to think that nowadays it's usually the woman who proposes...

[Radziwill]

...and there should be more honesty about that fact?

On various message boards, I've noticed women saying that they want to get married but don't want to ask. They seem to think it's desperate or pathetic for a woman to propose.

But off the top of my head, I can think of at least three women I know who asked their partner to stage a proposal. They all posted news of their engagements on social media, portraying it as a romantic surprise, when in practical terms they had been the ones to propose. If you ask your partner for a proposal, you are asking him to marry you. Therefore, you are proposing to him!

I also suspect that when couples say that they "just decided" to get married, it's generally code for "she asked". Surely someone must have proposed! They can't have simultaneously said "Shall we get married?" or "Shall we book the venue?"

I hate the fact that even in the 2020s, female socialisation is still so bound up in passivity. Why is it considered domineering if a woman doesn't wait for a man to make decisions about their future? Lesbian couples would never get married if neither of them wanted to propose because they're both women!

There should be less pressure on women to act coy and pretend that all the big decisions were first suggested by the man.

@ShirleyPhallus

On Mumsnet, a couple mutually decides they’ll get married, this is called “getting engaged” and then they book a ceremony at the register office the following week. The bride wears a bin bag, the ring is an old tin can and they invite no one to watch as they have no friends cos friends are tacky and spending anything more than the £2 on the roll of bin bags for the bride is an ostentatious waste of money.

In real life, everyone I know had several conversations over a few years about marriage / babies etc etc and knew they were on the same page and would get married one day but then the men proposed and that is named the engagement

Gosh, @ShirleyPhallus, do you feel judged for being ‘whisked off’ to Paris for Valentine’s Day and being presented with a diamond that cost exactly three months of his salary, followed by a round of wedding fayres, conversations about themes and guests lists, major hysteria about bridesmaids and a hen weekend, and an extravaganza involving relatives you couldn’t pick out of a police lineup and a strapless fishtail dress?

@ShirleyPhallus

On Mumsnet, a couple mutually decides they’ll get married, this is called “getting engaged” and then they book a ceremony at the register office the following week. The bride wears a bin bag, the ring is an old tin can and they invite no one to watch as they have no friends cos friends are tacky and spending anything more than the £2 on the roll of bin bags for the bride is an ostentatious waste of money.

In real life, everyone I know had several conversations over a few years about marriage / babies etc etc and knew they were on the same page and would get married one day but then the men proposed and that is named the engagement

Hahaha - spot on.

They usually also drag two witnesses in off the street, as they just can't bare to have a single family member attend.

But no, I don't think it's become the norm at all. Not sure where you've got that from either.

I'd never propose to a man.

I don’t know any women who has or would. Ever! It definitely definitely is NOT usually the woman 🤣

I didn't propose as such, but we were considering TTC and I said I'd need to be married first. So he said he'd sort a ring. I also sorted one for him. He "proposed" about two weeks later - and I also "proposed" to him. We got married about 6 months later. I don't think either of us would have seriously been the types for a big fancy surprise proposal though, it doesn't suit us. No problem anyone else doing it though, man or woman!

I dont even know what I was on about earlier. Think I was too busy looking at too many posts 🤣 and I was in a riiiigggghhhht mood! Maybe there is something in it OP with the staged proposals but everything on insta for a start is staged. Facebook is an in-between of how good have I got it, or how bad have I got it

I don’t know any women who have proposed. I think part of the issue is the idea that women desperately want to get married and men don’t, so you must have wait for the man to ask otherwise he doesn’t really want to 🙄

I think I must move in very traditional circles. I don’t know any young women who have proposed. I don’t know anyone who has had a staged proposal.
Discussion about intentions, vague ideas of timescale but generally a surprise (but not entirely unexpected surprise) for the woman. We were approached for our blessing before our daughter was proposed to and our son spoke with his fiancés father before proposing. Neither girl was expecting a ring at the time of the proposal.
It’s much the same for other young couples I know who are planning to wed.

Why don’t you believe people who say they discussed it and then decided?

We knew we wanted to get married, buy a house and ttc but not in which order. We started house hunting, went to mortgage broker one evening, got a takeaway on the way home and while we were waiting for curry DH said can we get married now, I said sure, we picked a date and a venue later that night, told people the week after, wedding a couple of months after. Moved into the house a month after, pregnant two months after that. On that particular occasion he said “can we get married now” but it wasn’t a proposal, it was the latest in a line of general discussions about where our lives were going.

I don't know any women who proposed 🤷

@fairynick

I know what you mean OP. You’re not saying that women tend to get down on one knee these days, but that the whole proposal isn’t a huge shock and surprise. Most, actually every, couple I know spoke about marriage before a surprise engagement. A lot of the time it is the woman who initiates the chat, other times it’s the man. They had a chat about how they’d like to get married, are they in the financial position etc, and then a month or two later their DP did the whole proposal thing. Never known anyone to have a completely out of the blue proposal.

Yes, this is exactly what I mean - you articulated it better than I did! When I say "propose", I don't mean buying a ring and getting down on one knee - I mean telling your partner you want to marry them.

Seems I'm wrong then. Genuinely surprised so many people got a proposal without discussing marriage with their partners first! That's very unusual in my circle, but I'm happy to accept that's not representative.

I truly don’t understand the whole proposal thing!
I’ve been engaged 3 times but only married once
In my day (old gimmer alert) we talked about it together along the lines of should we get married? The rest followed on

I think people are using the term 'propose' differently. Most of my friends (including me) were proposed to (man on one knee with a ring) but I assume most of them had talked about marriage beforehand. I find it a bit odd when someone proposes and it is completely out of the blue but people aren't necessarily expecting a proposal on the day it happens. However that is the point people say they are engaged and begin to make plans. I think discussing getting married can be a more long term discussion and the proposal is the moment you make it official to yourselves and others. (Although for some people the 'others' bit is what matters.)

I would strongly suspect that it's still men who propose in the vast majority of cases.

Hm. Late DH told me on our second date that he wanted to marry me one day. About a year later I said I was ready but not in a rush. We talked a lot about marriage and what it meant to us and how we wanted our married life to be. 6 months later he suggested we start looking at rings and "proposed" once the ring was ready (though he did tell me it would take 3 months to be made and actually picked it up after a week so it was a surprise!). So not sure who really kicked off the whole process.

We had 7 very happy years together before he died, almost 5 of them married. If - and it's a big if - I'm ever lucky enough to meet someone who makes me feel the same way I won't hang around and will tell them I want to get married when I feel ready. Life is too short to wait for what you want.

I think women usually start the pushing and discussion about "where next for this relationship" sooner than men. And eventually the man sort of internalises it and realises he likes the idea so thinks of proposing. my friend excitedly told me he had seen an advert for diamonds and with blinding clarity the idea of marriage had occurred, he'd never thought of it before. His fiancee later told me she'd been going on about it for at least 8 months.

I doubt it's more common for women to propose. Of course it's fine for a woman to do so, but I suspect it's still more common for the man to pop the question. However, I'm sure there are many times when a woman hints that she'd like to get married or says things to let the man know that she's open to the possibility or expecting that they will someday be married. I personally wouldn't call that proposing, but maybe some would say it's the same thing. To me, that's still just hinting, though it may help move things along. A genuinely interested man is more likely to propose if he knows the woman will say yes and is expecting him to ask sooner rather than later.

People are being deliberately naïve here: and all this rubbish about how its the norm to suggest getting married in an underpass with canal water disguises a really important point which the OP is trying to make and which you're wilfully ignoring.

If people get a bit frustrated with the idea "traditional" proposal its hardly surprising: its because twice a day some woman pops up here saying: "I want to get married, I've been waiting for him to propose for seven years, we've got three kids and I don't work." And again we have to go through the rigmarole of advising someone who's walked into a financially vulnerable situation because she lacked the ability to communicate with her partner properly.

I don't know what the stats are but I'd very much hope more women are asking their partners to get married than they were 30 years ago. It seems bizarre to me that you would wait something like this out and not have any agency in a decision like this.

Fundamentally it doesn't matter if the man proposes or the woman does it and the whole thing is a total sideshow. If you are waiting demurely for someone to ask you to marry them and years are slipping by you are just not in control of your destiny.

The proposal is a wretched idea anyway: it clouds the whole thing with this delusional romantic mist and prevents people from seeing clearly what they want. If you took the bloody proposal out of the equation we'd have a far more equitable and clear-eyed approach to the business of marriage.

In the very unlikely event that I want to get married again and I find myself dropping hints and talking about choosing rings etc I will have a stern word with myself. No self-respecting woman leaves her financial and emotional future in someone else's hands these days.

@ShirleyPhallus

On Mumsnet, a couple mutually decides they’ll get married, this is called “getting engaged” and then they book a ceremony at the register office the following week. The bride wears a bin bag, the ring is an old tin can and they invite no one to watch as they have no friends cos friends are tacky and spending anything more than the £2 on the roll of bin bags for the bride is an ostentatious waste of money.

In real life, everyone I know had several conversations over a few years about marriage / babies etc etc and knew they were on the same page and would get married one day but then the men proposed and that is named the engagement

Your mythical wedding is exactly how we got married - mutual decision, registry office, no guests.

Didn’t wear a bin bag though!

I proposed, bunch of flowers and everything. I was sick of waiting for the tardy twerp. Aged 29 he found himself way too young. Well fuck that shit - married now 27 years. Best decision of his life.

Not at all @TwilledSilesia, we did things rather differently to that but the snobby judgement and bizarre competitiveness on mumsnet to have the most dour, cheapest wedding possible as otherwise anything else is tacky / a sign the marriage will never last etc etc is really boring

ShirleyPhallus

How is wanting to have a cheap and low-key wedding snobby?

I think lots of women start a conversation about marriage, and if the man says "Yeah, lets get married" then they are engaged. They rest is tying up loose ends. I don't know any who had the whole movie "Surprise" proposal