I understand it 200 years ago. Women were expected to wait about for a man they didn't know that well to pick them off the shelf. It just seems bizarre to me now when most of us already live with our partners and discuss things on a day to day basis.
I have several friends who have all recently married, and in all cases the men proposed.
My own partner and I have decided to go down the civil partnership route when the legislation comes through for it for straight couples. Neither of us proposed though. He asked what I thought about getting married, and we discussed it from there, which is how we make all our big decisions. Id have cringed with embarrassment if he'd gone down on one knee, done this rehearsed speech, offered me a ring or asked my dad's permission first which my mate's husband did.
What I can't get my head round with a proposal is that it either seems unnecessary, in that the couple have already decided that they both want to marry, but then the 'surprise,' romantic proposal becomes the official seal, or else it genuinely is a surprise which means that rather than talking it through the woman has had this huge question sprung on her that the man has already been thinking about on his own.
Aibu to think officially proposing is either unnecessary pomp or a sign that a couple aren't good friends enough to discuss things as friends and equals?