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?

Nice.

My bridesmaids were already worrying about holding a metal crown over my head for half an hour - they had enough to do!

But we digress.

I do think that the fact that details like these aren't something you can easily erase from weddings, though.

LoudRowdyDuck, are you Mary Queen of Scots?

Did people hold crowns over her head?

I learn something new every day.

No, just Russian Orthodox wedding. 'Tis traditional.

Well, I'm a Catholic and the RC wedding service doesn't have 'who gives this woman' or 'obey' in the vows, they are identical for men and women and are about loving and cherishing.

As marriage in the RC church is a sacrament (I'm not about to debate the truth of that one or not!) it's not so much about property or chattels it's more of a coming together to be one with God.

I was told by my priest that the white dress was nothing to do with virginity but signified the purity of God's love, so the thing about the Victorians and display of wealth is quite interesting! (I was 25, btw so was that ok for my ivory medievally-beaded dress? The bridesmaids wore sea-green Laura Ashley...)

At the wedding breakfast DH and I made a speech jointly and gave out prezzies to those who'd helped us organise things. Our best man is terminally shy so he said "I read a book about what the BM is supposed to say, and apparently I have to thank the bridesmaids and compliment them. So, thank you, Bridesmaids, you all look beautiful!" and sat down again. My dad is another non-public speaker so he mumbled a bit and sat down.

I didn't take DH's name officially for ages, it was only when I finally reached the end of my tether with my toxic father that I decided I'd use it instead of his...

I do dislike the industry that weddings seem to have become in the last 10 yrs or so (been married for 20 and did it Up North so seem to have escaped the horror of matching ribbons and wedding favours to the 'theme') and I can't help but feel that these mahoosive over the top displays are not so much about the couple's love for each other as their/their parents' social standing, but each to their own.

I too would be interested to know why the 'dynamic, active, imaginative and intelligent' woman chose to go along with a service and reception like that?

LoudRowdyDuck,
I appreciate fully that to some people marriage is a religious thing- don't deny it and good luck to them.
Just as to some people it is a way of getting a better social position in life.
Just as for some people it is a way of making a big occasion of a wedding and showing off.

But the point is this: the above is each individual person's interpretation -for want of a better word- of what marriage is.

And nothing wrong with the three interpretations of marriage above- I'm not sitting in judgement, each to his own.

But there is no getting away from the fact that from an objective viewpoint marriage is a legal construct.
It is the one thing that is common to the three examples above (at least in UK).

It is the one thing that is common to a couple who get married for £100 or 100k or a couple who are marrying for convenience or, indeed, a couple who marrying out of pure love and devotion.

I agree with you, dittany that it was invented for less pleasant reasons than love and I think it was invented for more hard-headed reasons like financial/ property ownership than any romantic notions.

I don't disagree agree with you, dittany, about the middle east and ownership of women.
I think we are fortunate in the UK not to experience this.
But if there is an element of oppression still alive in marriage in the UK today,
I think it is more down to the interpersonal relationship of the couple involved -who holds the purse strings and so on, than the fact of the marriage itself.
After all, it is very much possible to be in oppressive 'living apart' relationships and cohabiting relationships.

marantha, you say marriage is 'objectively' a legal construct. I have explained to you that for me and DH (as for many people), the legal issue was not relevant. If we'd had the choice, we'd not have bothered with the legal bit at all. If we'd 'only' been married in church, would you try to say we weren't really married?

I just don't get this OP to be honest.

"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"

This is sad, but it is not the norm. I loved the speeches at our wedding.

"it seemed very strange that there was no opportunity for her to own the floor in her own style"

Plenty of brides make speeches. Nothing was stopping your friend except her own choice.

"(tall, handsome, very rich, in a very well paying job) ... this sort of man seems almost inevitably to bring the expectations that his wife will take a very traditional and subservient role"

Rubbish. I know plenty of such "top of the pecking order" men - including my own DH - who do not expect this. On the contrary, they tend to want an equally successful wife who they will have more in common with. Your friend's DH is just a sexist tosser, it's got nothing to do with how successful he is.

Seems to me it's not that you don't like weddings. It's that you don't like this particular man.

I agree that much of the history and traditions surrounding weddings is sexist. However, it is possible to strip that away and retain a central basic concept which is not sexist: marriage is a promise to form a partnership with someone, to stay with them no matter what, and to try to do your best by them.

dittany.
Rape in marriage is illegal-and rightly so.
But could there be reasons for the low conviction rates other than people taking the view of 'They're married. He can have sex with her whenever he likes'?
Perhaps the reason for the low conviction rates is difficulty proving the rape took place.
If two people are in bed together (as married people usually are) and the man rapes his wife, it can be perhaps difficult to prove it was NOT unconsensual.
Perhaps people are thinking, 'Yes, he did rape her. But how to prove it given the circumstances' ?
If this is the case, how to alter things?
I do not know.

I also do not see that marriage has to be patriarchal. If two people are in a equal, everything fair, straight-down-the-middle, respectful relationship, signing a piece-of-paper (marriage) is not necessarily going to change the nature of that relationship.

But, dittany, if men are to be convicted of rape, then surely it is important what other people (the jury) think about it?

I agree totally that the majority of rapes are within relationships.
I agree that they should rapists should be punished.
I think part of the reason they get away with it is because if a couple are already in a sexual relationship and are living at close quarters it can be difficult to prove rape took place.
Nothing more to add.

marantha, surely if rape were like many other crimes, it would be normal to assume that yes, the woman was raped, even (or especially) because her husband was right there?

If I work in an open-plan office and say my handbag was stolen, it's not likely the police will suggest my colleague thought it was ok to take my money just because it was close by. In fact, it's likely that the people I trust most in that environment, the people who are physically nearest, will fall under the most suspicion.

Surely it should be the same with marriage? After all, rape is no more related to consensual sex that stealing a handbag would be related to sharing a desk with someone.

INteresting thread. I generally rather like weddings (and am in fact a BHA wedding celebrant) but what I like and am interested in is the various ways people make a public declaration of love and commitment and (in many cases) actively try to strip the 'wedding/marriage' of its nasty patriarchal undertones. It certainly seems to be true that every human society has had some sort of 'marriage ceremony' which was a public or formalized declaration and rite of passage of some kind. Human beings generally like and appear to need rituals and formal ceremonies, that's not in itself a bad thing.

I have never been married and never will be but when I was a lot younger (and sillier) I did, on a couple of occasions, exchange rings with then-partners and make loving promises to one another. (We are talking pissed-teenagers-on-a-hill-at-sunrise BTW, not any kind of event with any legal significance). I think the concept of making meaningful promises to a loved one and doing so within a ceremonial framework is a good one, which people can still have without it necessarily being a Tool Of The Patriarchy, but if you are a feminist it's worth thinking about which bits of the ritual you want to keep and which bits of the unfortunate patriarchal flummery you want to ditch.

I've mentioned before, that as a feminist woman, I find the role of daughter much more oppressive than that of wife. I was 24 when I married, so quite young, and looking back I realise that it could have been because marriage is still women's route to true adulthood.
And you know what? It worked. My parents were forced to treat me as an adult as soon as I became Mrs X
It's horribly patriarchal, the way that my father could only respect me as a person after I had the backing of my husband's own patriarchal "might" behind me.　I had travelled the world alone, done things that required real guts, but he only managed to consider my POV in an argument after I was married.

I didn't understand all these dynamics at work until after I'd got married.
I would say that, as mothers, we should aim to see our daughters as adults in their own right, and over-egg the pudding.

I made a speech at my wedding.

I will add that my parents had raised me to look down on marriage as an institution. MY mother was a feminist in her own way. I never ever thought I would get married, my mother refused to come to the ceremony (long story), father only said he was coming 2 weeks before the big day, so in a weird way getting married was a massive act of rebellion on my part.

Dittany I think you are right; marriage IS a patriarchal institution.
This does not mean to say that people cannot be equal and fair in their individual marriages but it is patriarchal all the same.
But, it is the institution itself that is patriarchal NOT how people get married.

It matters not if they do it for £100 in a register office or have the full blown white wedding they are in same position at end of day-so I think things like arguing over speeches deflect from the main point.

When married, people lose their right to be seen as individuals in own right.
Financial (as well as emotional) dependence is taken as read by the state.
If a woman (or man) loses her job, they will not be eligible for certain benefits because they are married.
Now it can be argued that to marry is a choice and as such they knew what they were signing up to.
But until all the stuff about marriage being about love, religion, white dresses is put aside and people are actually warned about the true financial and legal implications marriage will have upon their lives- so that they can make an informed choice- I think it is not reasonable for any potential bride to make an informed decision as to whether or not they wish to marry.