I think one of the worst things about current media coverage of royal wives who have recently married in is how the misogyny and classism (and racism and xenophobia in Meghan’s case) has extended to their mothers.
There was a little bit of this to Diana’s mother because she’d left the family home but she wasn’t vilified, gossiped about and exposed constantly in the press in the way that Kate and Meghan’s mothers have been.
Carole Middleton must have a backbone of actual steel, or she’s really good at compartmentalism. She’s been torn apart for decades in the press for being too working class, too middle class, too successful, a business failure, a social climber, a Machiavellian schemer, a horrible controlling boss, a snob, too pushy, too middle class and aspirational in her decorating tastes, too interfering in the lives of her grandchildren.
And then on social media little stories get made up and passed around like facts
Carol schemed from birth to marry her daughters off to wealthy men
She orchestrated Kate meeting and marrying William
Doria is painted as a drug addict who abandoned her daughter for years and spent time in prison - despite there being absolutely no record of this.
You don’t get this for any of the men marrying in, or for the older generations.