Royal Wedding: The Future of the British Monarchy

April 18, 2011— -- When Catherine Middleton marries Prince William April 29, billions of people from around the world will be watching.

Among them will likely be the skeptics who've seen this so-called fairy tale play out before to a less than happily-ever-after ending.

"When you have a royal wedding in the 21st century on the heels of a whole generation of royal marital failures, inevitably there's a degree of cynicism," Patrick Jephson, Princess Diana's former secretary, said. "You can take a bet in English bookmakers at the moment as to how long the marriage will last."

The marriages of three of Queen Elizabeth's four children and that of her sister all ended in divorce. The scandalous headlines and tales of adultery that accompanied many of these splits tarnished the royal family's image.

Having inherited such a legacy of divorce, Prince William and Middleton might lose an opportunity to modernize the monarchy and risk irrevocably damaging the royal family's popularity if their marriage fails.

"And, for them, living in the public eye so much, when every flicker of an eyelid is recorded by the cameras and television … and now by mobile phones, the pressures are even greater. " William Shawcross, the queen mother's official biographer, said.

All the speculation and media attention surrounding the couple have also provoked a broader discussion on the relevance of the monarchy in 21st-century Britain.

"The monarchy needs to think about its relevance for today," Tristram Hunt, a member of parliament for Stoke on Trent, said.

Hunt argues that the monarchy needs to modernize, and that Middleton and Prince William should play a pivotal role in the process.

In a recent paper he wrote for the Institute for Public Policy Research, a British think-tank, he called for Prince William to publicly support a change to the royal family's succession law. The Act of Settlement dictates that the first-born son will inherit the throne even if he has an older sister.

The law also states that anyone in line to the throne cannot marry a Catholic without revoking the right to succession. Hunt wants Prince William to change all this.

He also wants the young prince to introduce more diversity in the royal households. "Prince Charles has shown the way in broadening his circle, but it is up to his son to do more," Hunt wrote.

The Future of British Monarchy

His biggest complaint about the monarchy: "I don't think they do enough to share their space and their inheritance within Britain," he said.

"If they do want to be this family embodying the nation, they should also think about the nation, you know, having access to some of the cultural riches they have."

But such changes and even unlimited access to the royal family's cultural riches would do little to placate those that wish to abolish the monarchy all together. They view it as an obsolete, arcane institution that should not be paid for by the British taxpayer and are using the interest in this wedding as a platform from which to promote their message.

"Our head of state is someone who's there simply because of who their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents were. I think that's quite embarrassing in the 21st century," Johann Hari, author of "God Save the Queen" and columnist for the Independent newspaper, told ABC News in an interview with Barbara Walters.