The Royal Wedding

The Royal Wedding
By Charles Tolleson
April 30, 2011

The Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton was a Cinderella story come true for a billion women. It is estimated that two billion people watched the wedding on television. My neighbor, a single woman in her 50s, was up at midnight to watch the wedding live. She had a printout of the schedule, minute by minute, anticipating the next move.

I watched some of the ceremony on television the next day. It was pageantry at its best. I wonder who the “Wedding Planner” was. The Brits have had plenty of practice at this so I suspect the wedding planner just pulled out the script from Prince Charles and Diana’s wedding.

Why are so many people fascinated by romance stories? Most of the movies have romantic plots to them. Operas are all about romance. Poetry and songs are about romance. One can watch a ballet and almost see it as a modern day sexual rite.

It seems like humans have developed the mating rituals to an art form during the past 10,000 years. Before that we were just like other animals in our mating. During the past few thousand years we have enhanced and honed these mating rites.

Humans have developed a talented ability to fantasize and expect. These illusions, filled with hope, are cheap forms of happiness. When a young woman reads a fairy tale about finding her prince she forms an illusion about her future. Women of today see their fantasy come to reality, with someone else, by watching the royal wedding. All of the viewers of the Royal Wedding have an illusion that the Prince and his Cinderella will live happily ever after.

In the past a woman always wanted to select a man that could provide her with healthy children, comfort, and safety. The females of other species always do the selecting in which male will get to fertilize her eggs. This is nature’s way of improving the species. Though technology and gender careers are changing female behavior, many young women of today still try to select a man that will improve her life. Her awareness that she might become pregnant is another concern in what kind of man she selects.

The birth control pill and other technologies will continue to cause a genetic evolution in females that will diminish their desire for a Prince Charming. Government programs that reduce a female’s dependence on a man are changing why many women are no longer interested in a man being a prince charming. The new Prince Charming for many women is the government, a government that provides for her and her children.

"Every age is fed on illusions, lest men should renounce life early and the human race come to an end." -Joseph Conrad, novelist (1857-1924)