More recent first marriages stayed together, as first ladies chose to keep their sorrows to themselves.
In this last respect the Roosevelts may even remind us a bit of a more recent White House marriage.
A lawyer representing Texas asked a federal judge Wednesday to reject pleas from two gay couples to suspend the state constitution's definition of marriage as between one man and one woman, calling the legalization of same-sex marriages "a more recent innovation than Facebook".
In 2012, North Carolina voters approved a ban on same-sex marriage, but more recent polls show that opinion is shifting; a majority of younger voters in the state now support marriage equality.
To the extent that a slippery slope exists at all, it was Lawrence v Texas, which struck down Texas's anti-sodomy law in 2003, not either of the more recent cases, that first shoved marriage down the hill.
If there is dullness at the heart of the film, that may be due less to the director (though he should have cut it by a good ten minutes) than to the source material; attempts to link Georgiana's story with a broken royal marriage of more recent vintage are tendentious at best.
Lead barrister, Gerard Hogan, argued that neither the 1937 Irish constitution nor more recent tax laws specifically define marriage as between one man and one woman.
And all of those decisions, including North Carolina's, preceded President Obama's history-making statement of support for marriage equality; the endorsement of same-sex marriage by the N.A.A.C.P.; and the more recent news that the Democratic Party was drafting a marriage-equality plank to include in its platform this year, for the first time ever.
We know from our interviews in the field that love marriages among adolescents are a growing trend, and more recent research confirms that more than 25% of marriages are based on the girl's decision (pdf).
"Same-sex marriage is not included in the fundamental right of marriage... it is a more recent innovation than Facebook".
