Why do women still get "given away"

[ledkr]

I went to wedding yesterday and was surprised to see the woman being given away by her father.I havent been to that many weddings and dont think ive ever been as near the front before but the father actually placed his daughters hand into her grooms.
Yuck.
I am married and was certainly not given away.
It got me thinking that i guess as this is part of a traditional ceremony that many women go along with this archaic custom.
What a shame.
Am i just being picky?

Stop thinking, people. It makes you do feminism wrong.

I would not have felt comfortable being given away by anyone, so I made the decision not to be. I gather that a lot of brides-to-be aren't keen on the idea as the (woman) registrar did spend a bit of time in one of the pre-wedding meetings saying that 'it wasn't like it used to be...it didn't have to be my father - how about an uncle or godfather..it makes them feel special' before she realised that it was something I would not be swayed on.

I'm going to a wedding in a couple of months so it will be interesting to see what happens there.

I took my husbands name when I got married, I wasn't happy with the assumption that I would do that, but we were planning to have children and it felt important to me that we all had the same name. He has children from a previous relationship, and it was important to him that they had the same name as him as well so he wouldn't change to my name. I could not see a way of everyone getting what they wanted. What do people think should replace the current tradition in regard to names? I don't really think the current way of doing things is fair, but it does keep things simple.

If I'm honest I can't remember if I was given away or not. I didn't give it a thought when I got married. I certainly don't feel that either my Dad or my husband own me.

My dad gave me away recently. Not the weird hand thing though. He did have to say 'yes' to giving me away when the registrar asked which I wasn't expecting.
I thought of it more as being walked down the aisle to get married by the second most important man in my life who has only really been superseded over the last 4 years.
I don't think I would have wanted to walk down the aisle by myself.

I think it's nice, DH would certainly love to walk our DDs, not down an aisle as we're atheists, down something. I do think there's a lovely bond between a man and his daughters....different to son/mother dad/son etc, not better but different.

As long as you don't hand over her hands or whatever I think it's one tradition I really like.

A registrar asked if one man was giving you away to another?

Are you shitting me?

Was this in Saudi Arabia?

I had my Dad walk me down the aisle. I had no idea people still did an official "handover of goods"

TBH I went with the aisle thing despite its clear symbolism of the ownership of women because I think most wedding customs - Dad going down the aisle, wedding rings, speeches, have been largely detoxified.

Still, it takes a pretty obtuse woman to refuse to see the symbolism for what it has been.

I also didn't do a speech because I didn't feel like it, and I wasn't prepared to do it just to make a point.

I did not take DH's name. I kept my name, because after 31 years it would have caused professional difficulties to have changed it. It's not "the same name as my nephew", it's the same name I've had all my life.

My girls have DH's name, which (like the aisle thing) I have some jiggles about. We each tried to make sure the children had the other's name, and I prevailed. His Dad had just died, only son, sister changed her name. It seemed more important than my situation.

DH was happy to take my name, and very keen on us making up a new name we both took :o, but I think changing your name midway through your life is weird and naff.

Yup. Civil ceremony. Cannot remember exact wording though I'm afraid. We were all a bit surprised I think and dh made a bit of a joke of it with an over acted 'Phew'.
I didn't do a speech because I'd had to do shit loads of things for the wedding already. No way was I adding another task to the list.

Sorry - England and last month so not exactly Saudi or 20 years ago!

"Still, it takes a pretty obtuse woman to refuse to see the symbolism for what it has been."

I disagree. I choose to not make an issue out of something that has carries no significnce for me. I have more important things to worry about. Besides it was 30 years ago and it didn't occur to me not to be given away.

I'm sorry, but I think you are wasting time and energy by overthinking this and making an issue out of it. If you don't want to be given away then fine. If someone chooses to stick with tradition then fine - it isn't your problem.

So it's "unsupportive" of me to call someone obtuse who has insinuated that any woman who doesn't think being given away is just fine has a poor relationship with her father?

Um, OK.

But can I just say how pleasant and necessary I have found your barely concealed but indirect attack.

I do find it strange that someone comes over here and says "stop thinking about things from a feminist point of view."

in the feminist section.

Do you think someone with teenaged kids spends lots of time in the breast/bottlefeeding section typing "Stop overthinking how you feed your babies!" to them? Or do the people whose kids have stopped waking them up at night go into the sleep section and say "Stop nitpicking about sleep! You've overthinking it!"

If you don't want to think about things from a feminist perspective there's a whole internet - indeed, a whole world out there. I'm always interested to read "I don't agree with you because..." posts, but I find "stop thinking about it!" quite bizarre. This is the place to think about it. One of the few. If you don't want to think about it - you don't have to!

HRH it's late, no worries.

So, if you have something you want to say, you will say it.

But I'm not allowed to.

You get to call me unpleasant because I think a refusal to accept that symbolism matters to some people is obtuse (which it is :o).

So are you the only one who gets to be unpleasant about other women?

And your problem is a lack of consistency in the arguments of different people?

Agree entirely that coming into the feminist section and telling people having a discussion about an issue of interest that they are "over thinking" is pointless and annoying.

"A lot of women just blindly follow tradition without actually thinking about what it means. Being given away, promising to 'obey', wearing virginal white, not giving a speech, being 'man and wife', changing their name, sometimes not just their surname but becoming 'Mrs John Smith' for example.

I can only guess they get all caught up in choosing the dress, the venue, the flowers etc., and don't consider the important stuff at all."

Maybe people have their own reasons behind it. Just because they've chosen differently to what you would or have doesn't mean they haven't considered the "important stuff"

It aways makes me laugh that if you like tradition and follow it you always do it blindly because you haven't thought about it and you haven't been 'educated'. People never seem to make the inference that yes you have thought about it very deeply and that is your decision-there is this weird idea that there is a 'right' idea and that it should be imposed on everyone.
I wore white, my father would have 'given me away' ( had he been alive), I have changed surname and I am Mrs. I resent the idea that I got caught up in the day and didn?t think about the important stuff or that I followed blindly. I realise that dresses, venues etc don?t matter, I am fully aware of the important stuff and having had another 20yrs or so to think about it, I would do exactly the same again.
I do not need to be educated, I have no chip on my shoulder, have never been anyone?s property, am perfectly secure and happy with who I am, have nothing to prove and think it is sad to spoil occasions with nit picking because someone else has made different decisions and wants to impose them on us poor women who ?follow blindly?.

she cut off her tails, do you not realise that your argument fails with the 'I had my dad walk me down the aisle'

so he gave you away: just didn't say the words. it is the same thing.

It definitely counts as "doing it blindly" if you deny that those traditions have a symbolism that is as much a part of the tradition as the act itself.

If you want one man to give you to another man because it is "tradition", then the tradition you like is that women for a lot of history have been property.

As for "something nice for Dads" - maybe I'm lucky, but my Dad wouldn't think it remotely nice to take part in a tradition that symbolised my status as goods to be passed along to another man.

I went along with many wedding traditions (including being walked down the aisle by my Dad), but I still resent being told that it would have been "nit picking" had I decided that those traditions were still laden with too much misogyny.

The reason for the traditions is their meaning. The meaning of being "given away" is pretty clear - it's there in the words. Jesus, even the Catholic Church (big into tradition) doesn't do it any more because of its unpleasant connotations.

If you want to be given away as chattel because you get off on the submissiveness of the while thin, then fine. But insisting that traditions have no meaning (as though they sprang out of the earth fully formed) and yet wanting to do them anyway is pretty obtuse. If they have no meaning, why are they important? How can you simultaneously be into tradition but want to ignore history?

And how can you whine about other women criticising your choices while you disparage their beliefs?