'Getting Engaged'

[YokoUhOh]

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).

The fact that 'Don't Tell The Bride' even exists as a concept tells us everything we need to know about the modern wedding!

WHats 'don't tell the bride'?

And what about the hen and stag nights?

Why do a couple who may have lived together for years need a night / weekend out with their male or female friends to get pissed, have (insert activity) etc before the big day?

You'd almost think there was a whole industry built up around it - and the expectations.

If you were to list all the current expectations from engagement to the wedding, there'd be a lot.

A TV programme where the (hapless) groom organises the wedding

Sorry was at the concept, not you datun

WHats 'don't tell the bride

Basically the bloke organises EVERYTHING. Sometimes it does not meet the bride's expectations.

There's always a wedding car sequence with the bride in a dress that the groom had to re-order (because his choice was obviously wrong), screeching 'OH NO! NOT SILVERSTONE! I DON'T WANT TO GET MARRIED IN AN F1 HOSPITALITY SUITE!'

again

The idea that getting married/ not getting married are equivalent when you have children completely ignores the law. There is no such thing as a common law marriage in the U.K. If you take time off work to raise kids and only his name is in the mortgage, then you're fucked if he dumps you. You don't qualify for widowed allowances and current changes to universal credit give a hell of a lot of power to men in relationships at the expense of women. This is without addressing the research that is unequivocal that mullenial men spend considerably less time doing housework and caring for the children than their own fathers did.

It's not unsurprising that the idea of weddings being huge romantic gestures ((involving lots of money) are increasing at a time when women's legal rights under the law are being curtailed.

thatstewie I definitely support the notion of civil partnerships for hetero couples

Haha. Ok. They do deliberately pick the most cringe-worthy people for reality shows though.

Years ago a friend was asked to do a TV show about his wedding. He was promised the earth and how wonderful it would make the couple look, but it gradually dawned on him that they were encouraging some really awful decisions.

(he declined in the end, however some awful decisions remained...)

thatstewie I hadn't heard of that re millennial men and housework/raising children etc, that's depressing interesting. Can you link anything or tell me where to find it?

I absolutely hate the idea of asking a woman's father for permission to ask her to marry. I also hate the idea of fathers giving their daughters away.

Dh and I made a decision to get married together and then had a really small wedding. ( There's a reason for that but won't go into it now.) No one gave me away.

I've only read the OP. I agree with you, OP - I also fundamentally don't get why people in relationships that haven't traditionally been freighted with patriarchal 'traditions' would voluntarily embrace them, and actually my gay friends haven't by and large - they have embraced deeply untraditional and egalitarian weddings and civil partnerships without the traditional trappings (and which, by their nature make the whole asking paternal permission/giving the bride away/brides not making speeches guff look extra-reactionary in comparison)..

BUT I recognise that it's not my call, and that even though I think that 'getting engaged' in the context of a longterm, committed relationship is meaningless (and if straight couples had been allowed to enter into civil partnerships, my now-DH and I would have opted for that over marriage), gay couples can and do find embracing some of those traditions legitimising.

DH and I are straight, and only got married because there was a pressing practical issue that marriage resolved. No proposal, no ring, no wedding - we just went down to the registry office with two friends, all wearing ordinary street clothes, and had a boozy lunch afterwards.

I "got engaged" this year OP and I agree with you that the whole concept is a bit strange.

We'd already discussed wanting to get married in the next few years, had discussions over type of wedding and daft things like favours, so I considered us kind of engaged anyway. DP wanted to do the proposal thing with the ring, but did it in a "let's make it official" way rather than grandly bestowing the privilege!

However despite the low key nature of proposal, and the fact DP has so far been the main driver of booking venue etc, I've had so many people reacting as though I've finally caught him, expressing shock at the fact that DP is being involved (and let's not get onto the fact I'm not changing my name... mother).

I don't feel like our relationship has changed, we own a house, have been planning on children etc, nothing is now different but people's reactions to us are and I'm finding it all a bit disconcerting to be honest. (And YES to the speeches at the wedding - I'm paying for half, I'm bloody well going to be saying something!)

'Why do a couple who may have lived together for years need a night / weekend out with their male or female friends to get pissed, have (insert activity) etc before the big day?'

I agree so much! Its almost as if you're being carted off to prison and being determined to enjoy your last night of freedom!

Yoko, there is a case going through the courts right now, challenging the ban on opposite sex civil partnerships as being unlawful. I really hope they are successful.

My MIL writes 'first name only' on all my correspondence! She can't bring herself to use my maiden name aka my name

I don't mind the "squeee I'm engaged!" thing, but I find it a bit weird when people are already mortgaged up together.
My neighbours collared me by the bins with some "amazing news!"...They are engaged! (Squee! ) flash of the Ring, "he asked me on holiday..!"They live together, in a house they both own...could marriage plans really be such a massive surprise?
My chap has told me he wants to marry me, but knows I'm not ready, so he said he's going to wait for me to propose. And he wants a ring
When I'm ready to be caught, he might get one!

I find the 'squee I'm engaged' thing ok if I know both parties, but quite a few times I've found I'm supposed to be very excited for someone and I've not even met their other half. Like I should be delighted just at the fact they are getting married and it's the "getting engaged/married" that is the important bit, not the finding a partner with reciprocal love/respect etc. Writing that down makes me sound really grumpy! I promise I pretend to be delighted in person.

Thinking about it more, over the years I've been on MN I have seen loads of posts from women who desperately want a proposal from their other half and get so upset when they haven't proposed.

Or worse still won't propose / marry them.

snowflake absolutely. And - worse - women completely under the control of abusive men, who swept them off their feet with fairytale promises.

Snowflake, my sister was like this with her ex. Pretty much told him that she was expecting a proposal in the next 6 months (they had been together for a couple of years). She was also expecting him to spend a certain amount on the ring, I think it was 3 months salary He unfortunately was not on the same page as her, and his psychic powers were not great (like most of us!), so he missed the window. She gave him a 6 month extension, he missed it again. He was a nice bloke but quite fragile emotionally and I think he was overwhelmed by her expectations and just couldn't go for it. They split up and she's very happy with someone else now, who bought her a big rock which she flashes about very proudly.

I agree that the wedding industry is responsible for much of the nonsense surrounding weddings, including the proposal as a Big Thing. DH and I were married 30+ years ago, and the decision to marry was one that just emerged as our relationship progressed. And there was no notion at all of asking my father for permission. Also, I was walked down the aisle by my father but there was no "giving away" in the service.

As others have pointed out, many wedding traditions have deeply patriarchal roots (wearing a veil, for example), and the wedding industry perpetuates many of them.

And now there's a whole lot of industry nonsense around having a baby as well. Sex (I refuse to say "gender") reveal parties, anyone?

Sex reveal parties are utter bollocks. I'd love to go to one and shout 'IT'S A BOY!!!' when the pink cake is revealed or whatever they do at those things...

I don't mind the "squeee I'm engaged!" thing, but I find it a bit weird when people are already mortgaged up together. My neighbours collared me by the bins with some "amazing news!"...They are engaged! (Squee! ) flash of the Ring, "he asked me on holiday..!"They live together, in a house they both own...could marriage plans really be such a massive surprise?

This cracks me up when I read a particular magazine from my home country, which I tend to encounter at the hairdresser's when I'm visiting my parents. It has sort of 'society pages' that do wedding coverage - a mini-article and three or four photos that I believe you pay through the nose for. But the formula is always the same:

'He whisked me off to Paris on a romantic weekend,' says happy bride Sarah, flashing her diamond solitaire and beaming at her new husband David. 'Imagine my surprise when he went down on one knee under the Eiffel Tower/got the waiter to hide the ring in my dessert/handed me a ring box and a red rose beside the Seine! I couldn't BELIEVE it! I burst into tears and immediately said YES!'

And then you glance at the photos (which always include one of all the six bridesmaids standing with one leg sticking out and one hand on their hip, and a 'novelty' one of the bride and groom chasing one another through a wood or leading a horse along a beach) and see that the bride and groom have three children aged ten, eight and four together, and returned from honeymoon to their Lovely Home in X, which they've clearly lived in together for aeons, so hardly that much of a 'surprise'.

I mean the original point of 'engagement' in less libera/more patriarchal times was that the man had his finances vetted by the woman's father, you declared your (new) feelings for one another, the ring and publicity meant you took one another off the market in front of witnesses, and chaperonage was relaxed to an extent because you were publicly betrothed, and now allowed to get to know one another a bit. Which is why those 'breach of promise' suits from engaged girls' fathers' were such a thing if the fiancé broke it off.

I proposed to DH during sex

We chose the ring together on ebay, bought the ¡pink! dress on ebay, bought our plain rings in a local jeweller's together. Got married in a registry office. My dad walked me in, my sister walked DH in because it should have been his mum, but his mum was in the advanced stages of alzheimers by then.

Unconventional dress, purple shoes, no speeches, no name-changeing, no veil.

Definitely no asking my dad's permission, I'd have flipped! Oh, and we payed for everything ourselves.

I think for some tradition just becomes the 'norm', it doesn't mean they are all brainwashed nincompoops!