feel like I’m turning into an anti-marriage feminist

I think it's having children, rather than marriage, that divides women. I was late to motherhood so I've been on both sides of the schism.

Overall I feel like marriage is a tool that brings divide amongst women and the reason why you see so many women aspiring for marriage or refusing to let go of this patriarchal institution is because of the elevated status that marriage gives them over other women. There’s no other patriarchal creation that I can think of that women - including some who call themselves feminists - generally defend so strongly. I believe the status it gives them over other women is the reason why

I think you are bang on right OP.

I wanted to be with/available to my children full time while they were young.

It is great to have choices. Even better to explore the most effective and useful ways of fulfilling those choices.

I am not and never have been married. When I was younger I was thinking of feminist theory rather than practical realities.

I think it needs to be contractual - marriage legally has moved onto no spousal maintenance, or for a short term while the woman gets a job, rather than that the husband (or ex-husband) would continue to support the woman.

Societally however, women haven't caught up, they don't realise that when they put themselves on the backburner for kids/family that they are risking everything - that they will be cast adrift and expected to pick up where they left off up to 20 years ago should a marriage fail. I think it needs to be written in the contract, that the contract needs to be renewed/amended when things change - eg. children, giving up work. It needs to be specified that the deal is, 'I give up work to support the family, and in return you are bound to make up the difference in what I would have earned' and that isn't a simple thing - it's a complex negotiation - and I think it needs to be done up front so everyone is walking into it with their eyes open.

I thank my lucky stars that I am fundamentally stubborn and managed to freelance whilst having the kids, giving me the freedom to tell ex to take a hike when the depths of his betrayal became clear (even beyond his general lack of support/care during the relationship which I excused). My sister hasn't managed this, and struggles to put petrol in the car some weeks as a consequence, she's still dependant on her ex, because she has to be financially.

How do we square economic independence with a desire to raise your own child, or even to cut down your working hours to spend time with them?

I don't see how we can.

Before I had a child, I had no idea how strongly I would want to be with them. It blew me away. It felt primal. We found a compromise and muddled through, as most of us do, but I have never found a satisfactory answer to this conundrum from feminism, certainly not from the first feminists I hung out with who were second wavers and treated mothers with little short of contempt.

This is the first feminist space I have found where anyone gets this.

Personally I don’t think that it’s marriage that’s the problem. Having two incomes and the support of another person is really a good way of gaining a secure future and a good environment to raise children if that’s what you want. I also don’t think I could find the happiness I have now through a series of casual relationships.

For me the problem issues are much more to do with the societal expectations of motherhood vs fatherhood.

Women going into things blinded by love without looking at worst case scenarios, and the system happily screwing them over is the problem with marriage

I think that an awful lot of sex-role stereotyping is caught up in the word 'wife'. I've never desired to be a 'wife'. I do have a partner who for much of the time we have been together has earned significantly more than me (he still does). Not marrying him, I think, gave me more opportunity to put my career and financial interests first in light of a lot of social pressure to do otherwise. If I'd have had the social role of 'wife' it would have been far harder to have resisted those who told me I was mad for not accepting his breadwinner role, mean for not moving to be with him or wrong for not being the corporate wife or so on.

As they used to say 'it all starts when you sink into his arms and it ends with your arms in his sink'.

Snap YetAnotherSpart. I totally agree.

There literally are no guarantees in life - apart from death and taxes

The rest is up to us.

I think this needs to be taught to children (especially girls) - what you're risking if you give up your job to have kids.

But I have to say that this:

There’s no rule that states that women have to be the ones that give up their careers to raise children. Fathers can easily do that too.

Whilst being true, mixes up what we are working towards, with what we have to deal with now. Yes, that is where we should be, but the reality is at the moment that it's nearly always the woman that gives up and cuts back following children.

I think that actually, there needs to be more talk of marriage as a contract - specifying terms, and then enforcing them during the marriage, and potentially after breakup.

Women going into things blinded by love without looking at worst case scenarios, and the system happily screwing them over is the problem with marriage.

Quoting myself for a similar and yet different thread ...

Totally agree OP! I can't believe the number of women who give up their financial security so easily and think they will be 'saved' by marriage. They won't be. They would have been far better off making sure they kept their financial security and shared the domestic labour and childcare.

I have seen so many women with good jobs (or at least jobs) go all gooey and starry-eyed at the mere hint of a ring and frock and then put his career first (for example, give up their jobs to follow him for a career move that benefits him) to their own detriment. Then after they have taken a 'job to pay the bills' (so he can be the main breadwinner) they have children that they, not he, gives up her work for, or reduces her hours, or takes a low-paid job for the 'extras' ... and is then left high and dry when he fucks off for something younger and tighter.

He haggles for all he can get, she is left with a mortgage she can't afford without his wage and limited retirement income.

We should teach girls that financial independence is everything, that their income is as worthy as his and that knights in shining armour are often slimy toads (no disresect to toads).

You see it on MN and in RL time and again - couple has children, break up, and the woman is left with nothing as they weren't married and her career has suffered for taking time out to have children. Marriage is legal protection.

You also see it on MN and in real life 'I can't leave him and take his kids away as I married him and made vows'. Every day. It is hard enough for non married women to leave, let alone those with a contract.

Then the blokes who are self employed and hide their income.

Or have secret accounts.

And what about all those women who leave expecting their husbands to pay maintenance for the kids? Have to go through broken system to get money and if he doesn't pay? Or changes jobs? Or is again, self employed? Or declares a pittance? £1 a week for each child? You see it time and again on here.

It is no guarantee of anything.

For me, feminism is freedom in how we choose to live our lives off the previous script. Marriage is not a threat to that. You can do it your way. It still remains a pinnacle of commitment, stability, and legal protection - mainly for children, but also both parties to the marriage.
IMO and experience, as single professional, married professional, mother, long-term partner.

OP, the question of who has the money / more money - men or women? is simply answered, you don't have to go by socially expressed beliefs or opinions. Look it up. Look up who has more money in terms of capital, investments, income, earnings - is it men or women? Find out and then we can come back to that point. "Only on mn have I heard" is irrelevant - we don't care what the majority of people (in any particular social group) happen to believe, this is a hard fact, and you can find out.

I have feminist issues with marriage too (and some of what you say strikes certain kinds of chord), which is kind of convenient because in my particular case it worked out better for me that I was not married. However, traditionally it has been the case that marriage has been the legal mechanism that has required men to take material responsibility for their families and many women, now, are / would be advantaged by that.

There are many men who prefer not to take material responsibility for their children, or for the woman who has invested enormously in having them and bringing them up. This is a huge problem that marriage alone can't solve. Society used to take a much dimmer view of unmarried parents - and the disapproval was unfairly distributed, putting far too much of the burden on the mother - but the decline of that disapproval takes even more pressure off fathers to step up.

It would be wonderful if mothers and children had access to some other form of support than some man who used to say he loved her but now isn't really feeling it and is a bit bored by the whole thing and let's face it, families are a hell of a lot of work and a lot of other things are more fun. But as things stand - they don't, really. It's hard to support yourself materially when you have sole responsiblity for children. Again, this is a matter of fact. You can access figures for:

Average salaries (net)
Average costs of living (housing + bills + transport)
Childcare (remember this is paid out of net, not gross, as are your other bills)

And you can have a think about how easy it is to do all that on your own.

Children are to the good of society and I believe that the costs should be shared by society more. In the absence of that agreement, I think society, and law, should put more effective pressure on men to support their children. But this is where we are.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=rhPwmmhU-a8

For anyone genuinely interested in this topic. Hopefully this link works!

Seriously OP - get onto that reading list I uploaded yesterday. At the moment - as everyone is telling you - you don't understand what feminist thought is. Do some reading around that, and then come back - it will be much more useful and interesting for you, once you have more understanding of the subject matter.

If you are interested in why women are often advised to marry, then add some reading about how women's earning's are negatively impacted by motherhood - quick link below, but material on this is easy to find.

theconversation.com/women-earn-less-after-they-have-kids-despite-strong-credentials-94013

Its not a prenatal agreement since lots of people do not have kids.

People always come up with "we should have this instead of marraige'

And it's usually extremely similar to marriage. Just without the wedding. If you want the legal side of marriage and it would offer you protection, get married. The wedding can be done and dusted in 30 mins. No party no fancy outlets etc. There's no need for 'marriage but a different word so we can pretend it's something else'

Perhaps we should reframe marriage into a "pre-natal agreement"?
That's what it is, really.

This 👆
With other legal protection thrown in

@LobsterNapkin Marriage is not only one man and one woman. It has broadened, but at it's heart remains the same.

Domestic duties, unfairness to women. finances - are not at the heart of what marriage between two people is and are factors in every human relationship whether married or not.
Wedding excess also unnecessary to make a marriage - weddings are about gathering those around you who know and love the couple and will hopefully remain a constant through the marriage.

This might help OP on Feminist criticism of the institution of marriage, if you are interested. Has a short bit about main views at beginning.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_marriage

'Early Second Wave feminist literature in the West, specifically opposed to marriage include personalities such as Kate Millett (Sexual Politics, 1969), Germaine Greer (The Female Eunuch, 1970), Marilyn French (The Women's Room, 1977), Jessie Bernard (The Future of Marriage, 1972), and Shulamith Firestone (The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution, 1970).[3]'

You seem to know an argument lot of really horrible women btw.

The vast majority of women are (IME) not as you characterise the female half of the world.

Have you considered that different friends might be the answer? Because while women can be all sorts of personalities obv. Including marriage obsessed, and keen on putting other women down. Especially about marital status.

That's a really specific focus and they sound extreme. And weird and nasty.

Ditch them. Honestly. They sound vile. You will be happier for it :)

The wedding industry is over the top because like everything else, it's subject to the pressures of capitalism. It's destructive and silly, but hardly intrinsic to marriage.

As for some women looking down on others due to marriage status, yes it happens, in both directions, by people who are shits. The problem there isn't marriage it's shitty people. They always find someone to look down on.

More generally, marriage is, and probably should be more so, protective for women. At it's most basic it's about creating stable conditions for mothers, fathers, and the extended family to support the raising of children. It can be twisted in some societies to serve other purposes such as controlling women, but that's a perversion.

As for the idea that somehow male and female roles can be swapped out entirely, that's pretty naive. It works to some extent in our society because most women have a small number of kids, and a lot of our jobs aren't that physically demanding. And because we can use artificial feeding. But even so, many women prefer to breastfeed, some women have difficult pregnancies and recoveries, many women would if they had the choice prefer to stay with their infants more often or longer, some types of work are inhospitable to pregnant women or women with small kids, and some women have more than one or two kids.

These things come down largely to reproductive role which isn't something we can change, and we can only manage it within limits.

Not RTFT but will.

Was interested in title.

There are many feminist arguments against the institution of marriage. It's an area that has been considered, written about, discussed etc from a feminist perspective for a long time. An interesting and contraversial area. A wealth of feminist writing with a massive range of views to dip into.

The points you make are... Devoid of any kind of feminist thought.

Your username is newfem. I think it would be worth reading some other feminist perspectives on marriage?

Because frankly your OP to me essentially boils down to. Women are horrible. Which is an unusual position for a feminist to take.