed quite 'old' for his age, and Diana was so girlish and sheltered.

It probably would be considered much worse today, especially as she was only 19, but it definitely didn't pass unnoticed at the time.

Why did Charles go through with it? Just to get heirs? He was in 30s so more in a position to advocate for himself and decline the marriage.

I am 60 so I remember those times well and I am a similar age to Diana.

It was not common at all to marry at the age of 19. Nobody I knew married at that age. I married in my mid 30s, as did almost everyone I knew, if they married at all.

Most people at the time thought it was sad and awful that she was marrying so young and to someone much older.

There is a very strange understanding of social history on MN sometimes. People in their 60s (Diana’s generation) were punks and had parents who were hippies.

If someone posted on here that they wanted their 19 year old to marry an older man who was already seeing a married woman and would continue to do so they would be roasted for allowing their dd into that position. It was an awful outcome for all of them and the destruction shows what happens when people don't marry for love.

I remember at the time everyone was happy for Charles. Diana looked so thrilled and they did seem quite loved up, so no-one thought it was a poor decision (not that I heard, anyway)

I don't know, I think all their own marriages were run along similar lines. Not happy marriages as we think of them but still successful arrangements.

I was 18 when she was married. It would have been considered very young even then. One of my friends was married at 21 (to a man 11 years older than her funnily enough) & we thought that was very young. The rest of us married at about 30.
Everyone was desperate for Charles to get married in the late 70s. There was great relief when he finally got round to it.

What? She had to be a virgin?
So there is a royal decree about marrying virgins? How far does if go? Second in line? Third?

No, because virginity isn't a physical thing. What there is the ability to check your hymen - that's what all those 'restoring virginity' operations that are to be banned are about. That's treated as a stand-in, but actually you can have a 'broken' hymen for various reasons without having had sex or an intact one despite having had sex previously.

The way I see it, Diana was seen as nothing more than a brood mare from good stock in the eyes of the royal family.
Not a care in the world about whether she and Charles were compatible, or even liked each other. Just keeping the money, the titles and the legacy in the right pedigree.
Grim 🤢

My parents were young in the 80s and got married at 20, many of their friends and siblings were married by 21/22. In their circles it was normal to marry young - working class so definitely different to Diana in that respect! The age gap was more unusual though.

This is true. I can just imagine the outcry.

I was just about to ask this- where on earth does this "she had to be a virgin" rule come from?

And, as someone else said upthread, it's not even possible to prove!

Thats what I think, my mother was a single mother in the 1980s to my sister and married at age 25 to my DF who was the same age (I was born later there's a big age gap) She didn't say there was much stigma for her. I don't think virginity was that highly prized at that time ? Wasn't the 60s all about shagging around and free love ?

I can name three people close to me who married between 1980 and 1988, who were 19. Two of them are still together.

It will be different according to their background, but in my world, where few went to university (as Diana didn't) it wasn't unusual at all. I was engaged at 19, married at 22 and I was by no means the first of my peers from school to marry.

I don’t think it was unusually young for the time. She didn’t go to university- which tends to delay marriage - and lots of girls from my school (comprehensive) who left school at 16 got married at similar ages. The age difference between Charles and Diana was definitely commented on, though, at the time. There was just a shortage of people of the right sort for Charles to marry. She wanted to marry him too.

I watched news coverage the other week. It was on tea time news the drs had inspected her and confirmed she was a virgin. My jaw is still on the ground!

The Queen and Phillip was a love match from what I believe the establishment were against it but she went ahead anyway.

I think maybe it depended on social circles / class as well? My parents were married at 20, as were the majority of their friends. Most were married with at least one child by 21/22. My family and wider circle of friends were all working class and living on a council estate.

I remember being horrified and scared for Diana as she was just four years older than me. I just couldn't imagine someone of nearly my own age (just a little more) coping with being in front of the world's media so much.

It was an arranged marriage. Charles was being pushed to it by his parents and his grandmother who all seemed to think Diana ticked all the boxes so therefore it would work. Camilla hadn't been considered suitable and had since married Andrew Parker Bowles anyway. Nobody else seemed game so Diana it was.

It was awful and they were disastrously badly matched.

I looked it up. The average age for marriage in 1981 was 23.1. On the basis that many, as PP asserts, would have been much older and the men were usually, a bit, older a 19/20yo bride can't have been unusual.

In those days, it was considered embarrassing for a Prince of Wales to be already a mature man and still be single. Charles had been round the block a few times but none of the women were interested in being the next Princess of Wales. So Charles needed to find a suitable wife and start producing sons with a quickness. Diana seemed perfect. Young, without a 'past', from impeccable aristocratic lineage and very enthusiastic about being a future queen. The Spencers were all for it too. The fact that Charles did not love her and that they were totally incompatible didn't seem to factor in.

It was very much in the tradition of arranged aristocratic marriages, the last of its kind in the British royal family.

That was the problem, there weren't many suitable virgins left. Whether or not she was "examined" they would have researched extremely carefully to make sure no "kiss & tell" stories were going to come out about the future queen. In their minds, it had to be someone without a past.

I also take issue with whoever said that in the eighties only a small percentage went to university and most people left school at 16. It was the heyday of free university education, full grants and "new universities" popping up all over the place.

I was 10 when Charles and Diana got married. Perhaps there was a rapid change in society in the subsequent 5 years, but by the time I was choosing what subjects to study at my comprehensive state school it was entirely expected that at least 50% of each year group would go on to higher or further education.

That said, Diana was not at all academic and would have been unlikely to have gone to University even if she had been given the opportunity.