To ask if you have a problem with your father walking you down the isle?

[trully]

I have just seen the thread about asking for hand in marriage and seeing how sexist it is etc etc I do agree and I understand where it came from. However, it's the same for your father "giving you away" and walking you down the isle. Does that bother everyone too?

I can’t get exorcised about a harmless wedding custom when there’s so much more important stuff to worry about.

I’m so sorry to have confused anyone who hasn’t seen that word used in that particular context before.

In your first sentences, what you have actually written is:

"I am unable to have the evil spirits or demons driven from my body by a priest about a harmless wedding custom when there's so much more important stuff to worry about."

I guarantee that absolutely no-one has seen the word used in that context before because in that context, it is nonsensical. Not because the rest of us aren't very bright.

I loved that my dad walked me down the aisle. We shared a really special moment just on our own and I'll forever be thankful for that and the photos of the 2 of us. Each to your own, I'm not anyone's possession. It was a shared lovely moment for both of us.
Get off your feminist high horses!

My OH and I walked in together.
My Dad wouldn't have wanted to walk me down the aisle or give me away and I wouldn't have wanted it either. We were keen to avoid any of the outdated, sexist marriage traditions.

@TheBulb, it seems that I reluctantly have to agree with you about ability to debate here. In a post containing a number of points that could have provoked discussion, what have God knows how many responses focussed on? A single misused word. Speaks volumes.

Come off it alsohuman, it wasn't the incorrect word that caused the derail, it was your own persistent and rather patronising insistence that it was correct. Just say oops and move on as you should have done in the first place.

Get off your feminist high horses!

Am assuming, Hannah4banana, that you don't exercise your right to vote, that you have no interest in being paid at an equal rate to men, that you think making rape within marriage a crime was a bit much, that you secretly miss the days when a woman couldn't get a mortgage without a man to act as her guarantor...?

Or are you quite glad that the feminists were astride their high horses at those points in history?

For the love of God...

I'm sure the same people harping on about outdated traditions still had a first dance, wore a veil, had bridesmaids, exchanged rings, a silver sixpence in their shoe? It had nowt to to with possessions being exchanged. It was a special moment for me and my Ill dad that I will treasure forever.

hannah I'm not married yet but I won't have any of those except exchanging rings - one each = equality

I also told DP I refused to be proposed to, we agreed to get married together. And I told him he was strictly forbidden from getting me an engagement ring as I don't like what they stand for either.

I'm glad you enjoyed a special moment with your dad, that sounds lovely and a great memory for you

My priority is to choose a wedding (or civil partnership, still not decided) which reflects my beliefs which are predominately feminist ones.

You chose a wedding to reflect your priorities which on this point, IMO, give a nostalgic nod to an archaic and awful time in history. But involving your beloved dad in a way which would mean something to him was presumably more important that respecting feminism. That's fine! Your wedding your choice. But, again IMO, you would be wrong to say your choice was feminist. And again that's fine if that's your preference

Individuals do not have to ascribe meanings to things. No-one complains about brides wearing white due to what that used to mean. Because if it doesn't mean that to you in your wedding then it doesn't mean that to you.

If being walked down the aisle doesn't to you mean that you are property being given away, then that is not what it means.

Drizzle hair congratulations, I hope you have a lovely day. No one should judge anyone else's decisions on their wedding as they dont know the circumstances. Its not all about tradition, sometimes there's a personal reason for decisions and that's all I was trying to say.

My DP said he wouldn't ask my dad. He did. When I walk down the aisle to my husband to be ill be walking with my dad because it will make him happy/proud. It isn't about tradition, we are both well past that but both me and DP have lost our mum's and it just feels nice to have family involved in our day and little things like that have made us happy so far. It wouldn't feel like a wedding without the traditional element because at the end of the day you can be legally Wed in a registry office but for us a wedding is about doing the traditional 'what everyone has always done' and have a party afterwards to celebrate. But everyone is different and that's ok too :)

JAPAB, we don’t live in a vacuum. You don’t get to choose the meaning of symbols all on your own. Good luck with walking down the aisle plastered with swastikas and saying huffily that to you, it’s a symbol of Hindu spirituality.

It’s horrible and sexist. But loads of women are totally fine with quite a lot of sexist bullshit. Changing your surname? Your husband’s property. Father giving you away? Your father’s property.

I’m a hypocrite though because I let my dad walk me down the aisle because traditions matter to my parents and I didn’t feel up to causing a stir about it. I think it would have marred my wedding. So I went along with it. I’d much prefer brides and grooms to enter the church together.

I’ve never changed my name because it feel wrong. I’m a sahm and so not the most impressive feminist I suppose but changing your last name has always struck me as incredibly sexist. If it’s so lovely for you all to have one name, how come men never offer to do it?

And Hannah, no, we didn’t do any of those things. They’re far from universal.

Drizzle, we’d definitely have gone for civil partnership if it had been an option then — good that you have the choice.

I'm sure the same people harping on about outdated traditions still had a first dance, wore a veil, had bridesmaids, exchanged rings, a silver sixpence in their shoe?

Nope.

Nope from me too, would have non of those elements. Didn’t know a sixpence Ina shoe was a thing and wouldn’t know where to get one, but the other things in the list...just no.

I hope that these traditions stay in the past and everyone makes their own day up without pressure of tradition, or fear of offending someone.

Like walking down together, taking a different surname, not asking for hand in marriage.

DH's friend married a lady from Thailand and he had to pay her father money and ask if he could marry her. Most people are thinking that's sexist, but apart from the money, not much different to the UK with man asking another man for his daughter, man waking daughter down aisle to give away, and woman taking on man's surname.

If it's not sexist, then why don't women approach the parent's of the man she wants to marry to ask for his hand, the man gets given away at the wedding and the man takes on the woman's surname.

And why does Mr A Mann and Miss B Smith become Mr and Mrs A Mann?

I wish my dad had walked me down the aisle. However he died when I was 12 and my grandad did it but I have spent dad and daughter dances in the toilet crying at previous weddings it's so hard as the child of a bereavement it's like it never ends!

I didn't ask my dad 'give' me away, to their dismay because I am not his property. He did give a speech though, which was lovely.

I did take DH's surname, just because we wanted to have a family and our names were such that couldn't be double barreled. I didn't want to be the odd one out.
But DH knows fine well that I am not his property

we don’t live in a vacuum. You don’t get to choose the meaning of symbols all on your own. Good luck with walking down the aisle plastered with swastikas and saying huffily that to you, it’s a symbol of Hindu spirituality.

Actually I could IF everyone else present were to agree with this reclaiming. In practise they wouldn't of course and would find it offensive due to the meanings they associate with that symbol. I still could go ahead but it might be a lonely wedding.

Not sure the wedding traditions are in the same league though. No-one literally sees it as property being given away. So if the person getting married doesn't see it like that, no-one else sees it like that, well, not the same situation as something still seen as currently denoting ideas that are offensive.

In a nutshell, I would make a distinction between symbols that still mean something offensive, and symbols that some find offensive because of what the people using them used to mean by them, but which people today do not.

I got married 27 years ago and, as my lovely Dad has since died, I am so glad he did walk me down the aisle.

Everyone dies.

Including your mum.

So it's okay for your mum to walk you down the aisle but not your Dad... Righto.