Nanny knows worst, English literature tells us, when she meddles in matters of the heart. If Juliet’s nurse and Wuthering Heights’ Nelly hadn’t freelanced quite so enthusiastically as relationship therapists, lives might have been saved and indeed lived happily ever after. Had Mrs Danvers thought to take a few deep breaths and detach herself from her late charge, Rebecca, some prime Cornish real estate might still be standing too.
It is a strange quirk of rightwing discourse that those who rail hardest against the “nanny state” tend also to worry most about “the marriage crisis” and suggest, Sebastian Flyte style, that nanny after all has the answer. Marriage is a social good, they say,– citing benefits to children and to health – and should be treated that way by the state, through tax incentives or other financial and cultural nudges. The starched and joyless figure who is not to interfere in our eating, drinking or smoking is suddenly to be given a free hand in one of life’s biggest decisions. Romantic decisions are just too important to be trusted to the couple in question.
