feel like I’m turning into an anti-marriage feminist

[NewFem]

So, I’m new to feminism but I’ve been having some thoughts about marriage and how it relates to women as a whole.

Marriage, I think, turns women against each other. Everything from weddings (making other women feel bad by not choosing them to be your bridesmaid for some nonsensical reason), to marital life itself is about women competing with each other and using their marital status (i.e. their relationship with a man) to one up another woman. Married women are seen and treated better than single women societally. They are showered with gifts for their wedding, for example and everyone must stop and celebrate their special day. When a woman gets married, all other women are expected to uplift her for finding a man in her life.

Whereas you rarely see any of the above I mentioned between married men and single men. Married men’s title remains Mr just like single men, nearly all married men keep their last name. Married women are distinguished above single women.

Overall I feel like marriage is a tool that brings divide amongst women and the reason why you see so many women aspiring for marriage or refusing to let go of this patriarchal institution is because of the elevated status that marriage gives them over other women. There’s no other patriarchal creation that I can think of that women - including some who call themselves feminists - generally defend so strongly. I believe the status it gives them over other women is the reason why.

Thoughts?

I agree op. On mn lots of women love to lord up their dh big job etc over other women. As a (never married) single mum I have been subjected to so many awful comments like how it would be better if I’d had an abortion! Faod I was always the higher earner so don’t need to marry to care for my children. Many women still aim to «marry well» rather than to achieve their own success. It’s not a feminist position.

I would rather see a decent child support system and an end to the idea that marriage is a meal ticket for life.

And don’t start me on changing your name. How ridiculous is all that

I don’t know if it sets women against women but there’s been studies that report marriage isn’t great for women’s mental health.

From a personal point of view I just have a deep horror at the thought of being a wife (which I can’t explain) although I have no problem with anyone else choosing marriage if that’s what they want.

@CayrolBaaaskin

I agree op. On mn lots of women love to lord up their dh big job etc over other women. As a (never married) single mum I have been subjected to so many awful comments like how it would be better if I’d had an abortion! Faod I was always the higher earner so don’t need to marry to care for my children. Many women still aim to «marry well» rather than to achieve their own success. It’s not a feminist position.

I would rather see a decent child support system and an end to the idea that marriage is a meal ticket for life.

I agree, the bragging about their dh six figure job is to me for a message board with so many feminists. Exactly, I agree completely with your last sentence, it would be so much better to have decent child support system rather than relying on marriage for “protection”.

Have a look here for a different perspective

reactionaryfeminist.com/2021/12/08/abolish-big-romance/

I am tending more towards Mary’s ideas on marriage nowadays.

Hook up culture is certainly not a feminist movement. Casual sex turns out to be unfulfilling and dangerous for most women.

And this podcast
The Same Drugs getpodcast.com/uk/podcast/the-same-drugs/danielle-crittenden-frum-on-feminism-marriage-and-gender-roles-in-the-_b309a11dd2

I remain in favour of a proper support system for single mothers and their children despite seeing marriage more in a more positive light as I have been exposed to other perspectives.

No. Marriage provides a solid legal and economic framework for planning a future a with another person and raising children with that person.

The weddings and gifts and all the trappings are superficial nonsense.

The real power is in the legal contract. To understand that, just look at who still gets married. Well educated, high earning women marry other well educated high earning men. Together they are able to form an economic powerhouse and leverage their individual strengths to typically produce other well educated high earning individuals. Without that contract you don’t have the joint asset stipulation that helps compensate for the fact that women are the ones who give birth.

Women who are eschewing marriage are naive at best. It was never about romance or social standing.

Marriage turns women against each other?!

I don't even know where to start unpacking that.

You do realise big ceremonies and parties and dresses are 100% optional don't you?

Marriage gives legal rights and protections which are absolutely critical for women and children.

The rest of it is just faux drama. It's odd that you wouldn't have noticed that OP. The amount of manufactured drama in the media / society really is insane.

I am anti-marriage but not for the same reasons as you which I think are frankly ridiculous. You seem to be talking about weddings and superficial elements of them rather than marriage itself.

Marriage is an overhang of a patriarchal society that disincentivises women from being financially independent. I don’t believe a heterosexual nuclear family is the only environment to raise children or the only way to live - I’d much prefer to see things like free or heavily subsidised childcare and a universal basic income, and other set-ups (single mothers house-sharing together, gay friends co-parenting but living apart, communal living, single households etc) normalised and held in the same regard as the nuclear family, e.g. no lifestyle is superior to another.

Men are still excused from the vast majority of parenting and household duties by societal expectations, and workplaces and general pervading ‘traditional’ beliefs encourage this. Without marriage, women wouldn’t be beholden to men. Women would plan their lives with the expectation of supporting themselves first and foremost, and relationships and motherhood would be genuine choices, not something they become trapped by.

Marriage is an overhang of a patriarchal society that disincentivises women from being financially independent. I don’t believe a heterosexual nuclear family is the only environment to raise children or the only way to live

I don't think this is an argument against marriage. I think it's an argument for widening the meaning of marriage. I think an exclusive partnership of support and interdependence is useful for many humans, and I believe you should be able to confer the "benefits", if you like, of marriage (such as tax breaks, legal protection around property, expectation of support with shared children etc) onto any relationship- asexual, romantic, emotionally supportive etc. I think a pair of heterosexual single mothers or sisters, for example, should be allowed to form an exclusive partnership where each is protected if the other dies or leaves.

I don't think a sexual or romantic attraction is a good basis for building a life together, necessarily.

Most insidious is the 'only a piece of paper' take on marriage. So women, be it their own idea or their partners', end up living and rearing children in a simulacrum of the traditional structure, without any of the legal protections that go with it. It's immensely frustrating.

My marriage made me anti-marriage

I think it can lull women into a false sense of financial security. Even with a divorce settlement most women are still more screwed financially if they have given up work or compromised their earnings when their partner hasn't.

I now think its best to keep your complete financial independence and security. Always be able to move on if you need to.

@FakeFruitShoot

Marriage is an overhang of a patriarchal society that disincentivises women from being financially independent. I don’t believe a heterosexual nuclear family is the only environment to raise children or the only way to live

I don't think this is an argument against marriage. I think it's an argument for widening the meaning of marriage. I think an exclusive partnership of support and interdependence is useful for many humans, and I believe you should be able to confer the "benefits", if you like, of marriage (such as tax breaks, legal protection around property, expectation of support with shared children etc) onto any relationship- asexual, romantic, emotionally supportive etc. I think a pair of heterosexual single mothers or sisters, for example, should be allowed to form an exclusive partnership where each is protected if the other dies or leaves.

I don't think a sexual or romantic attraction is a good basis for building a life together, necessarily.

That’s a fair point. That is the kind of thing I’d like to see - weirdly I don’t feel the same anti-sentiment about civil partnerships and I think if people want those legal protections whether they’re friends, siblings or whatever, that should be normalised

I am actually going to go a bit against the grain here. I think it depends on how marriage is defined and executed.

For me it is about having a partnership where both parties take joint decisions to benefit the family unit. It may mean that one person works shorter hours to facilitate child care. It may mean that both partners reduce their hours. I think ultimately women need to be responsible for ensuring that they maintain their independence but I don’t see anything wrong with marriage as an institution at all (although I have no time for weddings, wedding dresses, etc).

Actually, one of my friends is a high income earner. Her husband is a nurse who has reduced his hours in order to be able to pick up their children from school. My friend considers herself very lucky with this support and she contributes to his pension savings.

@Blossom64265

No. Marriage provides a solid legal and economic framework for planning a future a with another person and raising children with that person.

The weddings and gifts and all the trappings are superficial nonsense.

The real power is in the legal contract. To understand that, just look at who still gets married. Well educated, high earning women marry other well educated high earning men. Together they are able to form an economic powerhouse and leverage their individual strengths to typically produce other well educated high earning individuals. Without that contract you don’t have the joint asset stipulation that helps compensate for the fact that women are the ones who give birth.

Women who are eschewing marriage are naive at best. It was never about romance or social standing.

This.

Only worth it for the tax benefits which apply to high incomes. I see no reason why marriage should have any fiscal advantage, speaking as someone in a lesbian relationship for 38 years without getting married or having civil partnership.

Have a civil partnership? I'm doing this - as a pp has said, being a mother of children you're exposed if you're not legally bound to their father and you can gain this legal binding in the form of a civil partnership these days. We intend to have one just us, no fuss, just signing a document. It's not about romance, it's about practicalities.

Im anti marriage because i earnt more than ex, did all the childcare and still had to give him shit loads of money in the divorce for him being a lying, cheating head-fuck of a scumbag and i still do most of the childcare whilst he swans around doing what he wants.

You are missing the main point here - there's fairly good evidence marriage is bad for women's health - but that's because they put their husband and kids first, and take on a huge amount of wife and mum work, not because of other women. You are making way too much of the other women thing, which is sexist in itself.

The trouble is, if you are planning to have kids, marriage is some financial protection, because motherhood is really fucking bad for your financial health.

So, I'd worry about male/female child care splits, excessive working hours, insanely expensive childcare, prejudice against mothers in the workplace, alone time before I'd fret about female competitiveness and name changing.

Your OP sounds more anti-women than marriage does. "Making other women feel bad by not choosing them to be your bridesmaid for some nonsensical reason"? It sounds like you and/or your friends need to grow up.

I agree with the PPs saying marriage is there to give legal protections to women as part of the forming of a household partnership. Look at all the women on MN talking about their useless "partners" who do nothing and have no obligations to them, even while the woman is acting as wife to them. A marriage contract makes it a legal partnership.

You can go and do this at the registry office for a few quid and not tell anyone, if you don't like all the modern fuss.

Oh, and Mrs just used to mean a grown woman in charge of things. I use Mrs with my maiden name for a lot of things, and I use my married name for family social things.

@Luredbyapomegranate re: evidence that marriage is bad for women's health, do you know how cohabiting "living as married" women fit into this? I can't imagine they fare any better? See, I can understand people saying "let's do away with the marriage set-up and live in communes" or whatever. What I can't understand is people saying "let's change nothing about how we live except forego the legal protections".

I am neither against or for marriage.

I think wethwe it's beneficial to you, really depends on the circumstances. I am against it for me.

Bit quite frankly, alot of what you say is about how society views women, not marriages itself.

And alot of it don't recognise in relation to any women I know.

@Luredbyapomegranate

You are missing the main point here - there's fairly good evidence marriage is bad for women's health - but that's because they put their husband and kids first, and take on a huge amount of wife and mum work, not because of other women. You are making way too much of the other women thing, which is sexist in itself.

The trouble is, if you are planning to have kids, marriage is some financial protection, because motherhood is really fucking bad for your financial health.

So, I'd worry about male/female child care splits, excessive working hours, insanely expensive childcare, prejudice against mothers in the workplace, alone time before I'd fret about female competitiveness and name changing.

Honestly, I don’t really care about any of the stuff you mentioned because those things are mostly private family decisions. What I’m talking about is more societal issues, things that affect women as a whole. Single women face prejudice from society and that prejudice mainly comes from other women, married women in particular. There’s nothing sexist about pointing that out. Competition for men is what’s behind most female to female bullying. The perceived (and also real) status that marriage gives a woman socially is what drives women to aspire for marriage in the first place. I’ve also never heard of a woman giving “financial protection” as the reason for wanting to get married (apart from the women here on mumsnet). It’s all about showing off to others that you’ve been picked by a man and that a man finds you more desirable (sexually attractive) than other women that drives most of the marital desire.

Outside of MN I’ve never, ever heard a woman say she getting married for financial security or that she is planning to give up work after she has children.

You are making way too much of the other women thing, which is sexist in itself.

You are. And you’re pretending men don’t get as involved in stag dos - way more in my experience than women do in hen dos! - and weddings. Three of the biggest most ridiculous weddings I’ve been to were driven by the grooms wanting a big fat wedding.

You’re still mostly talking about weddings and not marriage.

And gifts/celebration aren’t confined to weddings. People do this for house purchases, new jobs, babies, promotions, even divorces.