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?

as I said in my previous post, your dad walking you down the aisle is the same thing in my opinion, just minus the words.

why didn't you walk down alone?

Does it really matter? Perhaps I did "do it blindly", but as I said before it wasn't as issue with me. I enjoyed my wedding day because it wasn't marred with me worrying that the day was spoilt by what you perceive as man' misogyny. I don't need someone like you to tell me that it is wrong. It might be wrong for you, but I felt pretty comfortable with it.

Or perhaps I feel secure and comfortable with who I am and am happy with the way I lead my life on an equal footing with my husband.

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

He must be a barrel of laughs

I'm not disparaging your beliefs, you are perfectly entitled to them-as long as you fully realised they are right for you as opposed to right-then I have no argument. I do when I am called obtuse just because I don't see the world according to Shecutofftheirtails

If my father was prosing on about property etc I doubt I would want him walking me down the aisle. It is supposed to be a lovely, happy, family day-with a relaxed father-I doubt whether it would even have crossed my father's mind that I could be his property and he would have laughed if anyone had ever made such a silly suggestion.

Actually, slovenly I initially came onto this thread to talk about that kind of thing, but got irritated by the "stop thinking, women" posts.

The OP, and many other women on this thread, had their Das walk them down the aisle, but consider that to be different from "giving away" because it seems that in England (including the registry office, which particularly appals me) traditions persist that have long died out in rural Irelan where I got married (because they were too sexist!!)

So my original post was going to be that I felt conflicted about the "down the aisle" thing because of its roots in the tradition of women being given away. In many ways I agree with exotic, but unlike her I respect other women who made other choices, and who thought walking down the aisle was too much like being given away.

Weddings are fraught with decisions like that one. The are laden with symbolism (and to a large extent submitting yourself to any of it is buying into nasty patriarchal institution). I am interested in why other people (like me) felt the misogyny and did it anyway, and impressed by the ways people have adapted traditions or changed them entirely to detoxify them.

But I am insulted by the claim that anyone who considers these things is "over thinking", or (even more stupid) hates their father.

How wonderful to have some sanity Bunbaker. I had no idea there were so many women around who don't feel equal and have such insecurity about it.

Sorry, Shecutofftheirtails-probably rural Ireland and catholic church give you a different outlook and I might feel the same in that case.

Nope, I'm not a moral relativist.

And nice, another suggestion that feminists are insecure. FFS.

I wasn't "given away". My dad died when I was a child so couldn't have done it anyway, but I do remember there being the assumption that I would ask my Grandpa/brother/uncle instead. I didn't, I walked in flanked by my two best female friends, one of whom read a poem during the ceremony and the other gave a speech and proposed the toasts at the reception.

My in-laws were horrified. My mother was very proud

oh so we agree then!!

I did the whole giving away thing, I thought my Dad would like it; but as I was 35 when I got married and had lived alone for 15 years holding down several jobs and owning several houses; I didn't for a second think that people would see it as my dad really 'passing control'

and I agree that your dad only going half way down the aisle is the same thing as the full giving away

Oh no, my Dad went the full way down the aisle. He just didn't say anything about handing me over or do any weird hand over thing.

TBH this thread is the first I've heard of that. Dad would have been very non-plussed had he been asked if he was giving me away. He and my Mom are constantly amazed by how many sexist traditions they thought their hippy generation had done away with have come back.

He was happy to walk into the church with me, but only on the understanding that we were walking together and he was emphatically not giving me away.

Still, you can slice it any way you want, but we went along with most of the tradition.

I just remebered the really funny symbolism of our wedding - DH really didn't want to do the "light a candle" thing where you each light a candle at the start and then at the end you light one candle together using your candles of individuality. But our priest (old family friend) showed all excited about it, and my aunt had bought us candles (for this very purpose) as a gift.

I insisted we did it, despite the naff symbolism, because their feelings mattered more to me.

But the priest got it all confused - instead of having us light one big candle from our two smaller ones, he had us blow out the small ones and then light a big one with a taper.

So at our wedding we extinguished our former selves! :o

There's a fab photo (in our album) of us doing just that. Still makes me laugh when I think of it.

"I just remebered the really funny symbolism of our wedding - DH really didn't want to do the "light a candle" thing where you each light a candle at the start and then at the end you light one candle together using your candles of individuality. But our priest (old family friend) showed all excited about it, and my aunt had bought us candles (for this very purpose) as a gift."

I didn't do any of that, but I got married in a C of E church.

I find the suggestion that people who see sexism and call it sexism "insecurity" pretty fecking ridiculous.

The idea of being given away is sexist. The practice is sexist. Some people, for their own reasons, do it. As it happens, I'm one of them. There were a few things about my wedding that I didn't want that badly, but also couldn't face the hurt feelings and general drama if I refused them, so having accepted that I was embracing a big patriarchal experience that day (white dress and all!) I held my nose and got on with it. It made my Dad, who is a loving, if patriarchal old fella, very happy. And that was nice, since I'd agreed to let him pay for the party, I had ceded a bit of control - so there you go. I didn't really mind. But I'm not for a moment going to pretend that it's not a tradition routed in real sexism - it is!

It's not insecure of me to see what's actually there.

Well said blackcurrants - I agree entirely.

Well it's all personal choice, obviously, but still, judgemental as I am (although I would not say so on someone's wedding day out of politeness-but I'd still think it), I think the whole white wedding thing to be ridiculous when the couple have cohabited beforehand. Absolutely nothing against cohabitation at all- lots of advantages and, yes, disadvantages, too. Swings and roundabouts and all that.
But I do think, 'for fuck's sake' when I have to watch a bride who has been presumably having sex and living together with her husband-to-be go through all that white wedding shit.

The whole country is seriously screwed up about marriage, anyway, and this giving away nonsense is just part of a bigger picture.
In the past, getting wed was seen as important for religious and/or legal reasons and not really the most important day of a woman's life- that was probably the birth of child/ren- it was a necessary rite of passage but not afforded the hoo-ha and fuss that it is today. Yet, society thinks having a child outside of wedlock and living together are OK. If they're OK- which they are to my way of thinking (although such couples seriously need to think about the legalities of their situation)- why the heck is there so much fuss about weddings these days?

It is all down to personal choice and feelings-it is just as valid to not see it as sexist-I certainly don't.
I would agree that the huge day and all that expense is ridicuous, I have never known why you need over a year to plan for it, but each to their own and if they want to do that I can't see the problem.

A white wedding dress is not a symbol of virginity, it just became fashionable after Queen Victoria wore a white dress when she married.

So you need never fret again about the purity of a woman wearing a traditional dress. Although that does seem like a weird thing for a feminist to be worrying about.

A white wedding dress is not a symbol of virginity, it just became fashionable after Queen Victoria wore a white dress when she married.

So you need never fret again about the purity of a woman wearing a traditional dress. Although that does seem like a weird thing for a feminist to be worrying about.

It isn't just as valid to see the transfer of women as property as not sexist.

Not all opinions are equal. Some are reasoned and well thought out, and some are stupid.

My dad didn't 'give me away' but he did escort me down the aisle and I wouldn't gave had it any other way. I am his daughter and now I am my husbands wife, I see nothing wrong with that. Isn't feminism about women having what they want? That's what i wanted

No, feminism is not about women having what they want.

For example, if what one woman wanted was to take away the right of all other women to vote, then her getting what she wants wouldn't be feminist, now, would it?

With this little stuff, it's harder to parse. That's why (i think - might be wrong) the 70s feminists used to say 'the personal is political' - and I think that's true. If you and your dh both go out to work and he never lifts a finger in the house, that's political right there. If you go out to dinner with your male artner and the menus, wine, and bill are all offered straight to him, that's political, right there. It's about power, you see.

If your father ceremonially hands you into the care of your husband, that's about power dynamics, and it's personal and also political. How you choose to feel about it is of course up to you.

To use the example above, saying that "I choose to celebrate Christmas though I'm not a Christian." is fair enough, but saying "because I am not a Christian I choose not to think that Christmas has any roots in Christianity" is just not correct.

It isn't just as valid to see the transfer of women as property as not sexist

I don't see it is transfer of women as property so it isn't sexist.The idea of me being the property of my father and handed over to be the property of my DH is utterly ludicrous. I wouldn't even tell that there was such a strange idea they would be and -it would never have crossed their minds.
Feminism is about women having choice and not being told what they are allowed to think (or have to think) by other women.
I would have liked my father to have walked me down the aisle, it is merely tradition and I don't see the problem as a close woman friend could equally have walked me down the aisle, I just happened to choose my brother. I have no idea at all whether I was 'handed over' -I have forgotten-it is so unimportant.

Nope, feminism is not about women having choices.

Nor is it about women getting to hold stupid opinions and have other women tell them those opinions are valid.

If you think the idea of women as property is daft then you clearly know fuck all about recent history or current affairs. That's up to you, but insisting that opinions based on determined ignorance are as valid as any other is obtuse.

"Nope, feminism is not about women having choices."

Why not? I think you will find that most women do think that is the case.