Princess Diana had to have a virginity test before she could marry Prince Charles in 1981. All the while, Charles was carrying on an affair with the married Camilla Parker-Bowles.

Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle lived with their fiancés before marriage. How things have changed in a not-very-long time. But that’s how progress works. One day you’re riding in a horse and carriage and a few years later you’re in a horseless carriage, and then an airplane … and then a horse and carriage again, but only if you’re the bride and groom leaving the church after your royal wedding in 2018.

The largest stride in progress has to do with Meghan’s being biracial. Now, every young girl, no matter what her racial composition is, can dream of becoming a princess, or whatever she wants to be. It was a long time coming. Even longer than it took Mattel to recognize that girls come in colors other than white. And for Crayola to acknowledge that “flesh tone” isn’t peach for half the world. And for cosmetic companies to make foundation that was darker than beige.

I am glad that Queen Elizabeth relaxed her standards. It couldn’t have been easy. She was raised in a much different time, when royal rules were strict … and when you broke them, you were discreet. Rumors abound about royal bed hopping and wedding vows that were ignored once the wedding dust settled. But misbehaving was done on the down low. Your friends and family knew, but they weren’t talking.

So, it’s probably better that everything is out in the open. Allowing Kate and William and Meghan and Harry to live together prior to marriage protected them all from learning later that their spouse had someone on the side. I don’t know how Diana didn’t know about Camilla. She probably did, but expected Charles to give Camilla up once they were married. She didn’t fully comprehend how the palace operated. But she was young.

Kate and Meghan were much older than Diana when they married (Kate was 29 and Meghan was 36, while Diana was 20). They knew more about the world than she did; plus, the world had changed enormously since 1981 when Diana and Charles tied the knot.

What intrigued me the most about the wedding of Meghan and Harry was Meghan’s wedding dress. It was beautiful, of course, albeit excessively plain and severely tailored. But that wasn’t what shocked me. What made me look twice was that it was pure white.

When I got married in 1991, the old notion that white dresses were for virgins had been discarded. But white dresses were still for first marriages. Not anymore. Meghan is in her second marriage, which is another giant leap for progress in the royal-thinking department. But, really, how could Queen Elizabeth say that Harry couldn’t marry a divorced woman when her own son, the next in line to the throne, is married to a divorced woman? She couldn’t.

The irony here is that Queen Elizabeth became queen much earlier than she should have, if at all, because her uncle, King Edward VIII, wasn’t allowed to be king and be married to a divorced woman who had a living ex-husband. Since King Edward was determined to marry twice-divorced Wallis Simpson, who had two living ex-husbands, he abdicated the throne to Queen Elizabeth’s father, King George VI.

Now, Queen Elizabeth’s son, Prince Charles, who is married to a divorced woman with a living ex-husband, will presumably be king. Prince Charles is really lucky that the rules changed since 1936.

Prince Charles is in a tight spot, though. He probably loves his mother and doesn’t want her to die, but it wouldn’t be surprising if he wished she would step aside and let him become king before he gets much older. He’s going to be 70 on November 14, 2018.

Queen Elizabeth is probably going to live forever and never step aside, though, in order to thwart Camilla. I wouldn’t blame her.

Camilla looks like a royal pain.

Buckingham Palace