The Beckhams love love. They fall hard; they fall deep. They ink their allegiance in blood.
It's clear in one telling moment from many telling moments in Netflix's excellent Beckham documentary.
David Beckham's mum, Sandra – who is, if you look closely, in the background of almost every paparazzi image taken of 'Posh and Becks' in their 'small kids' era – is discussing the early days of her son's relationship.
"Victoria would be away and we'd be staying at David's house and at 3 o'clock in the morning the phone would ring," Sandra said. "He had a game, so I'd answer the phone and say, 'He's in bed, asleep', and they'd want to talk. But me being a protective mum, thought, 'You shouldn't really be ringing this time in the morning.'"
The look on her face as she says this is pure Mother Of Son. I'm sure she's nice and everything, she was saying. But my boy needs his rest.
But it was the first time that David had found something he loved more than football: Posh. And little did she know, then, that this obsession of David's would last 27 years and counting.
In the show, cross-legged from her lounge, Victoria confirms that she and David were 'addicted' to each other.
"I was on tour but not knowing when I was going to see him was the difficult thing," she told the documentary's director, Fisher Stevens. "He would do anything to just try and spend time with me, he would sometimes charter a tiny plane, like a two-seater plane, he would come over literally for a few hours then go back."
Watch: The official trailer for 'Beckham' Documentary Series. Post continues after video.
Now, of course, Victoria Beckham is famously mother to a son equally smitten with his own new wife.
And although the topic is avoided in the documentary, and Nicola Peltz only makes the tiniest of appearances in the background of a family gathering, it's clear that, like father, like son, Brooklyn Beckham is deeply addicted.
Brooklyn has 100 tattoos – and 70 of them are about Nicola. He has her name, many times, of course. Their wedding vows. The lyrics to the song she walked up the aisle to. Her grandmother's favourite prayer. Her mother's rosary beads. Her initial on his index finger. A full portrait of her face on his upper arm. Her eyes on the back of his neck...
We're looking at generations of Wife Guys here.
In a recent interview with Cosmopolitan, Nicola says that Brooklyn flew from NYC to LA at 2am so he could go to bed with her that night rather than be away from her for a whole 24 hours.
If you're not David Beckham's son, that would be creepy. Obsessive. Strange. But if your dad's the guy who would drive from Manchester to London to spend seven minutes with his girlfriend before turning around and driving back, that's the least you can do.
It's best not to estimate how many loved-up Instagram posts we were spared because the app hadn't been invented back when Posh and Becks became the original poster-children for PDA.
Twenty-three might seem young to marry the "love of your life", but if your dad married Posh Spice when he was 24, and they're still going strong, it seems completely fair.
It's clear that David and Victoria had similar values. Family. Success. Money. Shiny things. Family.
And so do their kids.
It's also clear Victoria and David Beckham don't really care if you think their marriage is performative.
They didn't care what you thought back in 1999, when they signed a contract worth a record $1.9million Australian for the wedding pictures, which included them wearing matching purple Antonio Beradi suits, baby Brooklyn glowering in a cowboy hat, Posh rocking a Vera Wang crown and the couple perched, unsmiling, on matching thrones.
Tacky, said the world. It will never last, said the world.
At times over the past quarter-century, bookies have taken bets on the likelihood of a Beckham divorce, at varying odds. But if you've watched Beckham, which is ostensibly about David's football career but includes a significant dose of Posh life, you know you'd be foolish to bet against the Beckhams.
They don't care that you all know they had their s**t times, that they survived (alleged, but come on) infidelity and that sometimes, Victoria was pissed off about being dragged around the world for David's silly footballing job. They've survived it all.
Victoria Beckham says in the documentary that the first time she saw David – rising superstar that he was – he was standing away from all his celebrating teammates in the players' lounge at Old Trafford, talking to his parents. She liked that, she said, because she is also tight with her family.
And she's not kidding. Any Beckham watcher knows that their parents, on both sides, are never more than a few feet away at any big moment. Football games and fashion shows and airport walk-throughs and, indeed, documentary launch parties, Victoria's parents and David's mum (his dad, exposed as a hard-taskmaster in the TV show, split from his mum in 2002, and although they are still close, it seems the Beckham kids sided with mum) are always, always there.
And now, Posh's clutch of Beckhams are the original tight unit, moving around the world en masse, until Brooklyn fell in love and went off to write his own tale of true love.
Nicola Peltz is from the same stock, in a very different universe. Her dad is a billionaire Miami businessman, who has been married to her mother for 40 years. Nicola has a tattoo that reads Family First in Hebrew on her ribs. And, of course, one that says Brooklyn.
Listen to The Spill, where we talk about the young Hollywood couples who are making marriage their entire brand. Post continues after podcast.
So maybe she understands him in a way that someone who came from a more ordinary, less-bonded family unit, would not.
Which would be handy because your mother-in-law being Victoria Beckham would also be a very particular type of challenge.
Standards are sky-high for the benchmark of "Good Wife" if you're the woman who stayed with David Beckham when he was a) The most-hated man in Britain, b) The bastard who embarrassed you with the most public of public flings, and c) A man who wipes the insides of candles out because he hates the smoke marks the flame leaves behind.
Beckham has ensured the world got to see a different version of Posh – funny, honest, no-nonsense. And it also ensured Beckham Family Values as a legacy: A firm tighter than the royals, and harder to join.
Someone should pour a little something out for Nicola Peltz.
Feature Image: Getty.
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