Julie Bindel in the Guardian. Marriage can never be feminist.

[MardyBra]

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2016/may/25/women-face-it-marriage-can-never-be-feminist-video

What a load of tosh. Just because traditionally a woman had to be a virgin/get given away/take her husband's name/could be raped legally in marriage, doesn't mean that these things apply now.

She might get married in white because she likes that fashion, get given away because she wants her beloved father to hold her arm. She doesn't have to change her name at all. And rape is marriage is now illegal in this country.

In fact, doesn't marriage offer women protection to family assets in the event of a split in a way that cohabiting doesn't.

And anyway, I don't know anyone who got married to "reclaim" it or as a subversive act.

Can a marriage between two feminists be a feminist act? What about between two women, both feminists? Does the history of marriage define marriage in the present?

I would say that marriage between two women who are both feminists can be a feminist act.

Simply for the reason that the conservatives oppose it with a vengeance, so it can't be all that wrong.

I would think of a purely economically motivated marriage between two women as subversive. Two lesbians marrying to have their relationship made official is an individual decision that changes nothing much in the big picture, but if all heterosexual women ran off with their best friend and got married ... yeah, that would change things.

At the moment, even while homosexual people can marry, people who are in a sexual relationship are privileged over people who are not. This would change if everyone and their mother decided to get gay married to a woman - because then, the conservative politicians who at the moment oppose the removal of the unfair privileges of marriage would most likely agree to instead award those privileges to people with children, including single mothers. So that would be some progress.

In feminist utopia, we wouldn't need the state to make our relationships official, because we would be financially secure no matter what.
Marriage between two (female!) feminists can only be a feminist act insofar as it might lead to the end of marriage as an institution, as conservatives have been fearmongering all the time.

As a slight digression, but thinking about the "financial security" aspect, I had a bit of a strange moment recently when I realised that actually given my current situation (single parent, about as stable a job as you can have these days, 50s so not going to have any more children, substantial chunk of my mortgage paid off), I would be mad to marry at my point in life. Live with someone maybe, but marry? Nope. At best (he has no children, we stay married, he predeceases me or is a decent bloke who will honour my will so I know all my assets will go to my child) it would be neutral, at worst (we divorce and he takes 50% of the assets, I predecease him and he decides to leave all my assets to the Donkey sanctuary) it would be worse.

It was a really fascinating moment for me - one of those "I'm seeing the faces instead of the vase" moments.

Yep, you are one of the significant minority of women for whom marriage would not be financially advantageous. We as a class benefit more from it than from cohabitation in that respect, but that's not much use if you're the one with the assets. But people like you are the reason I don't agree with the automatic acquisition of marriage like status after a certain period of cohabitation. Basically would mean you'd have to choose between your financial security and being able to live with a partner!

if you wanted to leave everything to your child you would simply have to put that in a will, him being honourable is neither here nor there
what about pensions though?
I am a heterosexual married woman, we married for pension reasons (although I see now that I had financial protection as the stay at home parent of quite a few children, that wasn't a motivation as I believed the realationship would last at least as long as the children were dependent- rightly as it turned out
Our 'wedding' was the lowest key event ever we didn't change our names and the children are double barreled. Marriage was a necessary compromise under patriarchy. Maybe in some small way we undermined the institution by taking only what we needed from it and by me spending the next n years saying
'yes married, no, Ms. No, always that surname. No not divorced. No always that surname.'
repeat ad infinitum

Easier for a spouse to challenge a will that doesn't provide for them than for a cohabitant to do the same. If you have assets you want to leave to your children not your partner, remaining unmarried is more likely to facilitate that.

" but please accept my apologies "

No need to apologise, I'm not one of those 'O No, you used the wrong word 'cos your telepathy wasn't working well this morning so didn't know I would be all offended' types (well, at least not during the current state of my hormones!).

But thanks anyway!

If you have assets you want to leave to your children not your partner, remaining unmarried is more likely to facilitate that.

This is especially true in the US where most states have provisions that allow a spouse a claim against the estate, even if they are left out of their spouse's will.

Not entirely sure why you felt the need for the last sentence fatrascals, as there's been no suggestion at all that women shouldn't have a choice. But regardless of whether you chose it or not, it's still following a patriarchal custom. There's not really any getting around that. Choice doesn't occur in a vacuum.

"What if we choose to change our name because we want to? What if we didn't want our birth name any more? "

Oh please. If you don't want your birth name you can change it to any other, it doesn't have to be your husband's name.

I can bang on about how I didn't change my name or wear white, wasn't given away, or don't wear a ring or call myself Mrs, but I can't say getting married was a feminist act, anymore than I can say that waxing my legs or having botox is.

It is what it is, and no one is saying we don't have the choice to do it or not. Of course we do.

FloraFox

other examples would be pole dancing, burlesque and "slut".

I see these as qualitatively different to marriage, because marriage involves two people, and none of these examples involve a second person. Or, because I am married and unable to internalise that my marriage is not feminist. One of the two.

If marriage is not a feminist act, does it follow that it is anti-feminist? Can it become sort of neutral?

She's not talking about individual marriages but marriage as an institution.

Ah, I see. She is arguing that individual marriages cannot be feminist because marriage as an institution is itself anti-feminist. Out of interest I looked at the legal consequences of marriage in the UK and found this Wikipedia page, with the caveat about the reliability of Wikipedia pages:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_consequences_of_marriage_and_civil_partnership_in_England_and_Wales

It seems to me that the only legal consequence of marriage that on paper is out of balance between the sexes is the last one, which whilst important applies to a tiny minority of marriages. So is it a case of marriage as an institution being historically anti-feminist, and there being no hope of changing its anti-feminist status because of its history, and indeed current status if not in UK law then in the law of other countries and in UK culture and practise? Is there no hope of feminist marriage in the future? That seems a bleak message, but she may be right.

VestalVirgin

I would say that marriage between two women who are both feminists can be a feminist act.

Interesting. If the marriage is between two feminists, where one or both of them are not women, is it then by definition not a feminist act? I suppose this goes on to "Can anyone who is not a woman be a feminist?" which is a whole other can of worms.

What if the marriage is between two women, but only one is a feminist?

Would it be a demi-feminist act ? (or a semi or a hemi ?) - a sort of fleeting partial eclipse of the patriarchy, I'd have thought.

What would a feminist marriage look like?

I am increasingly mildly annoyed with myself for not being more ostensibly feminist in my life. I got married and took his name (my original surname is unusual, oddly difficult for people to spell and technically has a rude word in it, which has on one occasion prevented me from getting an email address including it). I wear my engagement and wedding ring. I also got him a mangagement ring he wears. I wore an ivory dress. My dad walked me down the aisle, he didn't give me away though. We also didn't marry in a church or have any of those 'obey' vows. DH had a best woman.

We now have 11mo DS and I'm still on mat leave. I'm self-employed, he's employed, so it was the sensible decision to have him work as his income was stable and guaranteed (as far as these things can be), mine isn't. I should technically still be able to earn what I did previously.

It's so easy to just slip into traditional ways. But I love being married to DH, I love having my son and I love that we all have the same name even though it does spark these twinges of feminist guilt. On paper, it looks so traditional/patriarchal. It doesn't feel that way IRL. I don't really know what the alternative is/was, given that we live in a patriarchal society.

I guess we all just do the best with what we've got in front of us. Not all choices can be feminist ones. So when would marriage become feminist?

at worst (we divorce and he takes 50% of the assets, I predecease him and he decides to leave all my assets to the Donkey sanctuary)

Interesting, I see men give those reasons for not wanting to marry all the time too.

Get married and if you split, the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, applies to your assets. Co-habit and if you split - the 1973 Act doesn't apply.

Simple as....so why get married ?

Because you're not the one with the assets.

I know they do, deydodo. I would say that for younger couples, where (often) the intention is to have children as part of the marriage, there is a structural asymmetry in the situation because women get pregnant and tend to be more closely involved in childrearing. It is (9 times out of 10) the woman who takes the hit in terms of the impact on her career, and suffers serious loss of income. If the marriage ends, the fact that she gets half the assets regardless of whether she paid (say) half of the mortgage or much less because she was the one to go part time, this seems at least to be recompense for lost earnings. Hence when I was younger I would definitely have insisted on marriage as legal protection before buying a house with someone and having children with them. Hence my surprise on realising that the reasons I would have had for insisting on marriage at a younger age no longer held sway.

I do think the situation becomes radically different when one is past 50. I already own my house - it's not somewhere I would be buying jointly with someone. And I'm not going to be having children with him.

"I don't really know what the alternative is/was, given that we live in a patriarchal society. "

Well, you know that you could have kept your name, or chosen a different one for both of you to take, or both of you taking on the other's name in addition to your own and you could have given both your names to the children - there are plenty of alternatives.

I find the 'what's the alternative' argument much more compelling when applied to marriage vs cohabitation for women as a class, rather than surnames where keeping your own name isn't something that potentially economically disadvantages you. Although maybe that's because I a)got married and b)kept my name. Still, I've yet to hear anyone convincingly address why choosing the arrangement that gives you more legal and financial protection, which marriage is for the majority of women, isn't more feminist than avoiding it. Bindel included.

Well, you know that you could have kept your name, or chosen a different one for both of you to take, or both of you taking on the other's name in addition to your own and you could have given both your names to the children - there are plenty of alternatives.

Aside from me not liking my own maiden name, it's also my father's, and his father's (etc.) name - so what's actually so feminist about that? Unless you get into some Icelandic matrilineal naming conventions, I'm not sure keeping your maiden (hah!) name is any more feminist than changing it to your husband's. You're still named after one man or another.

Plus, if everyone double-barelled, we'd have kids with 8 surnames in a few generations. That's not practical.

So, with marriage and names, we're left with choosing yourself a joint name. Although I'd have no idea where to start with this, it's a nice concept in theory.

But again, it's much, much easier to do it the traditional way. Path of least resistance. Even consciously. Even as a feminist.

It's also my father's, and his father's (etc.) name - so what's actually so feminist about that?

I'm not sure keeping your maiden (hah!) name is any more feminist than changing it to your husband's. You're still named after one man or another

I'm sorry but I really don't understand this way of thinking. It's your name.

Your birth name isn't just your father's name, it's yours.

You're also free to change it to your mother's birth surname or one you pick out of a hat.

I fail to see the drama here.