Why would you be proud to be married?

I don't think marriage comes into it, but I do think people loose sight of having a healthy, stable relationship is an achievement of sorts.

So a cohabited couple of 20+ years I would view as bigger achievement than 3 years married.

I know one person whose sole ambition at university was to find a husband, primarily because she wanted to have lots of children and figured that it was more likely she would achieve that with a wealthy husband. But that's the only one I can think of.

I didn't realise I was "supposed" to find a husband at uni and ignored the eligible bachelors and dated people in bands

I can't think of anyone who sees marriage as a primary goal, man or woman.

peggy, those are fair questions.

Why did I get married? In short, I needed a visa to stay in DH's country and had run out of other options!

I think you misunderstand me though. I'm not against marriage. I love my DH, I was very happy for us to make a public proclamation of our intention to be together for as long as we stand each other, to celebrate that with family and friends and to have a very fine party! I enjoy the legal protection marriage affords both me and my DH. As a concept, in modern terms, I thoroughly approve of it. In the same way that I approve of people joining the library!

I just don't see it as a source of pride, is all, just a practicality for defining a long-term relationship.

And as for why feminists compromise their belief - while ideals are all very lofty and good, and in an ideal world the legal joining of a man, a women and all their worldly goods wouldn't have a shadow of an oppressive history behind it, we live in the real world. Marriage offers women legal protection.

youngblowfish explained it very well upthread:
"Indeed, penguins.

Which is why I am married. I may be a feminist, but I am not delusional and understand that the strength of my convictions won't be much good when I need legal protection inside a patriarchal set up. I don't feel great about it and I certainly don't see it as a free choice - it was the best option available to me at the time, across a set of options which were all circumscribed by the social implications of my having a womb.

What I would like instead of a traditionally demeaning ritual and the promised land of domestic servitude is proper equal pay, proper legal protection and for motherhood to stop being such an obstacle on the job market. The patriarchy can keep the ring."

annie you say you think marriage isn't a great achievement and anyone can do it - it seems to me you don't think much of it - why did you get married? surely you wouldn't sell your feminist identity/beliefs down the river for some legal documentation?

seems to me a lot of feminists are against the idea of marriage because of what it meant historically and that it was/is an invention to benefit men at the expense of woman (this is what people no this thread have said) - why are so many of you married if you feel this? why don't you free yourself from this invention if you don't agree with it? your actions seem to go completely against your beliefs

i don't pretend to fully understand feminism, the detail of it and what i read on here is pretty new to me - ive always had a negative view of it when it has been mentioned - the more I read on here the more i believe people who say they are feminists seem to compromise on their beliefs in RL all the time - why would you do that? don't you think you are selling yourself short? i guess i have a negative view of it because people seem to say one thing but do something completely different and don't have any conviction to stand behind their beliefs but they are happy to tell other people to stand behind their beliefs i.e. do as I say not as I do.

FamiliesShareGerms - I don't think anyone has said that you shouldn't be proud of being married. It's not something feminists (or women in general) should be ashamed of it or shouldn't be happily married without being traitors to the cause.

It's just that for me, the act of getting married is much like joining the local library. Hardly a great achievement and anyone can do it. So I puzzle over why others might be proud of it. Not that I think you're wrong to be proud, it's just that personally, I don't understand it.

That is statistically the case dad.

I know the statistics Grennie, but that's not what I asked. I suppose the answer to my question is that, in your personal case, you feel your relationship does not fit the stats or you feel long term commitment is not simply about being the most happy you can imagine yourself being. Either way I think your original question:

I am just trying to understand this from a feminist perspective. Why would a woman under patriarchy be proud to be married?

-has a lot to do with the UK wimping out with civil partnerships for gay couples instead of recognising the relationships as 'marriage'. Were this feminist board populated with Canadians (who went the civil partnership route themselves but had that odd half-way house concept crushed by law into 'real' marriage) perhaps their thought would regard the concept of marriage as less inherently patriarchal? Fixing gay marriage in law IMO is the proof that a society can see past labels of religious pride and false morality to the inherent worth of a committed human relationship that transcends gender boundaries. In time western society may fully evolve to that thinking.

As for taking pride in something, people can be proud of the oddest of things. I think many parents confront that reality head on when they encounter their kids so incredibly chuffed of their pooping skills. I don’t really much care about people being proud of this or that unless I think what they take pride in is evil, and its the nature of a particular marriage that makes it good or evil, not marriage itself.

After the seven year honeymoon a marriage/relationship tends to blend together in peoples minds anyway and separating the two dribbles down into piddling semantics over what colour they think the same fence is. Perhaps after that honeymoon period if a woman is still proud purely of the 'marriage certificate' (so to speak) she is trying to compensate for either a bad relationship within the marriage or some lack of self esteem in herself.

I don't see why having a pleasant couple-relationship is anything to be proud of, because having a good one (not one where you subjugate yourself to keep your Man happy and tell anyone who will listen how wonderful he is) is a matter of luck more than anything else. If you have a good relationship, it's not just because you are smarter or better than other women who are in shit relationships - or single. It just so happens that you met a decent man when you and he were at a stage in your lives that you were ready to engage in a couple-relationship, and both of you remain decent people who are reasonably attracted to one another.

Yep that's tight Kilmur they are all aged spinsters breeding cats in the country!

No, 'they' want intelligent debate that goes beyond everybody's individual experience.

Never mind.

Feminists usually end up on their own. How dare an educated woman possibly be happy in a marriage? I am, i am in an equal relationship, not downtrodden blah bah. Yawn, yawn

Because when OP starts a thread you are supposed to agree! They don't want dissenters.
Unlike WhenTheRed I hardly ever come across anyone who uses Ms. However I love living in a backwater and don't intend ever living anywhere else.

I find it a bit depressing that having been asked "why would you be proud to be married", those of us who have answered have been told variously on this thread that we are actuallynproud of our relationship; that being married is not an achievement; that because marriage is used in many countries / cultures as a form of female subjugation we shouldn't be proud to participate in it... And we are dull pinheads too.

Is it really so hard to imagine that some of us are proud to be married and proud of our marriage; got married for more than the bit of paper; and are also committed feminists? Why isn't it acceptable to redefine an institution through personal participation, rather than a refusal to engage? Why is the only acceptable position to be allowed to be proud of a marriage but not the fact of being married?

That's a good summing up. Could apply to so many areas of life though. People have become increasingly blinkered, isolated and individual that they are quite unable to think politically, analytically or philosophically. Abstractions, patterns and generalisations are seen as getting in the way of their own conception of self, which is now more important than any relationship they have to others and society in general.

Being in a happy relationship is not the same as being married. A good relationship is not the same as a marriage.

I can't remember who said it up thread but someone made the very good point that when people say they are proud of being married, they are usually proud of their own particular marriage and nobody has said a word about that.

But this marriage is a good thing, something to achieve, something to feel a failure if you don't achieve is something different. And not being able to see what marriage can mean for women in some countries and what it has meant for women historically, is beyond most of the people on this thread.

This is MN and so on and on people will go. About their lovely DH and their ups and downs and what troopers they all are. Blah blah. As if the only marriage in the world is theirs and there isn't an institution called marriage that exists outside their own experiences. And that there are many many women around the world and throughout history whose experiences of marriage was and is very very different to their set up.

And they'll go, "I don't care what other people do" but what they really mean is they only notice their own individual experiences. And that's all they can speak about. And they're so dull and pinheaded they think that's good enough.

It's depressing really.

oh nooo. I don't want to see Miss go, I like being a Miss. It surprises people and it makes me feel young every time I write it down or tick the box, I love it.

Why not be proud that you are in a happy relationship.

Bit too subtle IfNot

I love the phrase "Ms." It used to be so hard for people to say and it was fun seeing what a fuss people (old men) made of it. And now, in many places it's the norm. I'd like to see Miss and Mrs go. And it will. Except in backwaters. And I don't want to live there.

All this talk of " being comitted" makes me think of old fashioned mental Institutions!
Talking of comitment phobes..

I'm not proud to be married, more suprised really, as I'm a bit of a commitment phobe. I'm proud I haven't run away!

lighthousesea, you said "It's pretty simple, if you don't understand why people get married and are proud to be committed in this way, then don't get married...."

I understand why people get married. I am married. And I'm proud of the strong relationship DH and I have built. But I'm not proud to be married. Any fool can say wedding vows, and bitterly unhappy couples can be married. The legal situation bears no reflection on the actual state of a relationship.

I would argue that being married reflects nothing, in opposition to what FreeWee said. Your fantastic relationship probably reflects all those things you said to the people who know you. Not the ring on your finger.