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?

LordRowdyDuck Yes, if you had been married in a religious ceremony WITHOUT legal bit, I would say you were most definitely not married.
And so would the state and the law.
I do not know why it is so difficult for you to understand that what all marriages must have in common in this country to be recognised is the legal ceremony.
I just do not understand why you cannot grasp this.

marantha I agree with your second to last post.
All the "stuff" about love, religion, romance and white dresses is NOT what marriage is all about, and never has been. But unfortunately there is a media preoccupation with these things, and a lot of women are misled into believing marriage is something it's not.

An interesting fact: Marriages are more likely to break up if the couple lived together unmarried for a while beforehand. This tells us that there is something IN marriage, in the institution of marriage, that changes the relationship.
And my guess is it's the unspoke wifework- having to remember MIL's birthday, that type of thing.

Dittany said "Maybe people can ameliorate the worst aspects of the institution but that doesn't contradict what it actually is or what it is based on."

It's important, though, that ameliorating the worst aspects of the institution, as understood in historical terms (recent or distant), actually is going on. Many people are chucking out the symbolism, marrying people who are unlikely to rape them, acknowledging that £100 for a quick ceremony is actually (right or wrong) the best way of protecting a spouse or child from legal problems in the event of their death, scoffing at the idea of changing their name, and just getting on with having a good relationship with someone they love and respect (which of course they can do without marriage, but the legal stuff gets expensive).

I also remember a MNer pointing out that if you are NOT married there is a loophole in the law. So while a woman will probably be better off unmarried in a relationship, society is still very patriarchal, so it lets unmarried men off the hook wrt his obligations after a split

"An interesting fact: Marriages are more likely to break up if the couple lived together unmarried for a while beforehand. This tells us that there is something IN marriage, in the institution of marriage, that changes the relationship.
And my guess is it's the unspoke wifework- having to remember MIL's birthday, that type of thing."

Not necessarily. You'd have to look at the number of people who didnt get married (ie just continued to cohabit)who also split up.

Also, arguably, people who dont cohabit before marriage are often (although not always) religious and therefore tend to be less likely to get divorced. Nothing to do with the "quality" of the marriage.

true

Sakura
There may be other reasons why couples who cohabit before marriage are more likely to split:
a, Sometimes people slide into marrying when cohabiting. There might be a 'may as well get married now' attitude
b, A relationship that has gone stale may be mistakenly pepped-up by marriage

I disagree with you about cohabitees being treated unfairly, though.
Sorry, but while marriage may be riddled with faults, I do not agree with the state imposing obligations upon people (other than maintenance of children-married or not) who have not asked for certain rights via marriage.
I do not want it assumed that people are quasi-married just by living together.
It's about freedom of choice.

freedom of choice is a veeeery tricky concept in feminism.
I don't believe freedom of choice exists for women.
In the context of marriage/cohabitation, it's a leap of faith one way or another. IN most patriarchy's, children are automatically owned by fathers, if the mother is married to him. It's only recently in the UK that a mother has been allowed to keep her children after a divorce- until then they were the father's property.
We see elements of this even here on MN, when husbands have threatened a mother he'll fight her for the children by using underhand tacticts (such as a bout of depression she had once, for example)

Sakura You may be right. All the same, I can have a sexual relationship with another adult in this country while living with them and can just get up and leave without having to involve another party (other than arranging upkeep of children financially and sorting out joint financial interests-if there are any).
I do not think people should have this right taken away.
Can you imagine the situation where a woman who is abused by a cohabitee cannot just escape and has to be treated as married by the state who will insist that she sue him for maintenance (shudder)?
Why extend marriage crap to ANOTHER faction of society?

oh I agree, I'm not arguing for that. I'm just saying that there is good and bad to both options, so from a feminist POV, as in wondering what's the best choice/step for a women, there is no answer

sakura, that's a very good point you made a page back, about marriage still being seen by many people as the way in which a female child becomes an adult. It really annoyed me that my dad (who was quite happy not walking me up the aisle), was still adamant that there was something about marriage that would change me from a child to an adult. I found it incredibly offensive but there was no changing his mind.

marantha - riiight. All marriages in this country do not, in fact, share in common their legal basis. All legally-validated marriages do. There are so many people, in this country and elsewhere, who marry in religious ceremonies but do not enact a legal contract. I don't have a vested interest in saying promoting this at all, but it's a bit much to close your eyes and pretend it doesn't happen or isn't 'real' marriage.

But if it is not a legally-validated marriage what is the point of it?
It's just a ceremony where people declare their love and make vows. All very well and good. I am most definitely not having a pop at this at all.
But it is foolish to think that legal rights like maintenance in event of splitting up, 'spouse' dying intestate and so on- will be granted in event of the couple breaking up.
If people who marry in non-legal ceremonies do not care about such things, fine.
But if they do, they better make sure their marriage is legally valid.

Well, for DH the point was marriage in the eyes of God. Hence the whole fuss about going to church, asking bridesmaids to help, having family there, etc. The point I'm making is, some of the 'faff' in a ceremony isn't optional for some people; it's the whole point of the wedding. If you're happy with just the legal stuff, fine, that's easy: go sign paper in the registry. But do realize that for others, this does not constitute a marriage.

I discovered the day before my wedding that both mothers had assumed they weren't making a speech, so we insisted, and in fact added a bit of the ceremony just for them :)

We had no MC, vicar or celebrant (we did the legal signing of forms seperate, in a 5 minute in and out ceremony) and we just talked people through it all ourselves.

I wore the big dress, but DH wore a ridiculous Mr Darcy style cream suit and silly shoes. I wore combat boots, so I think I was the most comfy :)

I had five bridesmaids, but he had no best man or anything, so the bridesmaids were kind of for both of us. There was no parading about (apart from my mum making me do a big entrance into the bar, which I wasn't happy about, and a first dance that dh really wanted that I just went along with as he was letting me have things he wasn't that bothered about) and we both entered together from the side of the stage.

i welcomed the first few guests in my jeans, then ran off, stuck the dress on, pulled a brush through my hair and slicked on some makeup, then i was back out again in the party :) I breastfed for the first half of the day, then started drinking, and we ended up in a rock club at the end of the day.

It was ace :)

I've just remembered a feminist friend's wedding.
They didn't want to have a marriage, but needed to as both were going to work in the UK and are not British - so for visa reasons. They've been together for two decades.

So they stuck two fingers up to the whole thing, had a quick civil ceremony and a massive party, and then the "bride" made all the women (everyone pissed by now) wear false beards. Sort of: if you make me join the patriarchy, I will just take the piss out of it.

Why go to the bother of all of that if she was so intent on rejecting the patriarchy though? Quick trip to the registrars, just the 2 of them, witnesses off the street, and job's a good 'un. Seems a bit unnecessary to make public show of sticking 2 fingers up at the whole thing, not to mention the expense of throwing a party (and buying the beards) when they didn't need to

Family, mainly. Mother insisted on the party. It sort of evolved the week before, apparently, as she was squirming about every single aspect of what she was about to do. Left to run the relationship as they wanted, they wouldn't have married at all. And she has a strange sense of humour, not one I totally get myself, but she found it funny and the photos are kind of amusing.

But that's pretty bad uneprune - if she's that much of non-conformist she should be able to stand up to her own mother surely.

Mothers cannot "insist" that their adult children do anything.

haven't read all teh thread but GOD i am envious of anyone whose dad was still alive to 'give them away'. i love love love my dh and i love love loved my dad. it was his input into me, my life, my views of what a man should be, and my parents's marriage, that formed my view of what i wanted in a life partner.

i would have been delighted to see my father entrusting dh with my care. (and that does not imo patronise or belittle me, i am a parent now myself and i will want to be confident that my dds are with good men of whose behaviour their father and i approve. what parent wants different, tbh?)

this thread is a bit depressing, tbh.

my dad didn'T want to give me away My parents didn't want to come to the wedding.

I do find it suspect that for hundreds of years fathers never questions the way society viewed their daughters as "chattel". It was only when women decided it had to change that any change took place.

"It's when I read postings like this that I wonder if I live on a different planet to most MNers.hmm
People get married because they are happily in love. I sit there is the congregation getting all dewy-eyed with the mother of the bride thinking "aw, isn't that lovely" and "ahh, reminds me of my happy day" and "love is all you need". Why spoil a happy day?
I am a feminist and married for over 20 years. I can think of better things to get uptight about than wedding day customs. I'm with your DH and feel that you are overthinking it and projecting your views onto someone else's wedding."

I totally agree. I have been married for nearly 30 years and can't see what all the fuss is about. You are making an issue out of something that has nothing to do with you. At my wedding my dad gave me away, but I didn't promise to "obey" my husband. I didn't give a speech either because 30 years ago it wasn't the done thing, it wouldn't have occurred to me if it was and I wouldn't have wanted to anyway.

Agree. I think it's rather amusing that we're having a discussion based on the assumption that women are somehow duped into relinquishing any independent thought in their head for the sake of a wedding, which is somehow nothing more than a celebration of the patriarchy. Why is it so difficult for some to accept that women are perfectly capable of having the wedding they want, without any nod to patriarchy? So it wasn't your idea of a wedding - so what? It wasn't your day, it was hers. Stop analysing and overthinking it, and just be happy for them that they love each other and want to declare it publicly and legally. God knows, there's enough hatred in the world already.

"I do find it suspect that for hundreds of years fathers never questions the way society viewed their daughters as "chattel". It was only when women decided it had to change that any change took place."

see i just don't buy this. fathers' letters about their daughters's deaths, i'm thinking particularly of charles dickens but i am sure there is a tablet at vindolanda as well, suggest that they were grieving rather more than they might have done had they lost a particularly impressive cow.

I'm sure fathers have loved their daughters over the ages, no in fact I know they have. The problem I have is that perhaps they didn't love them quite enough as they should have, enough to treat them equally to their brothers.