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?

no, you have misunderstood me. my point is that i have no problem with the patriarchal institution of a father giving away his daughter because it is now a clear expression of love rather than any passing on a piece of property. i outlined this in my first post. wrt the OP, i think she sounds like a right misery to have an a party and shouldn't have gone if she doesn't agree with marriage if she thinks that the whole thing is like discovering a house 'that runs on a basement floor inhabited by slaves'.

and i do wish you would stop telling me how lucky i am, given that my father died of cancer when i was 22.

I do think you are lucky- to have a father who clearly loved you.

And this sentence:

"i have no problem with the patriarchal institution of a father giving away his daughter "

to me is not a clear expression of love. It's an expression of property: passing her from one man to the next.
The woman who wrote the first ever novel, Murasaki, had a father who loved her enough to educate her in the eleventh century, a time when women were regarded as chattel. To me that is fatherly love.

to me that is not a clear..

jeesus. and the one word you missed out when you quoted me? now

Why mad, Reality?
(serious question - about this thread or the whole section, whichever you prefer)

Aitch - no of course I am not like this at parties, don't be so silly - why do you think I have to come and say all this here? Speaking of misery - why torture yourself by coming here? You have the whole world on your side, with its padded cards with pictures of pwitty bwides in white fwocks on. There is hardly any point in searching out this little corner of the internet if it is only going to make you cross or sad - not because we disagree, but because you find the very terms of discussion offensive.

(In your first post you said "haven't read the whole thread...." I don't know if you have now, but fyi in case not, many of the posts of the thread have nothing to do with what I actually said, so I don't know if you have a decent impression of what that is or not.)

Anyway - it's not as if anything I say makes any difference. I am not going to go into people's homes and vandalise their wedding photos, or point and laugh at wedding rings worn in public. I have no interest in disparaging or devaluing people's marriages, and if I did, it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference. What nerve is being hit here?

Maisie: "nothing to do with me" - it is everything to do with me, because a. I was asked to participate and b. as Terence said, nothing human is alien to me. And - "hatred" - what? Where did that come from? Why are you implying that I am causing hatred by thinking aloud about a marriage ceremony in any other terms than yours?

I'm off to Housekeeping to get some tips abour cleaning or something. We might disagree on rinsing dishes but I probably won't get people catsbummouthing me because I dared to ask, thereby flying in the face of Wuv.

What a patronising little post, Vezzie. Are you quite sure that you really deserve the title of feminist, given your misguided attempts to belittle women who have made different life choices? The catty comment about padded cards just made you look rather ridiculous.

I repeat, your friend's wedding, and what she wanted from it has NOTHING whatsoever to do with you. She asked you to attend and witness, not to actively 'participate'. I suspect that honour fell to the people she really cared about. My comment about hatred was not directed at you (you do come across as me me me - has anyone ever told you that?), it was meant to show that when 2 people want to come together publicly and declare their love for each other then we should celebrate that - it's good to see that love still exists in a world torn apart by hatred, wars etc.

I think Housekeeping is probably a good place for you.

I don't want to belittle anyone! I want the opposite!

The other things you said - I have addressed elsewhere.

No, you want to belittle and question anyone whose views of marriage differ from yours - your friend, apparently, is going to play second fiddle to a tosser for the rest of her life. Does she know this is how you view her? Do you think that your view of marriage and weddings alone define the term feminist?? If not (and I sincerely hoe you don't) then leave alone.

It takes time for change to happen in such a way that it doesn't create backlashes (ie let's aim to slow the pendulum swing of the gender battle and create an equilibrium.) These days you can have whatever kind of union you want. There are enormous amounts of legal protection for all concerned in the nuclear family if you decide to get married, and that's why we did it. It's what follows the event that matters far more (a wedding is just a statement to your community that you're committed, and to show how you want to be viewed as a couple/family). Our wedding was planned by us both to ensure that there was no hypocrisy or dishonesty. There was very little financial expenditure, but lots of thought, humour and style. No speeches, we wrote our own vows, followed by vows to each other and our children as co-parents/family leaders. There wasn't a dry eye in the house (except for DH's family, who could't cope with the lack of modern tradition and had a complete freak-out afterwards). Most of our friends helped, so felt very involved. We had said so much to each other privately beforehand about what it meant to each of us, and for our relationship, that the rest was a formality. Don't be a victim if you ever do it, make it your own and do it for your own reasons. I recommend not being a slave to any dogma, do your own thinking about this.

I think nowadays you can get married however you want. A lot of people chose to be given away by their dad as they love their dads to bits and they want to do it. Its up to them and its up to the couple in question imo.

how superior you think you are, vezzie. your poor friend, having you sneer at her this way.

dynamic, active, imaginative,beautiful, clever, talented, well loved, well educated, professionally respected, intelligent
brilliant

• is what I said about my friend. No sneering there

right misery
Housekeeping is a good place for you
rather ridiculous
nothing whatsoever to do with you
mad

• is what is being said about me. A slight touch of sneeriness, no?

Yes, and then you qualified that with the fact that she's going to play second fiddle to a tosser, and that she looks patronised and uncomfortable, and that she will now play a traditional and subservient role. How do you know this? Have you spoken - in depth - to her? Do you know she was uncomfortable? Was she unhappy? Does she agree that he is a tosser? Is she aware that you now see her as subservient, and does she feel she is?

Or do you just presume all this, because it allows you to pat yourself on the back for being such a feminist, whilst the rest of us who get married are obviously bowing to the patriarchy and padded cards, with no free thought in our silly little heads?

you are quite kidding yourself if you don't think this entire post is a sneer, vezzie. "Speaking of misery - why torture yourself by coming here? You have the whole world on your side, with its padded cards with pictures of pwitty bwides in white fwocks on. There is hardly any point in searching out this little corner of the internet if it is only going to make you cross or sad - not because we disagree, but because you find the very terms of discussion offensive."

regarding this, what are you saying? that i cannot be a feminist or come onto the feminist forum if i do not accept that marriage is... what did you say? "?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."" even allowing for the gross exaggeration, this is a sneer and a half.

to answer your question, though, 'what do feminists do about getting married?'. they please themselves, if they have an ounce of sense. and they are happy for other women who do the same.

i didn't have any of the things you mention, btw, no padded cards, no white frocks, no father daring to give me away, none of that. it was a great day and i am very glad that no-one like you was invited.

matildarosepink, your wedding sounds lovely. I am sure your wedding guests had a warm glow for ages afterwards.
I went to a handfasting once where a relation of the groom's (not a classically hippy-dippy type btw) wrote afterwards to the bride thanking her for organising such a lovely day saying that she had felt a great peace, which had continued thereafter. I felt all misty-eyed about that because I had felt the same. Took a while to wear off.

Aitch, how do you know if anyone like me was invited? They would have been very quiet about it!

I didn't sneer at the bride at all, which is what you accused me of.

I don't think at all that feminists (or anyone) have to agree with me about marriage. I don't even know what I think myself. I am asking questions. I don't mean: don't come here if you don't agree with me. I mean: don't engage with questions with upset you, and then get annoyed with the person asking them. I am truly sorry you had to get married without your father there, that is really sad and I offer sincere sympathies for your loss.

I am counfounded by the asymmetry of tone now in this thread, with some posters: between the very angry posts towards me, at the same time as accusing me of nastiness. I mean, express yourselves as strongly as you like, all of you, I completely support all of your rights to be as snitty and contemptuous as you like in an argument, but it is very odd if you do so in such a hostile way while making out that the whole issue is that I am being mean.

don't tell me where to post, vezzie. and the reason i KNOW that no-one felt that way is that ours was a very, very, very small wedding, okay? the neck on you telling me what my own wedding was like... you have some cheek, really you do...

And that's the crux of the matter - each marriage celebration is different, and each one special and individual to the couple involved. Whatever form it takes, it's really no-one else's place to comment, and certainly not on a public forum. I would be mortified if I thought that a friend of mine had shared her less than favourable views of my DH and my marriage in this way - esp. under the guise of 'feminism'

exactly, maisie. and let's not forget that this comes back to the fact that vezzie thinks the dh is a 'tosser'. that's what this is really about, imo.

vezzie. I am no fan of weddings, either.
But I do think you are overthinking the traditional white wedding set-up and its meaning in reality.
For the majority of people I know, it has no real meaning attached to it-it's something they do because they fancy being the centre of attention in the eyes of everyone around them for a day (after all, they COULD go and get married in a register office, couldn't they?) and why not I say.
As for the 'giving away' by father aspect, given that most couples cohabit and even have children outside of marriage, I would have thought that unless the bride is a virgin who has been locked up in a castle all her life, this would have no significant meaning either (apart from being a ritual people enjoy-and why not)
Now I say to this: Not my cup of tea. Each to their own. Yes the showiness is annoying in a way and many aspects of it -the expense, bridezilla demands, get on my wick. But I will NOT pretend that most white weddings have any deep meaning for anyone-because it does not.

Shame it was the patriarchy that invented weddings though, wasn't it

My DH and I walked down the aisle hand in hand, we said the same vows, the chief bridesmaid gave the speech because she's close to us both, and my DH responded... as did I.

Weddings don't have to be horrible reminders of an enslaved past. After all, marriages weren't about love, that often, historically speaking. Yet now we think that's all they're about. I'm a feminist and my wedding wasn't upsetting, though in some ways it wasn't very traditional either.

Yes Sakura - and now we're in the 21st century and women are more than able to think and speak for themselves, we still have them through choice.

Funny that.