“For forty years I have been married to one of the greatest women the world has ever produced. All I could produce -small as it may be – was love and loyalty.”-Denis Thatcher (1915-2003)
Keeping with @Arahant’s British theme, I’ve chosen a quote from (the husband of) quite a famous Briton, Margaret Thatcher. Denis was often the butt of jokes in the press, for his excessive fondness for G&Ts, golf, and occasionally propensity to gaffes, which he much preferred to being perceived as being the power behind his wife’s throne. He and his golfing partner Bill Deedes even became the subject of a long-running Private Eye column, later turned into two books and a play.
Certainly, the Thatcher marriage was not without its hardships. Margaret had initially hesitated in her courtship with Denis, a divorcee that she found “homely” and somewhat boring after a long relationship with a dashing doctor ten years her senior. And, after the two did get together, Denis suffered a quite severe nervous breakdown in 1964, leading him to embark on a months-long break to South Africa and the marriage almost to end.
Through bombings, election campaigns, two children, three electoral terms, three careers, and 52 years of partnership, though, Margaret and Denis kept together and did so happily. While some found their marital relationship odd or distasteful, considering its sometimes ‘businesslike’ nature and the two’s propensity to engage happily in their own separate interests, it was a union full of deep fondness, mutual understanding, and respect. Very much of the flavor of the Duke of Edinburgh and Queen Elizabeth, whom Mrs. Thatcher so admired.
In both real-life and media (think the originally British sensation House of Cards), we are used to viewing political marriages as Machiavellian power pairings, the joining of two people in matrimony for the purpose of fulfilling their lust for power and control. Or otherwise to seek grand romances, tales with hardship, fawning love letters, and dramatic reunions. Personally, I think Margaret and Denis provide a pretty great example of the marital ideal. Neither craven nor fairy book, they spent numerous decades providing each other with intimacy, support, and friendship that enabled both to be immensely successful personally and professionally. And if Denis’ quote is anything to go by, he might just have been a sly romantic yet.*
*If you have any complaints with today’s Quote of the Day, please direct them at @Arahant, who extorted me into this with threats of Arnold Toynbee.
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