Tony Morley (The Up Wing).

Progress in nearly all aspects of love, although hard-won, has advanced dramatically over the last 200 years. Granted, the progress didn’t come fast enough, equitably enough, or ubiquitously enough, and there is still much progress to be made, but advancements have been made nonetheless, and they are continuing. In large swathes of the world, long gone are the days when you could sell your wife on the open market or even when physical violence against a partner, and particularly against women, was a tolerated part of everyday life. (Although rates of domestic violence remain high in certain countries.) With each passing year, the worst crimes against love, from bigotry to abuse and from class and racial stigma to rape and forced marriage, have become more culturally abhorrent and legally impermissible.

Although there’s plenty of work still to be done. This shocked me:

UNICEF estimated in a 2021 report that 650 million women alive today were married before their 18th birthday.