Debriefing: a wedding

Sorry, I've misunderstood then.

I don't think that's what Marantha meant at all.

But marantha, your argument makes no sense! You say, 'I don't know and don't care about the historical and traditional meanings of marriage. Therefore, they don't exist. For anyone. I will now define marriage in my own way, and insist that everyone else adopt my definition. Then, I will complain about those who don't.'

I don't understand why you think you have the right to do this. My wedding was rooted in traditions that go back thousands of years. My husband belongs to a religion that sees itself as an unchanged version of the Christianity the disciples learned from Christ. You (and I, actually), don't have to agree with this, but you should understand that for some people, like my husband, that is what marriage is really about. He's just one example: loads of people will feel that for them marriage is not really about the (historically, pretty recent) legal obligations, but about other things.

But who is whinging?

I agree btw about it being a legal construct but it does go deeper than that culturally, obviously. (Pointless anecdote coming up: we chose the most basic, legally-binding script (the one where you answer yes and yes) for our register office marriage, and the bloody registrar embellished it, requiring us to promise to cherish each other or some shit like that. I could see dh wavering as he was weighing up whether a challenge would be proper, but we burst out laughing instead. Even the people whose job it is to oversee the legal contract couldn't quite manage to stick to the basics: it was bizarre.)

IME, a lot of the points people object to (the "obey" bit, father escorting daughter down the aisle, male speeches) are only present in Anglo Saxon Christian services.

At French weddings, barely anyone makes speeches. In Jewish weddings, both parents walk both the bride and the groom down the aisle.

If you don't like it - leave it out of your own wedding if you want to have one, and don't start imposing your own impressions on other people's relationships.

Anyways, back in the day (Medieval period) people could become legally married by just having sex with each other.

Unprune I do not know what happened before the last 200 years in the UK or, indeed, how it is in other countries now, but it does not matter to me as this is the age we are living in now and I think it is fair to say -from an objective view at least- marriage is a legal thing.
They did not ask me if I loved my spouse when I married in the register office. It did not matter to them. All they cared about was:
a, Was it legal for us to marry.
b, Were we doing it of our own free will.

That is why this thread irritates me:
NOBODY who is marrying of their own free will in this country has to say anything other than the simple legal reading at their marriage in a register office.
So why whinge?

i got married with just a few people in attendence,my MIL and a few co workers,that was a civil ceremony,i didn't like at all,then we had a church wedding,one of the things i had looked forward to was my daddy walking me down the isle,he was a continent away,i would have wanted to be 'given away' because my dad would have been placing me into the care of one of the most amazing men alive,i thought i didn't want all that to obey and who gives crap,but i missed all of it that day,

However i wrote my own vows and i put to obey,because i am a christian,and the bible says wives should obey their husbands,a verse that has been so misused its impossible to try and explain it,,i think sometimes things are not as they appear to be,i wouldn't let that put me off getting married,when you decided to just make sure you do things your own way,,

re the speeches, if you follow the trad and have bride's father, best man and groom, then the bride gets 2 people telling everyone how great she is. The groom gets one person telling everyone what a loser he is and about his most embarassing moments.

On that basis, happy to be the bride....it's not like I could have made a speech telling everyone about my personal achievements - much nicer to have someone else do it while I kick back with some champagne and have a good old bask.

I guess my point is that OP, I think you're overhtinking the speech bit.

Sorry, that 'you feel' it is the latter.....

You seem to be stressing over some admittedly rather peculiar choices made when the wedding was planned, and extrapolating this into a lifetime of servitude and submission for your friend.
Either your friend made those choices, with her then DF, or she is in an unequal relationship which doesn't allow her to be herself - the two are very different issues, I feel. So are you saying that feel it is the latter?

I had a small wedding with my sister, her children and our children. No speeches, no dancing, no nothing. It was 'equal' but equally shite!! I would not have been given away, but I would have liked someone to say I was nice and beautiful!!

But marriage was plainly legally binding before the last 200 years, and there are plainly marriages in other, non-Western societies which have existed for centuries at least.
What am I missing here?

Of course it's a red herring. A marriage in a register office will not use it at all.
I do not understand moaning over something that need not be said!

Isn't the 'obey' thing a bit of a red herring on this thread? Surely only about 1% of couples (wild unfounded guess) choose to have it in their ceremony. I've certainly never heard it. Similarly with saying 'who gives this woman...' though possibly that's more common.

Consider myself a feminist- DH and I share housework, childcare etc. However, at our wedding I did not give a speech, and my brother walked me down the aisle. Our wedding didn't reflect how we are as a couple, we were happy to fall back on tradition, a ritual that is well known. I didn't "obey" as part of our vows either. I have kept my surname and mingled it with his , my (female) colleagues can't get their heads round this at all, and frequently feign confusion over our dcs' names.

'Your definition is specific to the last 200 minimum'
Er, surely the last 200 years- and what marriage is about NOW- is what matters to us today?

Marriage is NOT a concept that has existed for hundreds and thousands of years.
It came about with Marriage Act of the 18th Century because of dispute over money and property.
In any case, so what if it is specific to the last 200 years, it is what it is about now that matters.
As for the 'odd' comment, I do not know your circumstances and hope you never have misfortune to divorce (it is awful), but I really can assure you it is when a person divorces that they really, really do find out that marriage IS primarily a legal construct.
Don't have to tell Vicar or dressmaker you're divorcing, do you?
Or your guests, bridesmaids. You Do have to involve divorce lawyers, though.

Er, marantha?

'Marriage' is a concept that has existed for hundreds and thousands of years. Your definition is specific to the last 200 minimum.

This may be why you sound a bit odd.

vezzie What is marriage about?
OBJECTIVELY:
Two adults signing a piece of paper that ties them legally together.
This is why any wills made prior to marriage become null and void upon marriage.
This is why- unless declared otherwise- your spouse becomes default next-of-kin upon marriage.
Marriage means that your spouse, in the unfortunate event of your death, will inherit all your worldly goods unless you say otherwise via a will.

In brief, it is a legal document that provides proof positive that two people have made a legally-binding committment towards another.

SUBJECTIVELY:
Love -yes, it is (usually!!) a deciding factor in getting wed for most people, but my point is this: Love is not exclusive to marriage.

Religion: Don't have to be religious to get married.

Children: Well you don't have to be married to have kids!

Lifelong partnership: Again, not exclusive to the married.

The acid test for me is this:
What happens when a marriage breaks down and the couple wish to permanently part?
They have to go through legal process of divorce. That's right: legal process.

So, yeah, I agree that most weddings are over-the-top but what of it?
Get married for 100k or £100, you're still left in same position at end of day:
Legally bound to another adult.
All the rest i.e. fancy dress, champagne etc is just fluff (nice fluff for those that want it- nothing wrong with a big celebration but fluff all the same)

I mean this in a nice way: but don't let it get to you so much.

I am a staunch feminist but loved our wedding - everyone we loved together in the same place supporting our relationship.

I spoke at our wedding but my MIL heckled me throughout it (eg: when I was thanking my bestfriend/bridesmaid annouced to the room that the friend had slept with the groomsman) and then SIL gave a speech about how she had taught DH EVERYTHING he knows about how to treat a woman and I should thank her... [hmmm]

So I felt like the women there undermined me rather than the men. It was most weird.

Other than that - a great day.

Nope, it was a very nice light purplely/blue colour, very simple dress that they made themselves. We had a small budget, small family wedding, then a big ceilidh in the evening. Smashing it were.

i had been with my now DH for five years before we got engaged and it was only at that point we realised that our parents had never met.

our extended families had never met each other and even some of our friends had never met (i lived in another city a long time and DH and i see my friends from those years at centre parcs or on skiing holdiays).

what's so wrong with having a big party?? (not talking here about the 'traditions').

Hmmm borderline I'd say. Did you make your grown up bridesmaids wear orange/pink/substitute other unflattering shade if not i might let you off

I know what you mean about feeling depressed. I have sat through a lot of awful sexist shite. The worst was a man who had two daughters who got married within a year of each other - he gave the exact same (patronizing) speech for both of them, and even kept saying the wrong name the second time round - he'd not even updated his notes. Awful, because of course many guests had been to both. It just came across very strongly that his daughter as an individual was the last thing he or the other (all male) speakers were thinking about.

I did my best to make my wedding as feminist as possible and it worked well because lots of the most important people in DH's life are women - we a best woman, and his mum gave a speech. I have to say though, what everyone still remembers and tells me about is the way the priest went completely off-piste with a load of random stuff about how many babies I should be giving DH - they all thought I was trying a new form of pregnancy announcement!

However hard you try to make it feminist, some people will always want to step in and take you down for doing that. To me, that doesn't mean weddings are inherently anti-feminist or need to be depressing. It just shows that for all the 'shouty feminist' stereotypes, it's actually the anti-feminists who can't bear to see someone else living life their way. This thought was very much in my mind reading one of the latest 'why use ms' debates on AIBU - loads of 'why do you feminists CARE so much, no one else cares' from people who couldn't seem to leave the topic alone without having the last word.