I don't think that Mountbattens' views were that much out fo date for a senior ROYAL like Charles, dating in the 1970s.
yes many people by then were starting to have live in relationships but even so conservative people were tut tutting about that.
And it wasn't possible for Charles to live with a girl, and his wife did have to be a girl wth no past. So for Mountbtn to advise charles to have some relationships but to end up iwht a girl who had no sexual relationships was pretty much what you would expect.
I'm sure that If Philip had given him advice it would have been much the same "Play the field son, but you have to have a wife who doesn't have ex boyfirends coming out of the woodwork and tlaking to the papers."
It does not mean that a marriage is going to be unhappy, because there's an age gap or an experience gap between the 2 partes. other royal couples have married with a fairly big age gap and seem to have worked out..
The problem was that Diana was not just inexperienced sexually, she was very "unlearned" in all kinds of ways. She knew little about the RF even and you'd think she would know that sort of stuff, she had not learned anything at school, or about the world. Her one brief trip abroad had resulted in her coming back after a month or 2, so she didnt' learn a language or anything about a foreign country. Charles was interested in lots of things, and had she been aware of theise things, I tihnk they could have gotten over her lack of sexual experience.
I . Her parents had an acrimonious divorce and the harsh words continued between Frances and Johnnie long after the divorce was final. Perhaps if Frances and Johnnie had followed the example of Louis and Edwina to resolve their private matters, .
I think that it was the way that Johnny and Frances behaved to Diana that left her scarred and fearing abandonment.. Her mother walked out, and even fi there were good reasons, that is scary for a child. So she was afraid of being left alone as her mother had left her alone. Its said that Diana clung to her father then when left at home with him.. she used to follow him around and offer to make him cups of tea. But he kept himself to himself... and then sent her to boarding school. So instead of his trying to make up For Frances' disappearance, he withdrew from his children even more so she was then afraid that people would leave her just as her FATHER had also "Left her" emotionally. Then Johnny S came out of his seclusion and married a woman whom none of the children coudl stand so again, Diana was "ditched" by her father, in that he was now wrapped up in Raine..
From what I've read her mother used to get very emotional when the kids ivisited her...and talk emotionally...
and this upset Diana, and she would talk about her poor mother being "left all alone" when they had to go back ot their Dad, even though she knew her mother had her husband.. but she was hurt for her mother and of course she was the one who was scared of being "left all alone.."
So I agree that when she married, she was eager to have a husband who would never leave her alone and who would be there fofr her all the time..
and Charles even if he hadn't had lingering love for Camilla, was a busy man who had a lot of work and a lot of interests.. and Diana didn't really share those interests. So when they got married, I tink that she did not want to go shooting with Charles, or sit discussing Philosophy.. she wanted him to stay home with her, not subject her to the boring wet hobby of shooting.. and tlak about HER, not about L Van Der Post..
If she had shared the hobbies, and gone on enjoying them with Charles, I think they would have adjusted into marired life and she would have realised over time that they didn't have to be joined at the hip.. but she didn't.. and she was ill and upset and Charles while stil caring and trying to help, got scared off by her upsets and tantrums.. and he began to wish himself far away from her at times./
and she focussed her unhappy feelngs on an increasing conviction that their marriage wasn't working out because of Camilla and yes, I think that if someone is constantly accused of infidelity, they ARE often tempted to go ahead and do it..
Thank you for your referencing. The actual book and author or interview etc. are enough for people to go and look and read for themselves.
As for Barbara Cartland's 'Bodice Rippers', the hero's invariably started out as dyed-in-the-wool rakes with a mistress, etc. which they end up rejecting in favour of 'true love' and become besotted, reformed rakes!
well that's the point. They are not bodice rippers at all. The hero may have a mistress but he ends up married to an incredibly pure and usualy naïve young woman. A Bodice ripper is a book with a lot of sex in it.. BC's have no sex.
Maybe it was a different time, but the idea of a 32 year old man marrying a 19 year old girl is kind of nauseating. It makes Charles come off as a bit of a creep to be honest.
I'm 19, and I'd have more in common with a baby than a man in his 30s.
? that seems to indicate that a 19 year old woud have something in common with a child 18 years younger, so why not with a man 12 years older?
Anyway it is nonsense. Chalres had to marry a younger woman, many people marry with much bigger age gaps and the marriages work out fine.