the unruly queen

i have been reading a book about Princess Caroline of Brunswick, also Princess Caroline of Wales, also Queen Caroline of England.

She was married to George, the Prince of Wales who was by my reckoning, acted like a right twat.

He was already married, to a "commoner", when they married by arrangement between the families.

He detested her on sight and spent his life making her life a misery.

She left England and travelled through the continent drinking and bonking her way around the place until she ended up with a tasty Italian chap and seemed rather happy.

Unfortunately she came back to England and underwent a trial based on her sullied reputation.

She was not without a rich and varied love life but her trial was never about who committed adultery first.

"the purity of women was prized in society... precisely because men could not aspire to that honour and grace which embellished women, espcially English women. Hence, to safeguard that purity, adultery in women was a crime, and a ground for divorce, while it was condoned in the stronger sex."

this flabbergasted me.

mostly because, taking away the archaic language it is what my mother passed on to me about sexuality.

that was spoken in 1820.

two hundred years ago

and i am still carrying echoes of it in my bones.

i am glad that Caroline went and shagged her handsome Italian (and all the other men she did) she was handed a bum deal in life and she went out and made lemonade (and drank it in exotic places with lusty men)

i am sorry that she was dragged through the mud by the double standards of the day

but i am even sorrier that i haven't examined this ridiculous peice of twaddle before now...

i held it as a virtue that i have only ever slept with my husband

i had always thought it was up to me to uphold the balance of that energy in a sexual transaction....

stronger sex my arse - women had to uphold their virtue and rein in their lust to manage the uncontrolled lust of a man....

i can't believe how this still pervades....

i need some mental housecleaning!