Debriefing: a wedding

[vezzie]

I went to a wedding at the weekend and ended up thoroughly depressed, as I often do after weddings. Please indulge me, because I want to talk about it.
The bride is one of the most dynamic, active, imaginative and intelligent people I know. She was patronised and belittled throughout ? ?who gives this woman ???? and during the speeches she looked very uncomfortable. I have never seen her so quiet and when it was clear that she didn?t like what was being said it seemed very strange that there was no opportunity for her to own the floor in her own style. I have never heard so little of her voice, ever, and yet she was notionally the centre of attention.
I suppose what is troubling me ? and there is no natural justice in what I am about to say - is that she is so close to the top of so many pecking orders (beautiful, clever, talented, well loved, well educated, professionally respected) that it seems obvious that her husband should be so near to the top of all the male pecking orders (tall, handsome, very rich, in a very well paying job) and yet unfair that this sort of man seems almost inevitably to bring the expectations that his wife will take a very traditional and subservient role. Without wanting to imply that anyone deserves to be pushed about, because they don?t, I suppose I am upset that this woman, who is brilliant, is now going to play second fiddle to a tosser for the rest of her life.

I hate weddings. I always start off all excited and filled with love and joy and enjoy the sentimental moment where you can look at the couple and do a mental 6-Feet-Under-like montage where you imagine them surrounded by children, growing older, surrounded by grand children, retiring together etc. Then at some point I am forced to realise that the whole thing is filling me with profound unease and it is as well if I am not too drunk or I have to find a cupboard to hide in and cry.

DP said, when I was telling him how sad I was feeling on Sunday, ?Why do you take it so personally?? I just shrugged and changed the subject. Later I thought, ?Because it is like this. Suppose you were invited to a housewarming party and you bought a present and wrote a card expressing all the good wishes that you have for the people in their new house, and you dressed up and turned up ready to celebrate and saw everyone else looking beautiful and happy and joyful, and the hosts offered to show you round and then you realised during the tour that the whole thing runs on a basement floor inhabited by slaves, it would slightly put a dampener on the occasion, especially if you were the same kind of person as the slaves.? This is of course a gross exaggeration.

We are not married. I often think we should be, and then I go to a wedding and I?m back to square 1.
What do feminists do about getting married?

constrained choice, choices within the boundaries of limitations, limited "choices" for women have never been anything to do with feminism, though. IN the 1990s there was a "thing" , a fashion, if you like, to say that women chose oppressive practices, when the truth was they were making the best of a bad job with the limited options they had. THis "choice" concept has done a lot of damage to women's liberations

Feminism has been about liberation from gender-based oppression.

but I absolutely agree with the people who say that marriage can be made modern, and tailor-made to fit women better, a pro-active egalitarian marriage. That's what I aim for in my own marriage.
BUt I think the OP was describing a different scenario to that one, she was describing a palpable sense of a culmination of women's oppression over the centuries symbolised by the way she didn't recognize the friend she knew on the wedding day. I get what she means and where she's coming from.

Read whatever you like into whatever you want. The fact is that, hard though it may be for you to accept because it would require you to challenge your own beliefs, women are perfectly capable of choosing and having the weddings they want. If you choose not to accept that because it doesn't fit your narrow view of feminism, then that's your problem and no-one elses.

I absolutely agree with you, which was why that argument was the entire premise of my last post.

No, the entire premise was not agreeing with me. 50% of your last post was agreeing with the OP who described a palpable sense of culmination of women's oppression over the centuries, and how you got what she meant. In actual fact, what the OP was describing has been actively challenged throughout this thread as being something that was entirely based on her views on one form of wedding, and unfair to her friend and her DH whose choice of wedding was really nothing whatsoever to do with her. All under the 'guise' of feminism on a public forum.

Waaait a minute...are you a stealth feminist activist?? We could do with some fresh blood around here.

Is that the royal we? On whose behalf do you speak?

well, defintely you now, of course. Welcome into the fold

Keep hugging away if it makes you feel better about yourself

Just a new perspective here, but in this day and age there's nothing to stop anyone making a wedding an event to express how and who they are. If you saw your friend in a new light, what it may have shown is that you may know aspects of her, but not all of her. She chose the way it all was. It can be a shock to see someone you think you know well in a new light. The event clearly didn't match up to your expectations.

Bugger all to do with feminism, perhaps, and everything to do with your disappointment in your friend not using the event to make a stand for your values, and therefore winning your approval. You can't change the world overnight, you can only change your world.

I realise this may be controversial, but ultimately the event proves that either some people prefer the old ways (no matter what the rest of us say), or your friend bowed to some kind of pressure from family and DH. This story doesn't end here, of course - you don't buy the fairytale endings do you? Observe as things unfold...

Matilda, I don't think it's a new perspective at all - it's pretty much what people have been saying on here. This wedding did not meet the OPs views of what a wedding should be according to her feminist priniciples (and of course, she didn't like the man her friend married). She hasn't spoken to her friend, she hasn't made any attempt to find out if she enjoyed the day - instead she's decided that her friend was miserable and came on here to be indulged and 'talk about it'. Which is why she really hasn't had the reception (see what I did there) she wanted.

Apart from my new bezzie mate Sakura that is, who is very keen for me to share her views of feminism.

Sakura I think marriage is a patriarchal institution not how people actually marry.
If they get married with a massively expensive white wedding or with a simple register office service, it makes no difference.
It's just a matter of taste.

They will still be deemed to be dependent on another human being financially and, should they find themselves having to need certain benefits, they will be denied them if spouse is in employment.
Cannot you see that it is this what is repulsive about the assumptions of the state when it comes to marriage?
That the state uses a couple's romantic relationship to decide whether they receive certain monies or not?

vezzie, save your anger for the TRUE inequalities of actual marriage and see how people get married for what it is:
at best a joyful day of rituals and a bit of fun at worst an irrelevancy.

Sorry, Sakura, only the first few lines should be addressed to you. The rest is to vezzie.

I don't view marriage as a patriarchal institution at all, and I'm certainly no more dependent on dh financially than he is on me. In what way do you view marriage as being inequal?

Maisiethemorningsidecat, I see marriage as being patriarchal because it seems to me that it provides certain protections for the stay at home parent (who is usually female) in the event of divorce/death.
If, for example, a woman gives up her job to stay at home for a couple of years (or even longer) to bring up the children of the marriage and does not earn money, while her partner does earn money, in the event of divorcing the woman's contribution as a stay at home parent will (or should be) taken into account when it comes to divvying up the 'spoils'.
So even if a woman has not contributed a penny financially throughout the marriage, she will receive some form of financial provision all the same from the 'earning' spouse.
This to me is why marriage is patriarchal- protecting the woman.
I suppose 'patriarchal' does not have to be a negative thing.

The downside is that the right to be seen as an individual in one's own right is taken away when it comes to certain aspects of life.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing: just that I feel that concentrating on the romantic side of marriage can sometimes mean that people do not take a good look at what rights they lose/gain by marriage.

I agree with that to an extent, definitely. However, it comes down to choice again - if you choose to give up your job (and you're right, it's usually the woman) then there are certain risks associated with that - which is why I haven't chosen that route.

There's another thread on the go at the moment with about 800 posts, mainly from women defending their choice to stay at home - so I think I'd better not go any further with that view!

That post made no sense did it - kids are off school with the snow and keep disturbing my chain of thought. Better go - will get no peace

Blimey there's some fury on this thread jsut for the OP thinking aloud. What's with the "how horrible of you to post about a friend on an anonymous internet forum" stuff? Don't we all do that all the time? It's an interesting thread. One thing struck me was Chaya's MIL - how fucking appalling was her behaviour at a wedding FGS - to heckle during a speech? Would she have done that to a male speechifier?

I think you can make your wedding exactly how you like it - in theory. In practice of course, you are often hi-jacked by in laws, mothers, mad aunts, sub-conscious assumptions that come and bite you on the arse...

Fury? Hardly...it's nothing more than a typical MN debate!

Don't forget to add the friends who make massive assumptions about woman's feelings at the wedding, the marriage itself and the bloke she's chosen to the list of hijackers...

I'm sure that people do post about their friends - but they sure don't wrap it up in false feminist pretences, imagining abject misery on the part of her friend where she doesn't know it exists, and asking to be indulged.

"uncomfortable" isn't quite the same as abject misery, is it?

OK, a alight exaggeration on my part! Belitted, patronised, clear (to whom, I wonder?) that she didn't like what was being said, subservient, will spend the rest of her life playing second fiddle to a tosser. Fairly strong stuff to project, based on assumptions and personal feelings about other people's (esp. your friends) weddings and marriages.

Anyway, I seem to recall another post about feminism (can't remember exactly what it was about) that we also disagreed on - so I suspect we'll not agree on this one either!