Asking fathers permission to propose

Not really. You should have said that you cannot give him an answer without asking his parents for their blessing.

Surely you’d already had discussions about your future together and whether marriage was part of that?

Exactly, and yet some people equate that with showing some kind of “respect” to the father, by asking him. Whereas this tradition, for women, was a form of the highest disrespect for the women who were actually just transactions between the their fathers and soon to be husbands. Nothing romantic about that.

It's hard to explain clearly but no..

The first time one of us used the word marriage was probably talking about how we felt about marriage as a concept, did we think it was outdated etc - that's clearly not a proposal.

We had a number of lengthy discussions about what marriage meant to us, etc, well before deciding whether or not we wanted to do it.

It genuinely isn't possible to pin point a question moment for us

Because I didn't have a crystal ball & know that my husband was planning on asking me 😂If I was the one doing the proposing, then yes I would have asked them!

Did you speak to his parents? If not, why not? Why did you not think to show them any respect?

It's just me and dd. I would expect her future partner to ask my permission to marry her. If he decided not to, I'd be pissed off because I know that he'd do it for a man

If she's gay however, I wouldn't necessarily expect to be asked for permission

What is respectful about it?

my DH (we were a "nugded in bed one morning and said - let's get married" couple, in fact i think i brought it up first) showed respect for my parents by being polite, not picking his nose at the dinner table, and showing interest in my dad's garden even though gardening bores DH to tears.

He showed respect to my mum by really appreciating her cooking (he's a chef, she worried about it) doing the washing up, and talking to her about the books they were reading

etc etc

He showed enormous respect to me by not being a patriarchal nob at any time since I've known him (which is 40+ years now)

People really need to chill out.
If you don't want your other half to speak to your parents first, then tell them. If you do, that's also fine!!!
Stop telling women who like the idea that they are being controlled and are some god awful person ffs.

We have three daughters, two got married in 2020 and one in 2023. Their husbands didn't ask my husband for permission but they did ask for his blessing. The weddings would have gone ahead regardless but it was a nod to tradition which they were all very keen on.

But that “tradition” is not rooted in respect, definitely not towards women. Traditionally this was a way of exchanging property - the father gives the husband to be the agreement to exchange property, that the property being the daughter.

My husband asked my dad , to me it was more about approval and being a good enough man than possession - I like the idea

Correct.

I despair when I read all these 'the men control women' threads on here - waiting for a 'proposal', etc. ffs.

I would go even further and say that the meeting was necessary because marriage also involved dowry. It wasn't some cute romantic "boy meets girl" situation. In was a business transaction and the groom and the father needed to discuss transfer of land/property/cattle which was the primary reason for this "meeting". And the reason the groom had to ask the father is because women did not make financial decisions.
I am willing to bet my house deposit that the tradition of asking the father was not nearly as prevalent among poorer folk who had no dowry to arrange.

Hmm perhaps it would have been useful if the ex-dhS HAD spoken to your DF...?

I don't think it's about asking 'permission'. It's about showing respect and saying that they are intending to propose. My DH spoke to both my parents his plans and that meant a lot to me that he had, and I know my parents really respected that he had too...

My husband told my Dad that he was going to propose, before he asked me. He didn't ask permission to marry me as such. It was a case of 'I'm giving your prior notice that this is my intention'. My Dad was born in 1940, so it was more for his sake than ours, as he would have appreciated the gesture. I can't imagine today's younger generation even knowing that this was a tradition years ago and it would have been expected by the bride's Father.

Yes and he also makes me happy! My parents are elderly, my first marriage didn't last and they do worry about me sometimes. My STBDH parents are both dead and he felt it was the right thing to do. I know he wishes I could have met them. We'd already discussed getting married and agreed we both wanted to.

It's respect for the aspiring head of a new household to the existing one, of course.
And disrespect for all the women.

Read @Brefugee’s post immediately above.

@Parker231 🤣 of course not. though my future in-laws knew already what was happenening as had been told over the phone (they live abroad) what he'd planned to do with my dad. Partner proposed while we were on holiday and I video called my parents and my in-laws the day after we got engaged to let them know and they were made up for us and excited to be getting a DIL.

At the end of the day, it's obvious from this thread, asking a father's permission is loved or hated. I love it and was so happy he asked as I know it would mean alot to my dad. You don't need to be so hostile to women who actually appreciate the sentiment 😝

gosh this thread is an eye opener.

So the tradition is from times when women were seen as property.
As was pointed out on another thread elsewhere on the site yesterday within my lifetime:

women have been allowed to have their own bank account
stopped being automatically fired when they got married
were allowed to take out a mortgage/loan without a man's countersignature
rape in marriage was made illegal

so for sure, keep your traditions and whine on about how he won't propose to you despite being together 20 years, having a house, a business and 6 kids...

If my DH had given ANY indication that he was going to ask my dad (or even give my dad a "heads up") i would probably have refused. But my dad would have laughed at him and said "nope, you can't marry someone if you don't know them well enough to know that this is something she absolutely disapproves of"

ETA
I honestly don't understand where 'respect' fits in with this.

It certainly shows a lack of respect of the woman you want to marry

My parents married against the wishes of one set of parents, and were together over 50 years, till death did them part. They always said they would never interfere in their children’s relationship choices, and supported us through thick and thin. If my DH had asked my dad’s permission, like others have said in this thread, my dad would’ve said ‘What are you asking me for?’ Anyway, there was no proposal as such - we just gradually went from talking about ‘if we get married’ to ‘when we get married’, and then thought we’d better set a date and tell people.
And no, I didn’t change my surname on marrying either! (dad less understanding about that….)