Mummy, what's a wedding?

The women on the bus this morning were all sitting quietly talking to no one as they do every Friday morning. Then two of them, sitting several benches apart, noticed that they knew one another and they said a few words to one another.

This is a typical scene and it happens on buses everywhere in cities everywhere every single day. What made this morning a little unusual is that one of the women mentioned that she been watching the Royal Wedding. And the other acknowledged that she had as well. And so they started talking a bit about that. And then another woman sheepishly joined in. And then another and another ....

Every woman on that bus—including the girl with the purple hair, the tattoos and the deliberately torn fishnet stockings worn in boots had gotten up at some ungodly hour this morning and watched the Royal Wedding.

And some spoke of how their daughters had gotten up too.  Which got the other women with girls to talk about their responses.

The daughters, to a girl, were fascinated. They loved the wedding and everything about it. Their mothers talked about the funny things the girls had said about their future weddings. Meaning the wedding they all hope to have some day.  There was much laughter at some of the unrealistic hopes that were cherished in these girlish hearts. The daughters apparently all hoped to marry a prince.

What didn't strike anyone as odd—mostly because it isn't odd—was that all these girls cared. Their mothers had just sent them off to daycare or preschool after all. But it doesn't strike us as odd that four-to-six-year-old girls will sit around and talk about "my wedding" planning the details.

There are, of course, people who will deny such a thing. I've seen and heard them. And it's telling that the discussion started with sheepish admissions. By some strange coincidence, an astounding percentage of the women in this upper-middle-class neighbourhood were struck with insomnia this morning and they all got up and just happened to turn the TV on and they all just happened to stop surfing when they hit the wedding coverage.

What they all found odd was the little boy traveling with his mother who interrupted her discussion with the others to ask, "Mummy, what's a wedding?' They all laughed very hard at him. His mother added to the laughter by saying that he'd been sitting right in the room with her while she watched. He'd registered all sorts of stuff. He noticed the carriages and the soldiers and had apparently been particularly curious about the choirboys. But the fact that this was a some sort of ceremony related to that young woman in a white dress with a long, long train? That hadn't registered at all.

There are huge, huge differences between men and women.

I don't mean to suggest that there is anything foolish or trivial about this. There are entire television networks devoted to professional sports after all.

But there are huge, huge differences between men and women.

We need to stop pretending there aren't or that these differences will all disappear once women all get university educations and white collar jobs.