The newly crowned Australian-born Queen of Denmark has a lot to answer for. Mary Donaldson’s encounter with the Prince of Denmark in a Sydney pub gave her unrealistic expectations about the quality of men she would meet on a night out. She then married him and she officially became known as “His Royal Highness the Crown Prince of Denmark.” So if that title is written on her nametag, there will be no one better than her at her high school reunion. Now that she has become “Her Majesty Queen of Denmark, Countess of Monpezat” following her mother-in-law’s scheduled abdication and her husband’s accession to the throne, she may need some time.
Australians have a similar attitude to the Royal Family as the Irish, half sulking and hating their presence and half fascinated by all their scandals, glamour, and overall weirdness. . But Mary, or “Our Mary” as she is called by the mothers of her country, loves to see local girls do lots of good, so she I am loved.
For Gen X and Millennial women, she’s the one who made us think we could meet our prince in the pub. She’s not a particularly upscale pub either. Mary and Frederick X met during her 2000 Olympics. At the time, Mary was an average 28-year-old with a relatable resume. She graduated from Law and Commerce, worked for a real estate company, and was renting a house in Bondi at the Junction. She reportedly took Prince Fred, then Crown Prince, back to the small terrace she shared with her flatmates at one point and that was it – the wedding, the coronation, the four children. And after taking Danish lessons, the couple is still doing well and enjoying the love of the subject.
Mary didn’t know Fred when they met, so it remains a mystery how he revealed he was referring to the Crown Prince and why she believed him.
Women in Sydney are used to being told all sorts of things by the smooth-talking tourists trying to pick up their shifts, without ever telling them it’s true. If they were all honest on their night out, the GAA would not be able to function with an empty senior club committee as all of Bondi’s Irish players are probably playing for their county. It is surprising that Ireland are even able to qualify for the Six Nations, given that many of Ireland’s would-be stars have been forced into early retirement due to injury and are currently sitting in a smokehouse in Sydney.
But Mary believed in Fred and they began a long-distance relationship, were deported, took Danish history and language lessons, and married the prince.
But while it’s tempting to believe that “marriage” is just a matter of etiquette classes and DuoLingo and learning how to walk with a book on your head and polishing your sow’s ears into a silk purse, perhaps That won’t happen. .
This is a problem given that society has traditionally placed values and pressures on women in particular to get married in order to “improve their status in life.” The theme of “a girl doing well for herself by catching a rich man” is the driving force behind some of our most beloved and culturally significant texts, like Pygmalion/My Fair Lady. I’m giving. A collection of Jane Austen’s works. The Sound of Music; a novel by Mills and Boone. the king and me vanity fair. Crazy Rich Asians. How to Marry a Millionaire; Bridgerton. Real Housewives franchise. La bohème. And the most revered is Fran Drescher’s The Nanny. A recurring narrative from arts, entertainment, TikTok’s “femininity coaches” and queer grandmas emphasizes that you need to be married to money and that you can do it if you push yourself enough to adapt. I am.
There are some problems with this. The first forces women to shape their lives, appearances, and hobbies to the approval of their hypothetical spouse, constantly improving themselves until they become “good enough” for their mate with more and more qualifications. I am ordering you to start. Money than them. The second problem is that research shows that a Cinderella story is unlikely to happen.
A 2012 Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) project found that British men and women are increasingly marrying within their own social class, despite having more choice than ever before when it comes to partners. . Nick Pearce, director of IPPR, said the results “show how social class is tightening the stranglehold on marriage in the UK…more educated, higher income people are marrying each other and their collective success is… “This shows that children are passing on this knowledge to their children.”
Queen Mary didn’t just catch her husband’s eye on her way to the bathroom that night
A 2014 paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that assortative mating is on the rise. This means that men are more likely to marry someone with similar educational background and employment status, even after taking into account the rise in university enrollment rates since the 1960s. A 2018 study of data from Germany and Denmark found similar results.
The increase in the number of people marrying within a social class may be due, in part, to an increase in the number of women receiving higher education and entering the labor force. A 2017 study states that education may be more beneficial for men, rather than helping women “get married.” A University of Kansas study found that while increasing the number of highly educated women decreases the likelihood of getting married, it increases the likelihood that men will improve their economic well-being through marriage. Research shows that women once received more “economic benefits” from education because it offered higher returns in the marriage market. “However, despite women’s significant advances in education and the labor market, this female advantage has worsened over time.”
Adding to that, her dreams of meeting the prince in the pub were further shattered not only by the fact that Queen Mary caught her husband’s eye on her way to the bathroom that night. She was attending a “special private dinner party” organized by a well-connected friend of her flatmate for a gathering of European royal visitors attending the Olympics.
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“I’m sorry to hurt your feelings, but it’s not just about running into princes in the pub,” bridesmaid and spouse Amber Petty clarified.
Marrying a prince is therefore more about intimacy than honing your vowels to “Spanish Rain.”