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 think it is a reasonably common trope in films/TV that a woman who gets proposed to by her boyfriend has made it in some way. But I think a lot of that is that finding a partner and commit to a life together is a reasonably common life goal, especially in the movies. Obviously it is not the only goal people have, not least because the day after the honeymoon people would then be at a bit of a loose end!

So I don't think it's a completely ridiculous, but when I think of the real people in my life married and unmarried and single, I don't see a hierarchy. I understand that sometimes relatives can bug single people about whether they have found "the one" yet.

But, I do wonder if this is a perception thing. Before I learned to drive (in my 30s) I had this feeling that I had failed somehow because my older sister had learned when she was 17, so I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder that I wasn't properly an adult yet because I had missed that rite of passage. I thought other people might think less of me or that I would be rubbish at it. But now I can drive, I can see that it is just a skill that I hadn't worked on before for various reasons and it didn't really mark me out as anything but someone who hadn't learned to drive yet.

So I can see how, if you have no intention of marrying or just haven't done it yet, you might feel like you have a neon sign above your head saying "unmarried" like I did with "nondriver" but most people on the other side of that line really don't think about it that much.

If the people around you do think it's some sort of status symbol and treat you poorly then they are weird!

I'm a bit jealous of single friends tbh. Marriages are about much more than the wedding day, and they aren't always easy/fun.

Is society set up for coupledom, certainly things like buying a house are easier with two - though we haven't managed to buy. Hollywood is pretty obsessed by romance etc. I get that as a criticism, if it feel like pressure.

I think whilst like most things male, single men probably do have an easier time of it than single women, especially in modern times. There have been expectations on them too, married men were seen as more stable and trustworthy - whether that was because of homophobia or just generally feeling that men with responsibilities were more responsible than younger men without. NASA's original astronauts back in the Mercury program were family men (one who was separating from his wife felt the need to pretend everything was okay in his marriage to keep his spot in the programme).

I'm not saying that's as common, but it's not unheard of.

And yes, house warming parties are a thing (pre Covid anyway).

Weddings, socially, function as an opportunity for the families to bond and for the couple to feel the wider support network around them. The guests at weddings (especially close relatives) get an oxytocin boost, the same chemistry that helps parents bond with their children.

Wedding gifts were originally about a young couple setting up their first home together, but may seem less meaningful when adults have living independently from their parents, alone or together, beforehand.

Do you think your observations about weddings and marriage apply to same sex relationships?

@Avarua

Hook up culture seems to be dreadful for both women and children though, so I'm not sure what the alternative is? The acceptance of uncommitted relationships in our culture is contributing to unfulfilling short-term liaisons, anxious children and to child poverty.

Disclaimer: This is my conclusion for the broad class of women and/or children, individual results may vary.

Don't you think hook up culture is a replay of 60s free love, 70s disco, and so on?

Whatever form ot takes it is always crap for women.

@Shedmistress

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

if you think that, more fool you. It is still traditonal to become your husband's property as soon as you sign on the dotted line; hence so many women taking their husbands's name, still, centuries later.

Oh fgs- I'm 100% against "taking my husband's name" but that is wild hyperbole.

@WhoIsBernieBrown

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.

This describes literally no woman I have ever known.

I agree marriage is flawed and weddings are often full of pomp, but your depiction of women competing against eachother for the manprize is bizarre, and very anti-feminist.

To be fair to the OP I was bullied in 4th year secondary school by a complete thug of a girl.

She was too stupid to realise that just because the hideous and equally thuggish boy she inexplicably was chasing after fancied me and not her, that I wouldn't have touched him with several 10 foot barge poles. Everyone involved was 16.

Sorry that happened to you @KimikosNightmare , it happens to a lot of girls too for the same reason unfortunately.

To people doubting this, here’s one research paper stating this exact same thing: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2013.0080

It’s not about getting married for money or men having more money than women. The reality is that many women do earn less than men. Many of those women will take time off work to raise children, even if it’s just for the first year. During that time, they are likely to earn less and often they will suffer in their careers. In a marriage, they at least have some protections if the relationship doesn’t work out.

I have tried responding in good faith but I must say your posts do come across quite sneery and condescending towards married women even though most of the ones who have replied to you have been perfectly polite.

Women get screwed over by marriage - it looks like more stable and secure, so we're more likely to make sacrifices "for the good of the family" (drop our own name, our own job ambitions etc). Except divorce, domestic violence, cheating etc still happen.

There's plenty of evidence marriage is good for men - makes them live longer, increases their earnings etc. Zero that it's good for women.

That's why weddings are a big deal - it sweetens the pill by making the bride a hero for one day.

IMHO.

Get married or don't, your decision, but always stay financially and mentally independent. And keep your name. Because you know who you marry but you never know the person you might divorce one day and the more you believe you're safe - the less safe you actually are.

@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. I've done very well out of my marriage thank you.

And I don't recognise this:

"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. "

At all. What are you talking about!?! Nonsense.

I refused to have children before I got married.
I definitely wanted some legal protection before embarking on something which could have left me
significantly financially vulnerable - not just through caring responsibilities, but if I'd suffered a serious birth injury. I'd imagine this is fairly common?

Looking at my own friendship group, people get married to have children. I think children bring the change in social status, not marriage.
And if anything, IMO being young & childless gives women far greater societal value than being a middle aged mum.

As for turning women against each other, I'd say marriage/motherhood has strengthened my friendships through shared experience. I didn't particularly bond with women pre-kids, now I have several groups of female friends.

I can only speak from my own perspective, but your theories are not representative of my experience of marriage in the UK at all.

@NewFem - I agree that men and women can come to their own arrangement re:domestic chores or being SAHP.

However certain things are weighed against women biologically. Some women have physical birth injuries or PND which may mean a longer recovery period is required on maternity leave. Some women are in jobs where there are inadequate breast pumping facilities - so face a choice of formula feeding or longer maternity leave. These are not situations that the man taking shared parental leave can equalize. Basically in these situations it is more likely overall for a couple to find it beneficial for the woman to take longer maternity leave than the man (all other things being equal). The longer maternity leave can mean greater financial disadvantage to the woman, so protection in the form of marriage contract can be helpful (though it’s not the only form of protection - eg the couple could agree to save and put aside a certain amount of money in the woman’s name before trying for a child).

Perhaps we should reframe marriage into a "pre-natal agreement"?
That's what it is, really.

Not RTFT but will.

Was interested in title.

There are many feminist arguments against the institution of marriage. It's an area that has been considered, written about, discussed etc from a feminist perspective for a long time. An interesting and contraversial area. A wealth of feminist writing with a massive range of views to dip into.

The points you make are... Devoid of any kind of feminist thought.

Your username is newfem. I think it would be worth reading some other feminist perspectives on marriage?

Because frankly your OP to me essentially boils down to. Women are horrible. Which is an unusual position for a feminist to take.

The wedding industry is over the top because like everything else, it's subject to the pressures of capitalism. It's destructive and silly, but hardly intrinsic to marriage.

As for some women looking down on others due to marriage status, yes it happens, in both directions, by people who are shits. The problem there isn't marriage it's shitty people. They always find someone to look down on.

More generally, marriage is, and probably should be more so, protective for women. At it's most basic it's about creating stable conditions for mothers, fathers, and the extended family to support the raising of children. It can be twisted in some societies to serve other purposes such as controlling women, but that's a perversion.

As for the idea that somehow male and female roles can be swapped out entirely, that's pretty naive. It works to some extent in our society because most women have a small number of kids, and a lot of our jobs aren't that physically demanding. And because we can use artificial feeding. But even so, many women prefer to breastfeed, some women have difficult pregnancies and recoveries, many women would if they had the choice prefer to stay with their infants more often or longer, some types of work are inhospitable to pregnant women or women with small kids, and some women have more than one or two kids.

These things come down largely to reproductive role which isn't something we can change, and we can only manage it within limits.

You seem to know an argument lot of really horrible women btw.

The vast majority of women are (IME) not as you characterise the female half of the world.

Have you considered that different friends might be the answer? Because while women can be all sorts of personalities obv. Including marriage obsessed, and keen on putting other women down. Especially about marital status.

That's a really specific focus and they sound extreme. And weird and nasty.

Ditch them. Honestly. They sound vile. You will be happier for it :)

This might help OP on Feminist criticism of the institution of marriage, if you are interested. Has a short bit about main views at beginning.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_marriage

'Early Second Wave feminist literature in the West, specifically opposed to marriage include personalities such as Kate Millett (Sexual Politics, 1969), Germaine Greer (The Female Eunuch, 1970), Marilyn French (The Women's Room, 1977), Jessie Bernard (The Future of Marriage, 1972), and Shulamith Firestone (The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution, 1970).[3]'

@LobsterNapkin Marriage is not only one man and one woman. It has broadened, but at it's heart remains the same.

Domestic duties, unfairness to women. finances - are not at the heart of what marriage between two people is and are factors in every human relationship whether married or not.
Wedding excess also unnecessary to make a marriage - weddings are about gathering those around you who know and love the couple and will hopefully remain a constant through the marriage.

Perhaps we should reframe marriage into a "pre-natal agreement"?
That's what it is, really.

This 👆
With other legal protection thrown in

Its not a prenatal agreement since lots of people do not have kids.

People always come up with "we should have this instead of marraige'

And it's usually extremely similar to marriage. Just without the wedding. If you want the legal side of marriage and it would offer you protection, get married. The wedding can be done and dusted in 30 mins. No party no fancy outlets etc. There's no need for 'marriage but a different word so we can pretend it's something else'

Seriously OP - get onto that reading list I uploaded yesterday. At the moment - as everyone is telling you - you don't understand what feminist thought is. Do some reading around that, and then come back - it will be much more useful and interesting for you, once you have more understanding of the subject matter.

If you are interested in why women are often advised to marry, then add some reading about how women's earning's are negatively impacted by motherhood - quick link below, but material on this is easy to find.

theconversation.com/women-earn-less-after-they-have-kids-despite-strong-credentials-94013

m.youtube.com/watch?v=rhPwmmhU-a8

For anyone genuinely interested in this topic. Hopefully this link works!

OP, the question of who has the money / more money - men or women? is simply answered, you don't have to go by socially expressed beliefs or opinions. Look it up. Look up who has more money in terms of capital, investments, income, earnings - is it men or women? Find out and then we can come back to that point. "Only on mn have I heard" is irrelevant - we don't care what the majority of people (in any particular social group) happen to believe, this is a hard fact, and you can find out.

I have feminist issues with marriage too (and some of what you say strikes certain kinds of chord), which is kind of convenient because in my particular case it worked out better for me that I was not married. However, traditionally it has been the case that marriage has been the legal mechanism that has required men to take material responsibility for their families and many women, now, are / would be advantaged by that.

There are many men who prefer not to take material responsibility for their children, or for the woman who has invested enormously in having them and bringing them up. This is a huge problem that marriage alone can't solve. Society used to take a much dimmer view of unmarried parents - and the disapproval was unfairly distributed, putting far too much of the burden on the mother - but the decline of that disapproval takes even more pressure off fathers to step up.

It would be wonderful if mothers and children had access to some other form of support than some man who used to say he loved her but now isn't really feeling it and is a bit bored by the whole thing and let's face it, families are a hell of a lot of work and a lot of other things are more fun. But as things stand - they don't, really. It's hard to support yourself materially when you have sole responsiblity for children. Again, this is a matter of fact. You can access figures for:

Average salaries (net)
Average costs of living (housing + bills + transport)
Childcare (remember this is paid out of net, not gross, as are your other bills)

And you can have a think about how easy it is to do all that on your own.

Children are to the good of society and I believe that the costs should be shared by society more. In the absence of that agreement, I think society, and law, should put more effective pressure on men to support their children. But this is where we are.

@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. You see it on MN and in RL time and again - couple has children, break up, and the woman is left with nothing as they weren't married and her career has suffered for taking time out to have children. Marriage is legal protection.

For me, feminism is freedom in how we choose to live our lives off the previous script. Marriage is not a threat to that. You can do it your way. It still remains a pinnacle of commitment, stability, and legal protection - mainly for children, but also both parties to the marriage.
IMO and experience, as single professional, married professional, mother, long-term partner.

You see it on MN and in RL time and again - couple has children, break up, and the woman is left with nothing as they weren't married and her career has suffered for taking time out to have children. Marriage is legal protection.

You also see it on MN and in real life 'I can't leave him and take his kids away as I married him and made vows'. Every day. It is hard enough for non married women to leave, let alone those with a contract.

Then the blokes who are self employed and hide their income.

Or have secret accounts.

And what about all those women who leave expecting their husbands to pay maintenance for the kids? Have to go through broken system to get money and if he doesn't pay? Or changes jobs? Or is again, self employed? Or declares a pittance? £1 a week for each child? You see it time and again on here.

It is no guarantee of anything.

Quoting myself for a similar and yet different thread ...

Totally agree OP! I can't believe the number of women who give up their financial security so easily and think they will be 'saved' by marriage. They won't be. They would have been far better off making sure they kept their financial security and shared the domestic labour and childcare.

I have seen so many women with good jobs (or at least jobs) go all gooey and starry-eyed at the mere hint of a ring and frock and then put his career first (for example, give up their jobs to follow him for a career move that benefits him) to their own detriment. Then after they have taken a 'job to pay the bills' (so he can be the main breadwinner) they have children that they, not he, gives up her work for, or reduces her hours, or takes a low-paid job for the 'extras' ... and is then left high and dry when he fucks off for something younger and tighter.

He haggles for all he can get, she is left with a mortgage she can't afford without his wage and limited retirement income.

We should teach girls that financial independence is everything, that their income is as worthy as his and that knights in shining armour are often slimy toads (no disresect to toads).