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?

@HermioneKipper

Sounds like you have the wrong friends and/or the wrong husband.

It’s the same as everything. Make sure you pick the right person before making monumental life changing decisions eg having children.

And if you do pick the wrong person then at least marriage will partly protect you from financial ruin. As having kids tends to fuck your career right up.

This is similar to the point that I was making to another poster who was talking about division of domestic chores as a social issue, when really it’s down to the decision you make as an individual on who you decide to get married to.

No, I’m not married.

How old are you, seriously??

Go do some reading and stop obsessing over small things in your own life. I can see you are well intentioned, but you are also fretting about a load of nonsense and missing all key points - as literally every poster on this thread is telling you.

Reading list above. Have fun.

@Sickoffamilydrama

OP I think you should reconsider your social circle if married women are lording it over the unmarried women.

If you'd been listening to me the other day you'd have heard me say to my DDs if you plan on having kids with someone get married first otherwise you have no legal or financial protection. Obviously I could have said civil partnership or married.

I would prefer children particularly girls are taught the legal and financial importance of marriage/civil partnership. You still hear people talking about common law wife/husband which just doesn't exist. I've just had a friend whose partner died (in tragic circumstances) luckily she got his pension but she had no right to it but because of the circumstances of his death she got it. She would have been left with 3 very young kids to support.
Same when I was a funeral director the law is very clear a partner no matter how long the relationship is very low on the legal pecking order, regarding rights to arrange a funeral, top of the list however is husband/wife.

See, the financial protection argument doesn’t make sense to me either because a lot of women now earn more than their male partners. Plenty of women are also in relationships with men with fewer assets than them. So what is financial protection would they would be gaining?

This is clearly personal. Sorry you’re feeling left behind as friends or family are coupling up.

I would also ask - do you therefore consider marriage or civil partnership to be redundant?
Do you not think two people committing to each other long-term of any merit?
What are you arguing for, exactly, if you don't agree with marriage?
What is it you are aiming for as a successful alternative of living one's life?

-, apart from the usual mix of lifestyles and choices we are free to make for ourselves?

Just call yourself Mrs if you think that will give you status.

@AnneLovesGilbert

This is clearly personal. Sorry you’re feeling left behind as friends or family are coupling up.

Resorting to ad hominem arguments

@Luredbyapomegranate

No, I’m not married.

How old are you, seriously??

Go do some reading and stop obsessing over small things in your own life. I can see you are well intentioned, but you are also fretting about a load of nonsense and missing all key points - as literally every poster on this thread is telling you.

Reading list above. Have fun.

Thanks for the reading list.

Although if I was just going to repeat words and ideas that other more famous feminists have written, there would have been no point of making a new thread because these ideas have already been talked about here and elsewhere.

I agree this thread is so weird, you seem to be focusing on such superficial things. I'm not married, I don't want children so don't see the point, but I can understand why someone who did want children would choose to be married first.

See, the financial protection argument doesn’t make sense to me either because a lot of women now earn more than their male partners. Plenty of women are also in relationships with men with fewer assets than them. So what is financial protection would they would be gaining?

OP, can you seriously not see how taking time out of a career to have children would negatively impact on a woman's career?
Young women often outdo their male counterparts in University, and when they start out as graduates, it's mainly when they get to childbearing years that they fall behind in earnings and promotion.

Can you not understand that there are biological and cultural/sociological reasons for this? It's not as simple as 'family choices' or however you put it.

Although if I was just going to repeat words and ideas that other more famous feminists have written, there would have been no point of making a new thread because these ideas have already been talked about here and elsewhere.

@AnneLovesGilbert

This is clearly personal. Sorry you’re feeling left behind as friends or family are coupling up.

Hmm, this clearly displays the attitudes I have been describing in this thread. Here we have a married woman, sneering and suggesting that unmarried women are “left behind”.

Your comment doesn’t affect me personally because you know nothing about my personal life AnneLovesGilbert but I find it interesting how getting married is viewed as moving forward, whereas not being married is viewed as being “left behind”. Also implying jealousy towards married women - now, would that be? What would a married woman have that would leave an unmarried woman feeling left behind? Male validation - public validation that a man finds you attractive/desirable/worthy/sexy etc. Which proves the point I’ve been making throughout this thread.

Funny how you ever see a men implying other men are jealous of them for managing to get a woman to marry them.

@CreepingDeath

I agree this thread is so weird, you seem to be focusing on such superficial things. I'm not married, I don't want children so don't see the point, but I can understand why someone who did want children would choose to be married first.

See, the financial protection argument doesn’t make sense to me either because a lot of women now earn more than their male partners. Plenty of women are also in relationships with men with fewer assets than them. So what is financial protection would they would be gaining?

OP, can you seriously not see how taking time out of a career to have children would negatively impact on a woman's career?
Young women often outdo their male counterparts in University, and when they start out as graduates, it's mainly when they get to childbearing years that they fall behind in earnings and promotion.

Can you not understand that there are biological and cultural/sociological reasons for this? It's not as simple as 'family choices' or however you put it.

But who said all women leave their careers or take 5-10 year career breaks to have and raise children? I feel like MN people know lots of stay at home mums because it’s quite common for women to return to work after having kids and working mums are very common.

It’s not as simple as “family choices”?

[quote DaisiesandButtercups]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[/quote]
@DaisiesandButtercups I had never heard that view before but it fits really well with the way I have analysed things.

I feel that women have lost grounds/safety in the last 20 years. We’ve been asked to live by the same standards than men ( re working p, being financially independent) whilst still being expected to do all the ‘woman’s work’.
All the while, we’ve been told that we need to find The One, still having this idea that somehow the perfect partner exists somewhere.

I think marriage is essential because it gives a layer of safety.

Let’s be honest there, we have no idea what the future can hold. A family with two parents means that I t’s easier to weather the ups and downs life throws at you. Like a chronic illness (one that has stopped me from working more than a few hours a week for the last 15 years).

Marriage as a legal document protect women in case of separation.

And it makes (still a bit) things fairer. If you end up splitting up, you still have half of whatever you create TOGETHER. It still recognises that your now not so dear H could carry on with his carrer because you stepped up re parenting etc…
Because it’s not just career breaks that affects women. It’s the wage gap. It’s the time off on ML. It’s the lack of availability to stay later, travel, less opportunities etc…

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

Women who get married and give up their independence are the naive ones. Correct about it never being about romance, or social standing - it was brought in to stop women from being able to escape with the kids or the contents of the house. Marriage Act 1853. All they were allowed to take were the clothes they stood up in. The need for refuges still today proves that this does not work for many women.

Funny how you ever see a men implying other men are jealous of them for managing to get a woman to marry them.

Ever heard of incels? Their entire (twisted) world view is based on the notion that being non-celibate is an extraordinary social privilege.
So if you think men don't care about being single, you don't get out much...

Now do they care as much about marriage? Probably not. But mostly because they've managed to convinced enough ill-informed women that "common law marriage" is a thing, and cohabiting offers just the same legal protection as being married... except of course it doesn't. Just need to read the Relationships board to see the dire consequences of that state of affairs.

So... shitting on marriage? Sounds pretty anti-feminist to me.

@RobotValkyrie

Funny how you ever see a men implying other men are jealous of them for managing to get a woman to marry them.

Ever heard of incels? Their entire (twisted) world view is based on the notion that being non-celibate is an extraordinary social privilege.
So if you think men don't care about being single, you don't get out much...

Now do they care as much about marriage? Probably not. But mostly because they've managed to convinced enough ill-informed women that "common law marriage" is a thing, and cohabiting offers just the same legal protection as being married... except of course it doesn't. Just need to read the Relationships board to see the dire consequences of that state of affairs.

So... shitting on marriage? Sounds pretty anti-feminist to me.

I was talking about married men. As in you don’t usually see them lording their personal decisions over single men, or implying that single men are jealous of them or “left behind”.

@Luredbyapomegranate

‘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.’

🤣 ok… if you think that prejudice against single women by married women, or women to women bullying are bigger societal issues than domestic labour, childcare, parental leave, and post-divorce financial arrangements, then a) you aren’t ‘new to feminism’ you haven’t got a clue what it means and b) you haven’t got a clue how the world works.

I’m guessing you are very young, or I fucking hope you are, or I’m seriously worried about you… 😁

Yup.

@NewFem You address other’s comments, but not my questions?

@LostForIdeas

I think marriage is essential because it gives a layer of safety.

Let’s be honest there, we have no idea what the future can hold. A family with two parents means that I t’s easier to weather the ups and downs life throws at you. Like a chronic illness (one that has stopped me from working more than a few hours a week for the last 15 years).

Marriage as a legal document protect women in case of separation.

And it makes (still a bit) things fairer. If you end up splitting up, you still have half of whatever you create TOGETHER. It still recognises that your now not so dear H could carry on with his carrer because you stepped up re parenting etc…
Because it’s not just career breaks that affects women. It’s the wage gap. It’s the time off on ML. It’s the lack of availability to stay later, travel, less opportunities etc…

There's some really huge generalisations in that post.

Marriage doesn't always protect women.

Women don't always give up work to look after kids while their partner or husbands goes from strength to strength.

Wether marriage is a good idea, depends hugely on your personal circumstances. Ita good for some not for others.

Getting married would be huge financial gamble for me. We aren't having kids (I have 2) and me and dp have built a life together. But marriage wouldn't protect me at all.

@Shedmistress

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

Women who get married and give up their independence are the naive ones. Correct about it never being about romance, or social standing - it was brought in to stop women from being able to escape with the kids or the contents of the house. Marriage Act 1853. All they were allowed to take were the clothes they stood up in. The need for refuges still today proves that this does not work for many women.

If you look, you may find that marriage has moved on a bit.

Refuges are not only for married women.

And to restate - marriage is a choice. It’s not compulsory. There are other lifestyles to pursue.

I like civil partnerships. It doesn't mean the white dress, being given away, all the cookie cutter traditions, but you can do whatever you want and still be recognised & protected in law as a true, equal partnership

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.

You do realise you can get married without a wedding? Also unless you are talking post World War where women far out numbered men due to the millions killed on battlefields, I don’t see women “competing” for men. The whole idea that women all want marriage is very old school patriarchal in my opinion.

Married women are seen and treated better than single women societally.
Hah hah hah hah. No we are not. Married women in general are seen as housemaid, sex kitten, nurse and nanny on demand. Those that have weddings, yes they get a few hours to pretend they are a Disney Princess, but that’s not how many marriages actually are. Granted some are fulfilling, equal partnerships, but with 50% ending in divorce at least half are the live in servant type I listed. And that doesn’t even touch on society’s view! There have been numerous occasions where my husband had been deferred to such as negotiating to buy a car, or viewing a house to buy, or even jokes when buying clothes “see you’re off spending all his money wink wink”

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.

Just, no. Being married isn’t a step up in status. Unless you marry a Prince and get to be called Her Royal Highness....