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.

I don't think so. The Spencers are far more blue blooded than the Windsors, they could have their pick. The parents, though divorced, both wanted their children to be happy. I think it was more Charles's family who wanted the match and the two grandmothers (the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and Lady Fermoy, Diana's maternal grandmother), put their heads together and encouraged it. After that it was a whirlwind and Diana completely fell for Charles. Poor girl!

Diana was 20 when she married Charles. just under 21 when she had her first child.

I don't see any evidence whatsoever that it was more Charles' family who wanted the match. Yes of course there would have been other members of the aristocracy Diana could have married but actually bagging the future King is in a different league. And Diana was well up for it.

As for 'Diana's parents wanted her to be happy' ... frankly it seems they were pretty clueless about whether she was happy or not. It's well documented that she said she has an unhappy upbringing, there was a lot of tension and conflict. Sounds like neither parent would have even questioned whether diana would be happy in the marriage; it was just a case of having the chance of marrying her off to the world's most eligible bachelor, as he was billed

The RF and Charles always get the stick when it comes to him marrying Diana. I honestly think Charles "free will" had been almost, if not entirely, exhausted by not getting married earlier. He appeared older because of his own life experiences and the knowledge about his future.

Diana was similarly a pawn of her family. Her family knew for sure about Camilla. They knew Charles wasn't going to be faithful, because in their circles being faithful wasn't highly valued (being discreet was though). They married her off to a man who wasn't suited to her for their own benefit. They were not naive to what being in the RF meant, never mind a very senior one.

The Spencer elders were equally as responsible towards Diana as the RF elders were towards Charles regarding the unsuitability of their pairing.

Diana was not just a pawn. She wanted the marriage , initially at least. She thought Charlie loved her .

Because her family brainwashed her and failed to tell her the truth. They threw her to the wolves. It was a hideous situation for both of them engineered by both their families.

I always got the impression Diana's family were quite nonchalant and didn't show much interest in what Diana was doing. I assumed Diana just fell for Charles and she thought Charles loved her. So I think she was up for marriage initially.

@Inkanta I agree, the external pressure to marry was far greater on Charles than it was on Diana. I think Diana was well up for it, she was quite smitten with Charles and didn't she refer to 'keeping herself tidy' because she knew that was part of the deal for marrying the future king?

I completely agree she was naive and impulsive and had no real idea of love; she barely knew Charles so was in love with an idea rather than the real person. But she was an adult, she had agency over her life (more so than Charles really) Also many of her blue blooded girly friends of the same age would no doubt have been behaving quite differently, having boyfriends and sex, so it seems clear that she was making a considered choice to hold onto her virginity and not have boyfriends until she got the opportunity to be with Charles

I don’t think her family brainwashed her. There is no evidence if that. They might have been excited when they saw Charles falling for her and supportive. I don’t think she was brainwashed at all.

I agree.
We can argue Diana was a victim but if so she was a victim of a set of social norms and expectations in her class, not to mention an unrealistic idea of romantic love which is exemplified by Barbara Cartland’s novels but Cartland didn’t create it.
This isn’t just a case of someone being a pawn of two manipulative families.
And re Ruth Lady Fermoy, it is reported in Diana: Her True Story that she advised Diana against the match, saying she had a very different sense of humour to the royal family and wouldn’t fit in. The idea it was cooked up by her and the Queen Mum has no evidence.

Of course there’s evidence. Young women of her generation and class were brought up with the sole aim of making a “good” marriage, ie to someone aristocratic and wealthy. Charles didn’t “fall for her”, how could he? He didn’t even know her after 13 dates. This version is pure Mills and Boon.

Well when I say fall for her I meant he was charmed by her and thought she’d make a suitable wife. She may have been brought up to marry well, but she could have had her pick. She was a beautiful young woman. Her family weren’t brainwashing her. Her family didn’t seem much interested in her generally.

No I don't think Diana's family were brainwashing her - they seemed occupied with their own lives.

Her family was interested in its own advancement. Diana was their second go at marrying into the RF, her sister was in the frame for a bit. That marriage was a business arrangement, pure and simple. Unfortunately nobody told one of the main players that.

Neither of them knew each other.

Charles had enormous pressure to marry - he was in his 30s - and he had to marry someone with no 'past' and no possibility of scandal attached to them.

Diana would clearly have been expected to marry someone from the aristocracy but there's no evidence her family specifically pushed her towards Charles. She was the one who was concerned with 'keeping herself tidy' as she expressed it, so it seems the goal of bagging Charles was in her mind for a while.

Out of the pair of them, Charles would have had far more pressure than her. Diana's sisters didn't get married until they were into their twenties so it wasn't like Diana had to be engaged while a teenager and then married a few weeks after turning 20.
Yes she would have had certain expectations on her because of the class she was born into but nothing like the expectation on Charles!

I doubt she thought anything of the sort. She was from an aristocratic background, she knew the score.

I think Charles was quite dazzled by her at first, especially as she started to benefit from style and beauty advice and changed from country pretty to out-and-out beauty. And he had at last done something right in the eyes of his family, especially when William arrived so soon. So that buoyed them up for a while.

But then she eclipsed him, and her mental issues frustrated and bored him, and they both realised they had nothing in common.

@Liorae I don't think Diana had a clue what love was, but I absolutely agree with @RosettaStormer that she wanted the marriage. She seemed absolutely smitten.

As thecountessofitz has said, I think Diana was a victim of romantic idealised versions of love. As the pp said, the Barbara Cartland type of 'love' - where it's romance and roses and soft focus and every story ended with a wedding.

Perhaps the tragedy of her life was that she was considered so suitable for a royal wife. If she'd been a bit 'messier' the royals would never have considered her

Smitten with the hope of becoming the queen I suspect, not with Charles.

She was a non-intelligent, pretty young lady who knew that she couldn't continue to run in aristocratic circles based on her own earnings capacity. She rightly recognised that she needed to marry well. Her haste and lack of discernment was probably why her teenage naivety led her to hooking up with her sister ex (Charles) who already came with red flags. Her sister should have been clear about warning her of his shortcomings.

How do you know? I don’t think she was interested in status . I think she craved love and security.

If Diana was smitten with the thought of becoming Queen then she would have turned a blind eye to Charles and Camilla's shenanigans and would have became Queen. I think Diana was smitten with the idea of love and a stable family. When it became clear that Charles and Camilla were not going to stop seeing each other and were frankly playing her for a fool, she decided to end it.

It is actually a common thing to happen and continues to happen till this day 😉
Beautiful, well-bred, (too) young women marrying wealthy, worldlier, older millionaires and aristocrats. However, once you grow up properly and reality kicks in a few kids down the line, then there will always be a big make-or-break re-adjustment in your relationship. You have to confront tough questions ("Did you marry me because of what I looked like rather than because we had much in common?" "Now that I am older, do you still love me as a person?"" Have I reproduced with a creep?")

You renegotiate the parameters of your relationship with your (newly acquired) adult hat on. Diana's mental health was too poor and there was another woman always lurking in the background. She had no hope.

Smitten with the hope of becoming the queen I suspect, not with Charles.

Well, she wasn't going to become Queen with anyone else!! And from everything she said, it seems clear she was absolutely smitten with Charles. She talked about how lonely and lost he looked at the funeral of his godfather Mountbatten. She seemed genuinely to care deeply about him - until the marriage went down the pan.

I suspect she felt quite an affinity with Charles because both of them had unhappy childhoods and felt quite isolated in their own ways, and I think Diana craved the security and family life she'd missed out on.

She was a non-intelligent, pretty young lady who knew that she couldn't continue to run in aristocratic circles based on her own earnings capacity. She rightly recognised that she needed to marry well. Her

I don’t don’t think she was unintelligent. I think she was not academic.

Diana was living with her friends in a spencer family owned apartment I read. At any rate she came from a very wealthy family and I’m highly doubtful they would have stopped supporting her financially. The work she did was only for pocket money I’d say. She had been in a finishing school in Europe not long before, I read.