Kate's condition
Catherine, Princess of Wales, seems to live in perpetual expectation. What does that do to a woman?
Prince Harry's bestselling memoir 'Spare' brought the royal family back into the limelight international with details both mundane and intriguing. Kate Middleton, as she is still sometimes known to those of us who remember her from before her royal wedding, features in the Netflix memoir and documentary "Harry & Meghan" as a sketch of steely disapproval and emotional composure.
It is true that Catherine, Princess of Wales seems to be in perpetual waiting, a real-life version of fairytale princesses who must wait stoically (some sweeping, others sleeping) until their prince finds and marries them. As the pretty young woman who dated Prince William for nearly 10 years (including a brief breakup) before getting engaged, British tabloids cruelly dubbed her "Wait-y Katie".
Of course no one imagined that William could be the one waiting. No, fairy tales, monarchies and, frankly, standard heterosexual courtship practices to this day dictate that women wait to be chosen. And pop culture tales from Cinderella (which dates back to the 17th century) to "The Bachelor" consistently confirm this. Women wait for marriage to reward their beauty, their charm or their virtue. And it finally happened for Catherine Middleton.
But for Kate, being engaged simply meant replacing one kind of expectation with another, as she entered her very public next step: anticipating marriage. Media coverage of this period focused on her regal transformation – her change from an athletic-looking young woman with an infectious smile and loose, wavy hair to an impossibly thin, impeccably groomed, swan-like creature. Her beauty became ethereal, with no visual disturbances or irregularities to catch the eye: sleek hair, smooth body, distant smile.
Magazines speculated on her austere slimming regime Kate and elocution lessons designed to refine her accent. Yet these newly refined tones remained a mystery, as Kate rarely spoke in public. She became an object of purely visual fascination - a liminal being hovering on the threshold of the marriage she and the whole world had always awaited.
Fairy princess stories end in weddings. The blank "they lived happily ever after" is all we get as a description of post-nuptial royal life. So how do we fill this void? In Catherine's case, the media crafted an even longer story of expectation: When would she conceive an heir to the throne? So when can we see the baby? So when's the next baby?
She obeyed, smiling calmly through three (famously difficult) pregnancies that seemed to barely alter her sylph form, reappearing each time , a polished, camera-ready Madonna with a child on the steps of St. Mary's Hospital in London.
As a mother and wife, she continued to telegraphing the check and studying maintained his patience. Even encountering the kind of disturbance that could test a mother's temper, like a pub...
Catherine, Princess of Wales, seems to live in perpetual expectation. What does that do to a woman?
Prince Harry's bestselling memoir 'Spare' brought the royal family back into the limelight international with details both mundane and intriguing. Kate Middleton, as she is still sometimes known to those of us who remember her from before her royal wedding, features in the Netflix memoir and documentary "Harry & Meghan" as a sketch of steely disapproval and emotional composure.
It is true that Catherine, Princess of Wales seems to be in perpetual waiting, a real-life version of fairytale princesses who must wait stoically (some sweeping, others sleeping) until their prince finds and marries them. As the pretty young woman who dated Prince William for nearly 10 years (including a brief breakup) before getting engaged, British tabloids cruelly dubbed her "Wait-y Katie".
Of course no one imagined that William could be the one waiting. No, fairy tales, monarchies and, frankly, standard heterosexual courtship practices to this day dictate that women wait to be chosen. And pop culture tales from Cinderella (which dates back to the 17th century) to "The Bachelor" consistently confirm this. Women wait for marriage to reward their beauty, their charm or their virtue. And it finally happened for Catherine Middleton.
But for Kate, being engaged simply meant replacing one kind of expectation with another, as she entered her very public next step: anticipating marriage. Media coverage of this period focused on her regal transformation – her change from an athletic-looking young woman with an infectious smile and loose, wavy hair to an impossibly thin, impeccably groomed, swan-like creature. Her beauty became ethereal, with no visual disturbances or irregularities to catch the eye: sleek hair, smooth body, distant smile.
Magazines speculated on her austere slimming regime Kate and elocution lessons designed to refine her accent. Yet these newly refined tones remained a mystery, as Kate rarely spoke in public. She became an object of purely visual fascination - a liminal being hovering on the threshold of the marriage she and the whole world had always awaited.
Fairy princess stories end in weddings. The blank "they lived happily ever after" is all we get as a description of post-nuptial royal life. So how do we fill this void? In Catherine's case, the media crafted an even longer story of expectation: When would she conceive an heir to the throne? So when can we see the baby? So when's the next baby?
She obeyed, smiling calmly through three (famously difficult) pregnancies that seemed to barely alter her sylph form, reappearing each time , a polished, camera-ready Madonna with a child on the steps of St. Mary's Hospital in London.
As a mother and wife, she continued to telegraphing the check and studying maintained his patience. Even encountering the kind of disturbance that could test a mother's temper, like a pub...
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