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

@NewFem It does sound as though you need to mature and broaden your experience, tbh

Oh for goodness sake. If you think I live in a world where people have massive troupes of bridesmaids and friendship drama, you couldn't be further from the truth. You are the one who brought up all these things in your OP as if they are the main things that marriage means to you. If you asked me what marriage is all about, bridesmaid dramas would be the last thing I would think of. I found your OP quite insulting, actually, towards married women, of which I am one. You accused us of only wanting to get married so we could lord it over other women and create bridesmaid dramas. It sounded very much like you've been snubbed as a bridesmaid, if anything.

Also, both myself and DH are feminists, and are attempting to bring our dds up as such. Marriage is not a barrier to being a proud feminist.

‘Honestly, I don’t really care about any of the stuff you mentioned because those things are mostly private family decisions. What I’m talking about is more societal issues, things that affect women as a whole. Single women face prejudice from society and that prejudice mainly comes from other women, married women in particular. There’s nothing sexist about pointing that out.
Competition for men is what’s behind most female to female bullying. The perceived (and also real) status that marriage gives a woman socially is what drives women to aspire for marriage in the first place.

I’ve also never heard of a woman giving “financial protection” as the reason for wanting to get married (apart from the women here on mumsnet). It’s all about showing off to others that you’ve been picked by a man and that a man finds you more desirable (sexually attractive) than other women that drives most of the marital desire.’

🤣 ok… if you think that prejudice against single women by married women, or women to women bullying are bigger societal issues than domestic labour, childcare, parental leave, and post-divorce financial arrangements, then a) you aren’t ‘new to feminism’ you haven’t got a clue what it means and b) you haven’t got a clue how the world works.

I’m guessing you are very young, or I fucking hope you are, or I’m seriously worried about you… 😁

Marriage, I think, turns women against each other. Everything from weddings (making other women feel bad by not choosing them to be your bridesmaid for some nonsensical reason), to marital life itself is about women competing with each other and using their marital status (i.e. their relationship with a man) to one up another woman. Married women are seen and treated better than single women societally. They are showered with gifts for their wedding, for example and everyone must stop and celebrate their special day. When a woman gets married, all other women are expected to uplift her for finding a man in her life.

I don't recognise any of this from real life tbh. Only from soap operas or bridezilla threads on MN. There is plenty wrong in many marriages, but that's to do with inequality or infidelity between the couple, not to do with the status of married women compared with single women!

And married couples get wedding gifts as a couple, it's not the bride being 'showered with gifts' . I would have thought there was more competitiveness between unmarried women trying to attract a man than between married women!

What a ridiculous summary. Marriage is a partnership, to build a family and a future together; to weather life's storms together.

Have been with my DH almost 30yrs and married at the register office 15years ago
Weddings I've been to have been meaningful family and friends affairs, and very moving.
You don't have to take your husband's name. You can either keep yours - handy for professionals - or do something different to make a new family name for you and your children for ease.
As a professional, I don't recognise what you say about married women being treated better than unmarried women - that's a very outdated view

I find the whole OP rather shallow and unrecognisable.

Anyone's welcome to their own opinion, but don't try and generalise for the whole population.
Marriage is in your combined approach and attitude.

This is a very odd thread….

People don't often say 'i want ro marry for financial protection ' because most of society hears 'gold digger'.

The problem with marriage isn't marriage. It's the fairytale. As a society we are sold a picture of our one true love, we believe this romantic story is the be all and end all.

Marriage is a legal contract. But people like to pretend its just about love and the rest doesn't matter.

You see it on hear all the time. Posters saying talking about marriage as a legal contract 'reduce the meaning of marriage'.

We need to reframe how we look at love and romance. Rather than be against marriage.

Single women face prejudice from society and that prejudice mainly comes from other women, married women in particular.

Examples?

You are making way too much of the other women thing, which is sexist in itself.

You are. And you’re pretending men don’t get as involved in stag dos - way more in my experience than women do in hen dos! - and weddings. Three of the biggest most ridiculous weddings I’ve been to were driven by the grooms wanting a big fat wedding.

You’re still mostly talking about weddings and not marriage.

And gifts/celebration aren’t confined to weddings. People do this for house purchases, new jobs, babies, promotions, even divorces.

I am neither against or for marriage.

I think wethwe it's beneficial to you, really depends on the circumstances. I am against it for me.

Bit quite frankly, alot of what you say is about how society views women, not marriages itself.

And alot of it don't recognise in relation to any women I know.

@Luredbyapomegranate re: evidence that marriage is bad for women's health, do you know how cohabiting "living as married" women fit into this? I can't imagine they fare any better? See, I can understand people saying "let's do away with the marriage set-up and live in communes" or whatever. What I can't understand is people saying "let's change nothing about how we live except forego the legal protections".

Your OP sounds more anti-women than marriage does. "Making other women feel bad by not choosing them to be your bridesmaid for some nonsensical reason"? It sounds like you and/or your friends need to grow up.

I agree with the PPs saying marriage is there to give legal protections to women as part of the forming of a household partnership. Look at all the women on MN talking about their useless "partners" who do nothing and have no obligations to them, even while the woman is acting as wife to them. A marriage contract makes it a legal partnership.

You can go and do this at the registry office for a few quid and not tell anyone, if you don't like all the modern fuss.

Oh, and Mrs just used to mean a grown woman in charge of things. I use Mrs with my maiden name for a lot of things, and I use my married name for family social things.

You are missing the main point here - there's fairly good evidence marriage is bad for women's health - but that's because they put their husband and kids first, and take on a huge amount of wife and mum work, not because of other women. You are making way too much of the other women thing, which is sexist in itself.

The trouble is, if you are planning to have kids, marriage is some financial protection, because motherhood is really fucking bad for your financial health.

So, I'd worry about male/female child care splits, excessive working hours, insanely expensive childcare, prejudice against mothers in the workplace, alone time before I'd fret about female competitiveness and name changing.

Im anti marriage because i earnt more than ex, did all the childcare and still had to give him shit loads of money in the divorce for him being a lying, cheating head-fuck of a scumbag and i still do most of the childcare whilst he swans around doing what he wants.

Have a civil partnership? I'm doing this - as a pp has said, being a mother of children you're exposed if you're not legally bound to their father and you can gain this legal binding in the form of a civil partnership these days. We intend to have one just us, no fuss, just signing a document. It's not about romance, it's about practicalities.

Only worth it for the tax benefits which apply to high incomes. I see no reason why marriage should have any fiscal advantage, speaking as someone in a lesbian relationship for 38 years without getting married or having civil partnership.

I am actually going to go a bit against the grain here. I think it depends on how marriage is defined and executed.

For me it is about having a partnership where both parties take joint decisions to benefit the family unit. It may mean that one person works shorter hours to facilitate child care. It may mean that both partners reduce their hours. I think ultimately women need to be responsible for ensuring that they maintain their independence but I don’t see anything wrong with marriage as an institution at all (although I have no time for weddings, wedding dresses, etc).

Actually, one of my friends is a high income earner. Her husband is a nurse who has reduced his hours in order to be able to pick up their children from school. My friend considers herself very lucky with this support and she contributes to his pension savings.

My marriage made me anti-marriage

I think it can lull women into a false sense of financial security. Even with a divorce settlement most women are still more screwed financially if they have given up work or compromised their earnings when their partner hasn't.

I now think its best to keep your complete financial independence and security. Always be able to move on if you need to.