Feminist analysis of the royal wedding

[DontdoitKatie]

This is one of the times when you realise how very lonely seeing things through a feminist lens can make you.

Patriarchy in all its glory.

Sorry that second bit was in reply to balloonslayer, not madwoman.

Sakura the spare is clearly just as essential as the heir. I suppose the press might well have a part to play in facilitating Catherine's removal. She could simply be recast as a Jezebel.

i didn't see the uk commentary tbh. was envisioning a 'you may now kiss the husband' moment

i'm slightly alarmed by the 'puppet king' notions tbh. am hoping it is a reflection on attitudes to the monarchy in general and not to wills per se. he seems like a normal enough chap, an identity that has of course been crafted carefully but in the face of parental expectation, most blokes don't dump a woman they love dearly because they don't breed...

or are future kings automatically exempt from falling in love? duty to the country and all that? he could just abdicate and be orf to live in that anglesey farmhouse in childless splendour if it caused that much bother?

I think it mught depend on the range of the parents' influence. Perhaps if she was outed in the press for an inappropriate friendship while he was away winching people into helicopters he might come round to a certain way of thinking.

It's mainly the other posters on here who think the language in that wedding service is patriarchal, smallwhitecat (BTW your reply made me grin as it sounds as if you actually are Kate replying. You're not are you... (SmallwhiteKate?)) I have posted several times virtually the same thing [bore emoticon] to say that I just think it's old-fashioned, which it's bound to be because it was written in 1662.

That's what I was trying to say - that it says what sounds like patriarchal stuff like "if any man knows any lawful impediment" but it just means "if any person etc" in the same way that "mankind" means human beings.

A lot of posters throughout this thread have been objecting to a lot of the terms used in the service:

who gives this woman
man and wife
if any man objects
your servant and his handmaiden

I am trying to suggest that it's a little tiring to object to them all separately, as if William and Kate wrote their own vows, when they are all part and parcel of the same thing, the old Book of Common Prayer service.

I didn't know that you could opt out of being given away in that service, my mistake.

I would not have had any real problem with the vows in that service either, because I can see that they don't mean today what they literally appear to mean. Apart from the giving away, but I could get sentimental about that one and think it was quite sweet if I was in the right mood . . .

amanda - doubtless. but it's back to the 'puppet' thing, really. do people genuinely think he is weak enough to kowtow to that sort of influence? (or that she is? if any partner of mine listened to rumour and conjecture rather than believe my word i'd be orf anyway. more than one way to skin a cat.)

I don't think I would think someone weak because they couldn't stand up against the all powerful propaganda machine. Particularly in circumstances where there are already a lot of additional pressures on the relationship. For me the question is would the media do it. Anyway I think we digress...

is it all off the radar in the uk now? merely a fleeting opportunity to catch a snapshot of the state of the nation? or is the media machine still grinding on?

Is it ok to say this thread made me laugh ?

you can say whatever you want to Luvvinlife, I don't think anyone will care.

smallwhitecat ballonslayer the servant and handmaiden bit was in one of the prayers - so presumably completely not required by the service but an addition. Which is what makes it so odd and worth a mention. There is a link to the order of service further up the thread.

Probably not Sybil, but thank you for your kind response anyway.

Hey, I just read that the "DontDoItKatie" concept was more realistic than we thought:

www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/28/operation_pumpkin/

OK, maybe the writer was being a little creative. But just imagine.

I didn't see this wedding, but I remember the Diana wedding and feeling absolutely outraged at her, for her simpering, her submissive body language and her lack of ambition beyond snaring a prince. I'm showing my age, now, but as a student at the end of the seventies I felt absolutely betrayed by her. In hindsight, she was probably manipulated more than I realised, but to me she was everything a woman shouldn't be - and played the "poor little me" card to the last. Sorry to rant. And they're still talking about that bloody dress!!