It’s a truth universally acknowledged – by those who subscribe to that tired old ‘first comes love, then comes marriage’ theory, at least – that a woman’s sole goal in life is to secure a wedding proposal.

To these people, apparently, it doesn’t matter that the year is 2020, not 1950. That the number of marriages between men and women hit a record low many months before lockdown put an abrupt end to this year’s wedding plans (according to the Office for National Statistics, “marriage rates for opposite-sex couples [hit] their lowest level on record [in 2018] following a gradual long-term decline since the early 70s”). That, as dating and relationship coach Ané Auret has pointed out, “having the freedom to focus on what you want to do as an individual is more important to people in their 20s than it was several decades ago.”

None of that matters, because they are still subscribed to the fairy-tale we were all sold via Disney films as children, and glossy magazine covers as adults. So much so that even a woman as successful as Charlize Theron – as in, yes, the critically-acclaimed actor and producer – can’t escape this sexist narrative.

Charlize Theron isn’t here for those baseless assumptions about her love life