Princess Diana, Meghan Markle and a royal link with Nigerian women

The groundbreaking royal wedding between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle held the world spellbound on Saturday, May 19 2018. A mouthwatering $45million was spent on the ceremony, and stats from Nielsen Data, a global measurement and data analytics company, pegs viewership of the ceremony at a mammoth 53 million in US and the UK only.

Meghan and Prince Harry’s nuptials strikes all the right chords with people all over the world first and obviously for the biracial nature of the couple. And also for what the assimilation of a non-white person into the queen’s immediate family signifies in the grand scheme of things.

Their story inspires not just awe but a belief in the possibilities that life offers, and the happiness to be found in true, genuine love.

What young Nigerian women have in common with Meghan Markle

Here in Nigeria, young women look at Meghan, consider her trajectory from being the mere daughter of a divorced biracial couple and being a divorcee herself, to her odds-defying nuptials with the Queen of England’s grandson, and become filled with a surge of belief and hope that maybe, just maybe all the prohibitive societal rules that limit women really do not really have to apply to them.

Many women from all walks of life; married, unmarried, and divorced look at the 36-year-old former "Suits" actress and see themselves in her. They see their feet in her shoes, walking a journey similar to hers, and [re]discovering happiness just as she did.

They see the possibility of their own second chances. They see real-life fairytales and the real likelihood of locating their own princes-charming. All of these made possible by the one who left a previous, unsuitable marriage, fixed up her life and is still considered good enough to be wooed, courted and married by a royal who is not only three years younger but has actually never been married at all!

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When asked, Jola, an author and a young media personnel in Lagos says she feels an affinity with Meghan “because she's an average girl from a regular family who married the prince despite not meeting any standard.”

In a grander context for the Nigerian woman, Jola thinks that Meghan’s story goes against the grain of everything that our society tells women, and still manages to lead somewhere beautiful, as opposed to what people around here would have you believe.

“Nigerian women have to be courteous, submissive, cook afang, have zero body count, previous marriage is a minus, child outside wedlock double minus.

It just seems there are a lot of bars to be jumped to be considered worthy. Can't be too rich, can't wear too much makeup, can't not wear makeup. It's tiring.

If she can marry Harry then anyone can find a prince.”

While she wasn’t particularly obsessed with the royal wedding, Jola still understands and relates with why people could have been so engrossed with it.

“I wasn't obsessed [with the wedding] but it struck a sweet spot. It's a heartwarming story. Like Cinderella so of course girls love it,” she says.

I especially like it because it made me believe that I can find a prince. I've always been very bougie in my taste in men but for a while I started to wonder if I'd ever be considered enough.

…With Meghan and Harry, all people see is possibilities. That's why it's such a hit.”

A previous generation of royal hope

What this royal love story of Meghan’s does to women of this generation, women of the previous generation got from another assimilated member of the royal family.

That feeling of limitlessness which Meghan’s story seems to awaken in the women of this present day; the powerful chord it strikes in them to do life on their own terms and not what society say. It brings to mind another powerful feminine figure from the past; a star whose light shone far, reaching into crevices of despair around the world, inspiring women like her and being loved every step of the way for it.

Princess Diana [1961-1997]

Born Diana Spencer in 1961 and married to the Queen’s son, Prince Charles in 1981, almost half of Princess Diana’s 36 years of life was lived in the spotlight.

Every move was keenly watched, every word judged and every step closely observed as a result of her position as the wife of a potential king. Prince Charles was, and still remains next in line to the throne at the time of this piece.

Despite the lofty, demanding position she occupied as early as age 20, and regardless of all the pressures of being watched and judged as a member of the royal family, Diana excelled to such extent that she became recognised as the People’s Princess; a title gotten off the back of the affinity people had with her.

What people could most relate with was Diana’s humility; her willingness to not be ‘royal’ but to do things the way common citizens would do them.

Against royal tradition, she chose her own engagement ring, chose her children’s names, breastfed them as opposed to how previous generations of royals did. She made her kids attend public schools, and was known for not working much, revolving her schedule around her kids’, so as to be with as much as possible - just the way an everyday parent would do. She exposed them to a non-royal way of life, prompting Prince William to say in 2012 that "she very much wanted to get us to see the rawness of real life."

If the relatability with the Princess was felt by the people through the things she did while in the palace, it was heightened with the things she did when relating with them directly.

She famously walked across a partially cleared minefield in Angola to spread awareness of land mines. She shook hands with an HIV positive patient and visited Brazilian AIDS orphans in April 1987, when the disease was very misunderstood and stigmatized.

“I like Princess Diana because before she came along the royal family members were so stiff and impersonal and they were quite distant,” says 56-year-old British-Nigerian, Nkasi, who lives in London.

“Diana brought more personality to the family and she brought a human touch to them because she wanted her sons to experience real life.

She was one of the first Royals to hug the sick and truly embrace the needy. She was a true inspiration,” she adds.

But then, what’s most instructive, most relevant here was how with her less-than-ideal marriage, she created a bond of sorts with women of the time, both in England and far outside the shores of the Queen’s territory.

Princess Diana's influence on Nigerian women

Princess Diana before her death was a figure plagued by the scandal that rocked her marriage, the years of sadness it caused her and the fallout from her divorce.

Her husband, Prince Charles’ well-documented, continuous tryst with Camilla throughout their marriage mirrored what many women worldwide were going through with cheating husbands. [Not much has changed till this day, anyway]

Her marital struggles and failures created a link between her and women near and far, who were not aliens to such marital struggles.

By damning rules and societal expectations and choosing to leave her husband despite her position and the scandal it would create at the time, she showed that genuine happiness for every woman mattered more than the need to keep up appearances of happiness, more than the need to stay in a bad marriage because of a desire to not “disappoint the public,” as the Princess herself once admitted.

“As Nigerians there is a serious frown on women leaving their husbands. Even if women leave their husbands, they do not openly go on to another man. It’s not a Nigerian thing, so to speak,” says Mrs Femi [not her real name], a resident of Lagos state in her 40s.

“For African women, the mentality is that you stick [to your husband] and you die there... you stick through thick and thin with the man, and all of that… which is not ideal at all.

It was [however] an eye-opener for women living in loveless relationships.”

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Princess Diana was like a liberation for women then, according to Mrs Femi. If a whole princess, a role model and an icon up to whom people looked for everything - their fashion, style, and others – could leave her loveless marriage, then surely there was nothing holding any woman bound in a marriage that was loveless, toxic, and hurtful.

“It came like, you can seek your happiness elsewhere. You do not have to be tied to the marriage, irrespective of the position.

[As rude a shock as her divorce was, Princess Diana] gave the regular woman a hint that it’s not a do-or-die thing being in a marriage; [especially one that is loveless], one-sided, [has cheating involved], and [leaves you] feeling choked in the relationship.”

Princess Diana was as free-spirited as they come. A breezy presence amidst a rather strait-laced royalty known for its uptightness and rules upon rules, and her refusal to not be bound by several rules and protocols of the palace attests to this.

Royals tend to make public statements about their personal lives only through the Palace, but in further testament to her unwillingness to be bound by rules, she chose to secretly grant Andrew Morton a famous tell-all of her life and secrets, without the Palace’s notice.

She very much lived her life as she pleased even when it meant going against the stiff, royal rules and protocols. And this is another thing Mrs. Femi says the Princess’ story teaches women; that it is OK for women to live their best lives, tell their stories and shape their narratives whether married, unmarried, divorced irrespective of society’s guideline on how women were to live or not, how they were to behave and how they were not to behave.

Even after her divorce from the philandering Prince Charles was finalized, she refused to shamefully cower into obscurity as divorced women would normally be expected to. She enjoyed dates with other men and kept living her best life.

One other thing which perhaps made women all over connect and empathise with Princess Diana was her fallibility and her admittance of it. Diana was no saint. She cheated during her marriage, too, and with more than one man.

“There was her bodyguard, 37-year-old , in 1986; car salesman , circa 1989, followed by , a married art dealer who broke it off, only to have Diana stalk him, calling his home up to 300 times.

Then came rugby player and, most famously, , who publicly claimed he was involved with Diana from 1986 through 1991,” writes Maureen Callahan for the New York Post in 2017.

Some conspiracy theorists still even believe that Prince Harry is Mr. Hewitt’s son and not Prince Charles’, despite evidence proving that the extramarital affair between the Princess and Hewitt began after Harry’s birth.

Despite these indiscretions though, Diana’s forthrightness during THAT popular Interview on BBC’s “Panorama” with Martin Bashir in 1995 where she spoke at length about everything from her failing marriage with her husband, the way she was affected by it, her mental issues, bulimia, to self-harm among other stuff, made it cool for women to come out, speak about what’s wrong with their marriages, and if possible, seek help instead of suffering in silence.

“[Princess Diana]. Don’t bottle it up. Seek help,” Mrs Femi says.

“If you speak out, people can know what’s happening. But before then, it was a thing of shame for you to even come out and say it… but if a whole princess of wales could come out to say it and go through with the divorce, why would you continue to suffer in silence?

That I can say in itself provided a mental escape for many women,” she notes.

By the time the tragic accident that took Diana’s life happened in a tunnel in France on August 31 1997, she was already so much of a respected icon, and adored figure that the televised funeral, on 6 September, was watched by a British television audience that peaked at 32.10 million, which was one of the United Kingdom's highest viewing figures ever.

That’s not to account for the millions more who followed the procession worldwide.

Princess Diana’s influence

One gets the feeling that Meghan’s entrance into the royal family, by way of marrying Prince Harry, was made easier because of what has been seen before. A precedence set by someone else without whom her acceptance may have been difficult.

The old Princess of Wales and the new Duchess of Sussex may not entirely be the same, but the parallels are there, not least because of the link they share with the same man - the older woman is Prince Harry’s mum; the younger, his bride.

The variety they bring to the royalty is also something of a similarity between them. Diana’s has already been explained so well above; and obviously Meghan already stands out for the diversity her presence adds to the royal family, and of course, her past in the spotlight as an actress also adds extra glossy pop to British royalty.

"It was a seismic shift in the royal family because of Diana,” says Imogen Lloyd Webber, ABC News royal contributor.

She was all about making the family more approachable, more accessible, keeping it real, but keeping it royal. So, perhaps it is right that Harry is marrying an actress," she adds.

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In terms of impact on women and the world around them, Meghan may yet not be at the level the People’s Princess played at, but there’s still time.

Meghan Markle already supports women’s causes. As an ambassador for World Vision, she visited Delhi, India, in 2017 to learn about issues affecting women and young girls in local slum communities.

The former "Suits" star then wrote a piece in Tim magazine about her experience learning about women's hygiene, health care, education and development in India.

Also during a Royal Foundation Forum in February of this year, her first official event with her soon-to-be in-laws Prince William and Kate Middleton, Markle spoke in support of the recent Time's Up and #MeToo movements, which centers around exposing and combating sexual harassment across all industries and supporting gender parity in the workplace.

Building on her existing influence as a loved actress and the good feeling already dispensed by her wedding, Meghan’s bigger role as a Princess will only expose her to more opportunities and chances to help women, build girls and change the world around her.

She already supports causes such as One Young World, which gathers young leaders in order to help develop solutions to global issues and also supports gender equality through UN Women among other causes, so she seems set on the right path.

It really would be interesting to see how much influence she wields with the new position.

This writer is rooting for her to go really far with that and hopefully surpass Princess Diana, her royal waymaker.