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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

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Original poster

'Getting Engaged'

144 replies

YokoUhOh · 06/12/2016 08:07

Someone I know just got engaged. Same sex relationship. Other person older and quite controlling, probably the 'asker' as opposed to the 'askee'.

This situation got me thinking about engagement. (Usually) man goes to woman's father to ask for her hand in marriage - so woman being passed from man to man. Woman having to wait around to be asked, and appear delighted when asked. I hate it, every aspect of it is designed to control and subjugate women.

Don't know what I'm asking really, it just all seems so wrong.

(Disclaimer: am married but we decided to do it together and didn't have an engagement, ring etc).

OP posts:

Lottapianos · 06/12/2016 08:15

I totally agree OP. I cannot get my head around the appeal of engagements in this day and age. You're supposed to be a pair of adults, equal in every way, in a partnership, and yet one of you is expected to decide when the time is right to get married, spend a significant amount of money on a ring, get down on one knee (ugh) and 'propose' (double ugh). Im not even going to go there with asking for her father's permission. Then she gets to wear a ring to show that she's 'spoken for'. The whole thing is just so archaic. It's a shame that same sex couples are getting involved in it too

Original poster

YokoUhOh · 06/12/2016 08:17

That's it lotta, I just couldn't believe that there was the same power struggle in a same sex relationship. And it got me thinking about the horrific inequality in the act of getting engaged. Shudder.

OP posts:

MilkTwoSugarsThanks · 06/12/2016 08:18

Maybe some people just like the "tradition" of it without attaching any specific controlling subjugating meaning to it.

Quit judging other women for their personal choices.

Original poster

YokoUhOh · 06/12/2016 08:20

Not judging, each to their own. I don't like it personally, and I wondered if anyone else didn't.

OP posts:

EBearhug · 06/12/2016 08:21

(Usually) man goes to woman's father to ask for her hand in marriage - so woman being passed from man to man.

Once upon a time, yes. I think usually these days, one person asks the other to marry them and then they tell their families. I know there are some people who still ask the parents, but I wouldn't have said it was usual (though maybe I am out if touch,) because adults are expected to be able to decide for themselves and it's over a century since the Married Women''s Proprty Act and so on.

Having said that, there are still those who see it as romantic, and would wait for the man to ask - there are threads on it here. I suspect they are unaware of the history of women being literal property. I don't know. Had anyone ever expressed any wish to spend the rest of their life with me, I assume they would know me well enough to know I'd be very unimpressed if they felt it was anyone else's business except theirs and mine. Fairly sure my parents would have said the same, though they're not here to ask now anyway.

Cosmicglitterpug · 06/12/2016 08:23

Asking the father for 'permission'. No, obviously not. The rest of it; I can't get worked up about. My husband asked me to marry him after we had discussed getting married, no one decided for me. I wouldn't say it was a 'horrific inequality' in our relationship.

Hockneypool · 06/12/2016 08:25

YokoUhOh I agree with you too. Never got engaged - it's a tradition that makes me shudder. But I thought I was pretty alone in thinking that.

MilkTwoSugarsThanks · 06/12/2016 08:27

Yoko - lotta's "urgh" and "double urgh" comes across as very judgemental.

EBearhug · 06/12/2016 08:51

But isn't getting engaged just an agreement that you're getting married, but haven't got there yet? It doesn't have to include a ring or a party, just like a wedding doesn't have to include a white dress, 500 guests and a massive reception.

Trills · 06/12/2016 09:05

(Usually) man goes to woman's father to ask for her hand in marriage - so woman being passed from man to man.

I don't think that's usual these days.

I thought you were going to be talking about people agreeing to get engaged - but not counting themselves as actually engaged until there has been a big performance of a proposal - even thought they have agreed that they will, so they are engaged (they've agreed they are going to get married).

Datun · 06/12/2016 09:21

It's about commitment I think. I suppose someone's got to raise it first. Whether it's musing about something to 'tell the grandchildren' or 'next years holiday/Christmas'.

At some point in the relationship you start talking about things happening not just next Saturday night, but further into the future.

I bought a flat with my (then) boyfriend which frankly felt like the biggest commitment ever, because of the financial implications (I found it a lot more nerve wracking signing the mortgage, than I did saying 'I do').

After that it was fairly obvious we were committed.

He made a complete balls up of the proposal anyway so while he was standing there waiting for my answer I was pissing myself laughing.

He didn't ask permission from anyone though. I certainly wouldn't have liked that. I think it's pretty outdated these days.

amispartacus · 06/12/2016 09:27

Woman having to wait around to be asked, and appear delighted when asked

There's no reason why anyone in a relationship can't ask the other person to marry them.

You only are expected to appear to be delighted if you are delighted. I believe some people say no when people ask them if they want to marry them.

user1475253854 · 06/12/2016 09:31

I find it a bit weird. And the whole "flashing the ring" type pictures. I feel like I'm expected to coo over somebody's ring (not a big ask I know, but still a bit weird). When it's happened at work in the past it then feels like we should all be aspiring to that (the single women present). But that's just my personal experience.

Bagina · 06/12/2016 09:31

It's shit. Decide to get married and book it. No further fuss required. And it's a marriage not a wedding. I'm sure we're going backwards...

Original poster

YokoUhOh · 06/12/2016 09:34

All salient points, thank you. It's a spectrum, as with everything else in life!

There's unfairness on both sides; it costs 'the man' a bomb to buy a far rock, unless you go halves I suppose. It just got me thinking how it's not always a very equal start to a relationship, and how some women might feel beholden in some cases.

OP posts:

amispartacus · 06/12/2016 09:34

You don't see men gushing about getting engaged? Why don't men get a ring as well so they can show all their friends?

How much of it is the expectation that women must get married and have a fairy tale wedding?

Lottapianos · 06/12/2016 09:39

Spot on Bagina.

I don't think asking the woman's father for permission is standard but its not unusual either. I've known of a few women at work whose partners asked their dads before proposing and heard much cooing from other women in the office about how lovely it all was

Milk, call me judgemental if you like. I know that's the worst thing you can be accused of round here, but to me it just means using your judgement to form an opinion. I keep those opinions to myself in real life, but I would think sharing them on an anonymous online forum is fair enough

Lottapianos · 06/12/2016 09:40

'it just got me thinking how it's not always a very equal start to a relationship, and how some women might feel beholden in some cases.'

Very good point.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 06/12/2016 09:42

I tend to think that the wedding industry / women's media are pushing the whole engagement / wedding thing at the moment, and emphasising older traditions as being somehow romantic. I mean, take those awful public proposals and all. I agree that much to do with engagement / marriage is based on some very old and very patriarchal (and in the literal sense of the word) customs and conventions and some of the symbolism makes me go ''ewwwww' too. How much of this carries over to the modern day I really don't know, but I've probably been spending too long in 'Relationsships' because I'm increasingly of the view that the past is lingering in many ways to do with domestic labour, childcare, her giving up work, his job coming first, etc. ...

NotCitrus · 06/12/2016 09:44

If "getting engaged" is merely a synonym for "we've decided we want to get married and are going to organise a wedding", I've no problem with it. It's the "romantic" aspects of man dictating time and place, a huge amount of money going in a ring, pressure to accept a fait accompli, and any actual feeling from fathers that their permission is relevant - that stuff I find a bit creepy.

My dad is a traditionalist even when he knows it's illogical, so I suggested MrNC go ask him what he thought about us getting married - he was all in favour and told him so.
MrNC: That's good - as we would have gone and got married anyway.
Dad: I should hope so!

bobbinpop · 06/12/2016 09:45

It's not a judgment of individuals, OP is inviting a discussion of societal norms. This can't be seen as 'judgmental.'

yoko I agree. It simply doesn't fit with how I view relationships and marriage. I also don't understand why taking a man's name is still (largely) the accepted practice in the UK.

Original poster

YokoUhOh · 06/12/2016 09:49

If we look at the act itself, control and coercion is kind-of built into it. I mean, if it's assumed the woman will agree to get married, then why the need to propose/wait for a proposal?

(I know the answer to this: it's tradition in a patriarchal society).

OP posts:

Manumission · 06/12/2016 09:51

I don't know. If think betrothal has a slightly better history for women than weddings do. Engagement was the stage at which the contract was thrashed out, so women (of high enough background) had some value and even some agency at that stage.

Maybe we should consciously treat it the same way today? A time for eyes-wide-open planning and negotiation.

ProseccoandPizza · 06/12/2016 09:51

Some women do propose though. I proposed to my DP on leap day this year with a cheapish plain steel band, by hiding in the pub we were running and leaving a note with a nerf gun. I literally shouted it at him as I fired one gun at him and then run away and carried on playing.

amispartacus · 06/12/2016 09:51

Shall we get married?
Ok

Job done

But then there'd be no ring to show off to your friends or to post on FB.

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