Also, if you’re living with someone, sharing bills, your lives, etc… are you really getting the milk for free (in the parlance o slut-shaming culture)? Seems to me that ZOMG MUST HAS WEDDINZ culture is basically the same thing that makes people buy Hummers or buy diamonds. A search for visible displays of socio-economic status.

NOTE: I was talking about the obsessed-with-weddings-and-getting-married culture. I was not talking about individual couple’s marriages.

Who wants to marry someone reluctant to marry you?

Not most women I know, although I did come across one woman who left the guy when he didn’t propose after two years.

She later got married, happily, to someone else.

In that case, I think she felt marriage was emblematic of that particular man’s inability to love her fully, and she may have been right, since she was happy with her new husband (and even loved her new mother-in-law, as a bonus.)

I have women friends who didn’t give a damn about marriage because it was obvious their boyfriend/significant other was obviously in love and they were dedicated to each other.

One friend has been living with said SO for something like 40 years, happily, after two earlier, unhappy marriages.

The other married after they’d had two kids together, one six because, hmm, I don’t remember, but it might have been about health insurance and thinking it would be fun to have a relatively low-cost party for friends, family, their kids, and then get to take a week’s camping vacation together, while grandma and grandpa watched the kids.

Why on earth would anyone sit around waiting for a man to propose to her?

If you feel like he’s the one and you want to marry him, PROPOSE TO HIM YOUR OWN DAMN SELF. If he says no, you know where you stand. If he says “give me time”, you can tell him how much time you’re willing to wait without sounding whiny, because he’s just explicitly *asked* for time. If he says “yes,” then bonus! If he gets all uncomfortable because the Proposal has to come from the Man, then DTMFA.

In that case, I think she felt marriage was emblematic of that particular man’s inability to love her fully, and she may have been right, since she was happy with her new husband (and even loved her new mother-in-law, as a bonus.)

I suspect that’s the crux of much marriage anxiety for women.  If he’s not willing to marry you, then he must not really love you.  And, like you said, it probably is rarely an issue in relationships where love and dedication are obviously there.

Amanda, says referring to the groom:

My feeling is that it’s because he doesn’t need a public display of social validation, since he’s the one bestowing it.

DING, DING, DING!!!!  That is exactly it.  That explains in a nutshell exactly why I felt so squicked out during my engagement by everyone’s assumption that the wedding was all about me. 

And I realize now that “squicked out” isn’t a specific enough term.  The correct term is “degraded.”

What’s crazymaking is the message to women that if they want to get married, they can’t say anything about it because it will scare off the man and be nagging/pressuring. It’s a double whammy: women should want to get married, they’re failures if they don’t get married, but they can’t ever tell a man they want to get married, or they’ve already failed. The man has to make a surprise proposal or it doesn’t count. And for it to be a surprise, no one can talk about it beforehand. If the woman talks about it, his proposal is automatically suspect, because he’s probably proposing just to shut her up.

Even a book I read on negotiating for women, otherwise quite good, had a chapter about “getting him to propose.” Nowhere was there a suggestion to a) propose yourself, or b) sit down and have a reasonable, honest conversation about marriage like two equal human beings. I rarely see any acknowledgment that there’s any way getting married can happen other than the man making a surprise proposal. It’s frustrating.

There are a lot of reasons why women may want to get married sooner. Men get a lot of messages that they have to be well-off before they can get married—they have to be able to buy her a huge diamond. While the fantasy of marrying a rich guy still exists, women get more messages that just simply getting married is enough, because it means you’ve been chosen and accepted, even if he’s poor. (Of course, there’s also the diamond marketing message that the size and price of the ring shows how much he cares about you.)

It’s also, frankly, intimidating to actually ask the question. I’ve been on both sides—ready to get married and waiting for him to propose, and then decided to propose to him. I psyched myself out and lost my nerve repeatedly while trying to plan a proposal. When I was expecting to be asked, it seemed obvious that I would say yes—what was he waiting for? But when I had to face asking him myself, I was scared. What if somehow I’d misjudged, and he didn’t want to get married after all? I delayed for a good year because it was so intimidating, even though rationally, I was almost certain he’d say yes. Asking someone to marry you is a very vulnerable position.

From that experience, I extrapolate that a lot of guys who are delaying proposing might actually want to get married, but are intimidated about actually asking. If couples felt like they could talk about it, this wouldn’t be such a big issue. Everyone assumes that until and unless the man proposes, he doesn’t want to get married. I doubt this is actually true. But the silence that’s required by the idea of the surprise proposal makes it hard to find out.

It’s also easy to romanticize and daydream about a surprise proposal and a wedding, but facing the actual reality of getting married kind of freaks you out. I wonder how many women get an exciting surprise proposal—and then find themselves not sure they actually want to really get married. Anecdotally, I’ve known at least one.

Obviously, this doesn’t apply in the case of guys who hold out on proposing as some kind of messed-up power game. That’s a different story—and a huge red flag. But it can be hard to figure out if that’s what he’s doing, since you’re not allowed to outright bring up the subject. You’re left to wonder if he just didn’t catch your subtle hints, or if he’s doing this on purpose. Again, the code of silence screws things up.

I wonder how many women get an exciting surprise proposal—and then find themselves not sure they actually want to really get married. Anecdotally, I’ve known at least one.

Scratch that, I’ve known several. I forgot about all the girls who came to college with brand new engagement rings from their high school boyfriends. None of those engagements lasted beyond their first year at college. The proposal and ring were huge hits of social validation, but they discovered they didn’t really want to marry those dudes in real life.

The other thing is that even if you are not a woman who is not inclined to bask in the validation a man has bestowed on you for choosing to marry you, if you choose to marry it is still hard to avoid others forcing you into that role.  There is no way to shut down the gendered gushing people do without seeming like a sourpuss spoilsport. 

Still, there is pleasure to be found in subverting some people’s expectations:  “Ooooh, let me see the [engagement] ring!”  Holding out bare hand: “Oh, I didn’t want one and we wouldn’t have spent the money anyway.”  *Relishes interlocutor’s puzzled expression*

Depending on the relationship, I think it’s possible that one of the things that holds some guys back from the proposal is the fear of the event itself. I don’t know what I would have done if my beloved had wanted the whole white gown thing (then she would’t have been who she is, of course, but still…) It’s sort of like the aphorisms about how traveling together will tell you an awful lot about whether your relationship will survive longterm.  And the wedding-industrial complex is a fearsome thing to go up against.

But yeah, many/most of the people I know it’s been the guy who wanted to settle things and get married. In one case, at least, they came to their senses and realized that making a troubled relationship permanent was the worst possible way to try and get along better.

This is purely anecdotal, but among the late-thirties/early-forties urban white hipster crowd that makes up the majority of our acquaintance, the guys are/were equally enthusiastic about being married than the women were. Sure, there was a certain amount of reluctance on the part of guys to actually speak in public about this, but most of them got over it fairly quickly. Maybe it’s different in other socioeconomic groups: I would imagine that more downscale men are less comfortable expressing themselves for fear of their peers’ reaction, but I really don’t know.

Most of the weddings, however, have been very much about the woman planning it, with the guy going along with “hey, whatever you want, babe, as long as there’s a keg.”

There is no way to shut down the gendered gushing people do without seeming like a sourpuss spoilsport.

I actually find people are just more puzzled than anything else when I say that my husband and I decided to get married while taking a walk one evening.  They do the, “Wait, what?  No big romantic gesture?  No getting down on one knee?”  (Neither of us can remember who brought up the topic or where we were either.)

70% of people my age in Quebec are living together and unmarried. My cousin is 35 and the first of our generation in our family to get married. I have an inkling he’s going to be the last.

Every time I see a post about marriage it reminds me of just how different the culture is just a few clicks south of here. All our parents are (or were) married, but the only people of my generation I know that are married are people I know through activities that have put me in contact with people that trend a tad more traditionalist than my usual friends. None of my childhood friends are married or plan on getting married. Some people at work are married but they can be 5 to 10 years older to I am (around my cousin’s age or older).

I wonder if a lot of those big proposals aren’t like the Charlotte/Trey proposal from Sex and the City - the decision has been made, but the dramatic moment has not happened yet. My cousin and her husband decided to get married mutually, but he officially proposed to her while they were at an NCAA basketball tournament (it was more private, not in the game itself) after the whole family knew.

BlackBloc:

The big thing in the us is access to services and tax benefits. Many/most of the people I know who got civilly married in the past 10 years or so (instead of just declaring themselves a couple) had some kind of financial or legal end in sight. If your health insurance or your ability to stay in your house/apartment after your partner dies or an affordable tax bill when one partner is disabled or blah blah blah depends on it, marriage doesn’t seem so bad.

Which means that marriage means that she gets validated as a worthy person chosen by her social superior when she marries (or for the younger set, obtains a boyfriend)

So fucking over this. 

It’s funny, during my 3-4 years of being single, I was sort of irked by this crap.  Especially the aspect of it wherein I wasn’t really a full person because I wasn’t connected to some dude*.  But in the months since I’ve found myself in a relationship with a man, my feelings about it have grown much more dramatic.  Now I’m seeing the flip side, where not only was I barely human before, but now any personality I got to enjoy back then has to be completely subsumed into my boyfriend.  If I felt invisible then, now I only get to exist insofar as I relate to this penis-carrier. 

For instance, my boyfriend and I have recently been invited to a “Couples Dinner Party”, with 3 of my girlfriends and their boyfriends**.  I feel pressure to go because I like these women a lot, and any chance to kick back with friends is good, no?  But my boyfriend has no connection at all to the other boyfriends and probably wouldn’t have much fun.  And the whole concept of a Couples Dinner Party chafes my ass so hard I might not be able to sit down comfortably once there.

I guess it just bugs me that so many of my smart, creative, successful, FEMINIST women friends buy into the idea that we’re not really human until we’ve found a dudely counterpart forced him to commit on some level. 

*I’m not sure how this all would have played out if the pairing off had been with a woman rather than a man—my last serious relationship with a woman was just after college, long before the pressure to be in a committed long term relationship really ramped up among my social circle.

** Again, I can’t help but wonder at the heteronormativity: A) would I be invited if I were with a woman, and B) if all my friends were lesbians, would this shit even take place?

I suspect that’s the crux of much marriage anxiety for women.  If he’s not willing to marry you, then he must not really love you.  And, like you said, it probably is rarely an issue in relationships where love and dedication are obviously there.

Why on earth would you want to marry someone if you weren’t absolutely sure they loved you?  Is that how little self worth we’re supposed to have now?  We’re supposed to be willing to FORCE some dude to marry us even if we think he doesn’t love us and would rather not be with us at all?

Oh, wait.  The Rules exists.  Sorry, I forgot for a moment that I live in a patriarchy.

lonespark - Groom’s Cakes are a big tradition in the US south. 

I like it, in that, yay, moar cake!  Also, it gives you both a chocolate and vanilla/lemon/whatever option, so that’s great.  Additionally, if you’re a traditionalist, it means that at least one cake will be likely to actually taste good.  However, in my experience of southern weddings, it mainly exists as a reminder that Dudes Hate This Crap - the cakes usually have an uber-masculine theme, like hunting or fishing or sports, and are often as ugly as humanly possible (one example: the red velvet cake in the shape of a dead armadillo in Steel Magnolias).

Even a book I read on negotiating for women, otherwise quite good, had a chapter about “getting him to propose.” Nowhere was there a suggestion to a) propose yourself, or b) sit down and have a reasonable, honest conversation about marriage like two equal human beings.

With conservatives of every stripe, it’s all about conning some poor sucker in order to make themselves feel superior: Pregnancy Crisis Centres, Intelligent Design, Straussian Texts, Christian Zionists, subprime loans, the Southern Strategy, taxpayer bailouts of multi-millionaires, and on and on and on. This marriage proposal stuff is just the flipside of the PUA’s main goal of tricking a woman into bed—the conservative woman should want to trick a man into proposing. Nothing personal, the Libertarian will explain with a chuckle, just business, just a rational economic transaction vectoring toward an optimal zero-sum outcome.

What an exhausting way to live.

I feel like a broken record saying this, because I say it everytime this subject comes up, but here goes again:
In my experience, guys are way, WAY more likely to want to get married (and have kids), than women are.
Admitedly, my sample group is a little skewed - many of my female friends are feminists, and ALL of them are very invested in their careers.  But still, it’s worth noting that in all of our lives, the men are the ones who are all rah-rah-marriage and the women are the ones avoiding or delaying it.  I have a feeling that even among non-feminst, non-career-oriented women this is the case more often than not.  Even women who want the white wedding and the validation that comes with it know, on some level, that they’ll be getting the worse deal.  You just have to look at 99.9% of marriages to see that.

Ursula - mine certainly was. My husband and I decided to get married in a sensible, mutual discussion of the prospect. After this was decided, and with my foreknowledge, he called up my father and asked permission to court me. We found an engagement ring together, and then he did the whole dramatic kneel-down-and-propose thing at my college graduation while my parents were there to beam and approve of this nicely old-fashioned, courtly guy I’d found myself.

It served the purpose of making me an equal in the decision making without freaking my very conservative parents out.

(And shhhh!!! but when we walked down the aisle at church we’d already been legally married for three months. We had a JP wedding to simplify the tax and health coverage things, but again the family would freak out, so we did it mostly on the sly.)

Admitedly, my sample group is a little skewed - many of my female friends are feminists, and ALL of them are very invested in their careers.

That’s what strikes me as so weird about my relationship obsessed gatekeeper friends.  They’re pretty much all feminists who are extremely devoted to their careers. 

My guess is that it’s a total crapshoot - some women buy into this crap, and some don’t.  Regardless of politics or their own strength and confidence and self-worth.  I’m not sure if it’s something that goes hand in hand with buying into other forms of patriarchal propaganda, or if it’s independent of all that and really does simply depend on whether you personally are the settling-down type or not.

Mmmm caaaake….

...it used to be that men had to get married because it was too dangerous to have sex outside of marriage and women needed a base of economic support,

Err… it’s still rather “dangerous” for dudes to go dipping their wicks around - for the emotional fall out if not the STD/baby factor. And, how many dudes assume that the woman will “take care” of the birth control, providing condoms, etc. I think it’s a lot more than they will admit.

And the howling of the press if someone in the public eye who is married and has an affair is still deafening.
Does all that stop people from screwing around even if they are married? HELL. NO.
Did it back then? NO. It just wasn’t as talked about as it is now.
Does it stop men from viewing having as many women as possible as their “right”? NO.
What poor reasoning…

And that whole women need a base of economic support… in a lot of ways it’s still pretty damn prevalent. Not as much as it used to be but still… Certain people in the right wing would love to see all that progress kicked out from under us.

That a marriage is magically going to provide for you fulfillment in all ways is a very dangerous view and yet it keeps on persisting. Ugh.
It’s a lot of damn work on both sides.

What’s crazymaking is the message to women that if they want to get married, they can’t say anything about it because it will scare off the man and be nagging/pressuring. It’s a double whammy: women should want to get married, they’re failures if they don’t get married, but they can’t ever tell a man they want to get married, or they’ve already failed.

This is so disturbingly pervasive. I can’t count the amount of conversations I have had that basically follow the script of:

*whinge* “He hasn’t asked me to marry him!” *whinge*
Then… um do something about it?
“OMG No! I can’t!” or “Huh?”

And it comes from women who I would consider intelligent, capable and rational, but the way society has worked them over with ‘wedding madness’ seems to create a desperation short circuit.

One of my relatives demanded that her boyfriend marry her.  Basically, “I’m getting married on (date) whether you are there or not.”  But even though she was the one demanding, it was still required that he proposed and the family was expected to act like it was completely spontaneous and she was so lucky for a guy to swoop down and rescue marry her (when we all knew about the ultimatum).

I don’t think this female anxiety over marrying is a legitimate cultural phenomena, but rather a stereotype trotted out to sell books. Of course someone, somewhere (even a lot of someones) must feel that their worth is predicated on marriage, but think the trend among younger women is towards a more egalatarian conception of the marriage bond. The pre-bridezilla trope sells books precisely because younger women are not as concerned about marriage as previous generations, and feel more empowered to negotiate in their relationships rather than wait for their boyfriend to pop the question. It is this relative empowerment that is the crisis in heteronormativity, not a rash of commitment phobic men being chased by women desperate to wed before their sell by date.

I think the fear is that as marriage changes as an insitution it will no longer promote a patriarchal, heteronormative ideology, and that it will lose power to produce the means of production both literally through reproduction and ideologically through “family values”. This is really the same fear that claims gay marriage will damage heterosexual marriages. Seligson is just tapping into this anxiety about moral order, even if she isn’t framing it as sex-negative.

Blackbloc- that must be ANOTHER reason the Conservatives are all about never letting us have access to universal health care: WE WOULD QUIT MARRYING!! Ergo, NO CONSERVATIVE MALE WOULD EVER GET TO HAVE SEX AGAIN.

Just to throw in my one little data point: My husband wanted to get married a long time before I was ready. Like, years before. And he’s two years older than me. He was two years older than me when he was ready and I wasn’t, and he was still two years old than me when we married.

@senki:

I think the amount of money spent selling weddings (and through weddings, marriage) to women supports your theory.  If women were somehow naturally drawn to the institution, there wouldn’t be any need to sell it as a beautiful, sparkly fairytale complete with happily ever after. 

It seems consistent that marriage isn’t sold as forcefully to men, it literally sells itself.

I think a lot more women than men feel anxiety about getting married, even though most men want to be married more than most women. Why? Because women are constantly told that no one will want them if they’re past their sell-by-date, and that they are somehow “lesser” if they aren’t married. My most recently married friend seemed bound and determined to get hitched before the age of 30—somehow, this number had some kind of magical significance to her.

By contrast, men are told that their prospects improve as they get older, because dating much younger women is culturally approved and they will look more attractive to potential mates as they get older. But most men seem to want marriage more because they get all the goodies and none of the burdens, but they don’t express panic when it doesn’t happen because they are constantly soothed and reassured by the culture and told they can always find someone.

Also, proposals are culturally mandated visible displays of your worth, and so it’s hard to not have one and feel totally unruffled by it. My SO and I just sort of mutually, symbiotically agreed to get married for insurance reasons, and didn’t have a formal proposal thing. If he had tried, I would probably have laughed—I find all those ooey gooey “romantic” proposals painful and embarassing to watch, even in films.  But I still feel a twinge when people ask me how he proposed, and I don’t have a story. That’s because I really can feel them judging me, thinking “this person got suckered” or “this girl must be less loved if her SO can’t be bothered to do the bare minimum”. And even if I don’t respect their opinion on that particular point, I often respect their opinion in many other arenas. It still feels shitty to be pitied by someone you like, even if you think their pity is misplaced.

Why on earth would you want to marry someone if you weren’t absolutely sure they loved you?  Is that how little self worth we’re supposed to have now?  We’re supposed to be willing to FORCE some dude to marry us even if we think he doesn’t love us and would rather not be with us at all?

Well I didn’t say it makes sense.  I’ve finally come to accept what some people are willing to do/put up with out of the fear of being unloved, unwanted, or alone, even including settling for someone who doesn’t actually love them or who can’t be arsed to show it.

“there are lies, damn lies, and statistics!”

it wasn’t until college, when i suffered through many, many hours of statistics and quantative methods, that i appreciated the truth of that infamous quote. give me a population of 300+ million, and i will crank out “statistics” supporting pretty much anything you want, guaranteed.

so it is, i suspect, with many of these tomes on sex, marriage, dating, etc., written for the masses, not subject to actual professional peer review. i tend to take these books with the proverbial sack of salt; entertaining perhaps, but hardly legitimate science. they tend, in my opinion, to represent the author’s, and the author’s friend’s/aquaintence’s/family’s opinions. valid though they may well be, they don’t qualify as anything more than that, certainly nothing that can be extrapolated to the population as a whole.

it ain’t masters & johnson!

Alara @ 4:

If you feel like he’s the one and you want to marry him, PROPOSE TO HIM YOUR OWN DAMN SELF.

THIS. So much. If marriage is so damn important to you, get on with it!

I’m not married, and don’t want to be. I talked this over with my partner a few years ago, and we agreed that we would get married if the institution meant anything to us personally, but it doesn’t, so we’re happy as we are. It’s almost like we’re adults who talk stuff over and reach decisions together. Amazing.

(Datapoint: we’re in the UK, so don’t have the health insurance incentive/coercion.)

My own anecdata actually agrees with Faludi - for most of my friends who are married, the decision was reached mutually, and they got married because they both wanted to. But in a small subset the man was openly desirous of marriage (or single men who’d rather like a girlfriend) whilst the woman (who was living and owning a house with him) refused because of doubts about the institution. I don’t have any female friends who would like to be married bu their male partner won’t “yet”. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen - I _have_ seen it among friends friends and the like - but it is not the universal pattern.

The huge elaborate proposal is possibly even more degrading than the big wedding in the sense of being a ritual designed to impress upon everyone the fact that the man is bestowing social validation on the woman. 

Growing up, I always had a little fantasy that when I was ready to marry, I would make reservations at the best restaurant in town for an intimate dinner with my intended.  When dessert was brought out, I would produce a beautifully wrapped box containing a very expensive but tasteful watch.  I would then tell him how much I loved him and ask him to be my groom.

As it turned out, I fell into the pattern others have been describing where my husband really wanted to get married and I was reluctant and kept fobbing him off with a “We’ll see.”  There was no elaborate proposal moment.

Of course, I totally sympathize with women like Tapetum who need to participate in these things to appease family members.  Men come under pressure too.  My husband took a lot of shit from his family for not buying me a ring.  I imagine a lot of men feel the need to buy a big ring or orchestrate an elaborate proposal so their family and friends don’t judge them harshly.

I also know perfectly well that if a woman put together an elaborate proposal, especially a public one such as at a sporting event, she would be judged as weird and desperate.  It is not as easy to directly subvert these expectations as I imagined in my teenage fantasies.

Now I’m seeing the flip side, where not only was I barely human before, but now any personality I got to enjoy back then has to be completely subsumed into my boyfriend.  If I felt invisible then, now I only get to exist insofar as I relate to this penis-carrier.

Oh yuck. This gets taken to a goddam ridiculous level, too. A guy in my class asked me out, and I saw a movie with him out of politeness and then gave him the “friends” talk—no actual dating ever occurred at any point. But then I found out somewhat later that, after all this, some of our other classmates had gotten the impression (from his behavior around me—ie. no personal space!) that we were an item, and had been inviting me to things via this guy instead of asking me directly. And he had neither passed on the invites to me nor told me that any of this was happening; instead, he let the other people continue to think he was dating me while I was completely oblivious to all of this. And no one told me for weeks because, apparently, they were under the impression we were a couple and therefore all communication had to be shunted through the empenised one.

What the hell, our culture? It’s bad enough subsuming married women into their partners without handing off single women willynilly to random dudes with unrequited crushes! (It was a while ago but I’m still pissed off about it. I only found out because I directly asked him, too: “Hey, have people being going out to things? I haven’t heard anything about group events at all.”  “Oh, yeah, the last few times they said I could invite you. They kinda think we’re dating.” GRR.)

Holy shit, Bagelsian.

That is yet another reason I think that it is wise for spouses to have different names.  If you have the same name, people think of you as “The Joneses,” which really means they think of the husband as the primary person in the couple.  If you have different names, people think of you on your own terms and then remember as an afterthought that you are married to so-and-so.  (I do it myself with regard to acquaintances.  “Oh, yeah, I forgot that Mary is married to Walter.  Well, don’t forget to invite him to the party too.”)  The name thing really does induce a distinct pyschological shift in people’s minds.

that must be ANOTHER reason the Conservatives are all about never letting us have access to universal health care: WE WOULD QUIT MARRYING!! Ergo, NO CONSERVATIVE MALE WOULD EVER GET TO HAVE SEX AGAIN.

It’s not too far off. It follows logically that if access to quality health insurance isn’t often dependent on a spouse’s employer, that’s one less major benefit of getting married. Men who believe in patriarchal marriage need all the lures they can get to catch and keep a woman, so their insecurity understandably flares up when one might be taken away.

And under the current American health-care regime, it’s also a big part of their opposition to same-sex marriage or even civil unions: “I don’t want them f*gs getting my spousal benefits!”

Why do I get the sneaking suspicion all these books are ghost-written by men?  It just reads so hard like men are trying to get women afraid that they’ll never marry, so they have to go with the first guy that proposes.  As has been pointed out, marriage actually results in a loss of benefits for many women, so it’s not like we’re all straining at the bit to hitch ourselves.

A lot of people absorb their dominiant culture without really thinking about the meaning underneath, so it doesn’t surprise me that so many women still regard all the hoopla over weddings as social validation - it’s easier to go along with the Patriarchy than fight against it, at least in the short term. 

But it’s such a rotten deal for so many women, that keeping women scared of dying alone and unloved is neccessary to get them enthusiastic about the idea of tying themselves legally to a man.  I personally can’t see the advantages of dying married and unloved (since love has very little to do with the contract of marriage as it is presented in the media, and much more to do with the social validation of snagging a man).  I married because I live in the US, and needed health insurance.  When we first moved in together, I told my husband that if he wanted to marry me, he could ask and I would say yes, but if he didn’t, I was perfectly happy to live with him and love him, since I didn’t see that a marriage changed that love any.

I’ve written about the wait-around-for-the-proposal thing before, and I really sympathize with the bind women are in with that. Because if you have to ask, it’s because he didn’t ask.  And if he didn’t ask, it’s because he didn’t want to ask.  And if he didn’t want to ask, it’s because he didn’t want to marry you.  And so if you ask, you are a weak, grabby woman, and quite possibly a nag in our culture’s eyes.  And for many women, you’ll be haunted by the fear that he’s not marrying you because he wants to.  No, it’s because you made him feel guilty by asking.

Of course, the irony in this is that women are coaxed—-look at the cover of that book!—-into getting the proposal by issuing an ultimatum.  And that’s basically asking, but it’s less pleasant and more nagging.

The only other option for a lot of women is to wait 2 years and then walk without giving him a warning.  And that’s passive aggressive. 

“Just propose!” is great for women who are in relationships that, for whatever reason, don’t get stuck in this rut, but I do sympathize with women who, for whatever subtle reasons, feel that asking themselves would basically set them up for quite possibly a lifetime of wondering if he’s there out of desire or guilt.

Also, Opop is right.  Whether or not someone is the big validating wedding person or not has always seemed random to me.  Feminism has no bearing on it.  But I will say that I enjoy the weddings of women who are wary of the big validation more than weddings of women who eat it up.  The former are more relaxed and more like a party.  When the bride has been married (and validated) before, that also helps.

I think the amount of money spent selling weddings (and through weddings, marriage) to women supports your theory.

I think it undermines it to a degree, though.  I mean, it’s true that the amount of money spent selling women on marriage undermines the notion that women are “naturally” drawn to it, but I don’t think “nature vs. nurture” is the discussion on the table.  The discussion is, “Do women buy into it?”  And whether we like it or not, the answer, “Yes, or the wedding-industrial complex would make no money.” 

When leftist feminist types look at their small pool of friends and say, “Hey, my friends don’t, so it doesn’t happen,” that’s not data.  It’s true that fewer and fewer women buy into it at all, but since getting married is sold as the ultimate validation for women, of course a lot of women buy into it.  Wanting validation is human nature!  Those of us who are squicked out by it all often just see the over-the-top nature of the validation as inherently humiliating, since it implies that you alone aren’t enough.  Perhaps it even requires a bigger ego.

And whether we like it or not, the answer, “Yes, or the wedding-industrial complex would make no money.

This is only sorta true, I think. The wedding-industrial complex, like the military-industrial complex or the marine-supply sector, is amazingly adept at jacking up prices for ordinary goods and services. One of my brothers-in-law got married a couple years ago and they found that venue rental, catering, tailoring, pretty much everything was half again or three times the price for a regular party or a business gathering. It’s analogous to the toxic effect mcmansions had on the real estate market: as long as some people are willing to pay outrageous prices as a form of conspicuous consumption, everybody else is pretty much screwed.

(Oh, and I remember one wedding where the bride did appear at the bachelor party; it caused a serious rift and almost called off the wedding, because there was ZOMG BEER available in the garage where the guys were playing ping-pong. Different times…)

My wife and I agreed we wanted to get married and then I did the official proposal thing later as a surprise. Her first response was huh? because I chose to propose during the fireworks finale on July 4th. 8-)  Once she caught the question she said yes, but I ended up having to say it LOUDLY and hold a ring up in front of her. 

And I’m 3 years older.  I read someplace that’s about the average age difference in the US, or was in the 1990s when i read that…

Man, that dude on the cover of the book is STUPID and his hair looks like a 7th grade skateboarder from 1985. Which reminds me, RIP Corey Haim.

I’m not married, and don’t want to be. I talked this over with my partner a few years ago, and we agreed that we would get married if the institution meant anything to us personally, but it doesn’t, so we’re happy as we are. It’s almost like we’re adults who talk stuff over and reach decisions together. Amazing.

(Datapoint: we’re in the UK, so don’t have the health insurance incentive/coercion.)

Oh, yeah. I wish this was the way it worked here.

When I got pregnant, I basically had to insist to the guy who is now my husband, who I had been living with for five years and helping him to raise his kids, that we had to get married because my pregnancy coincided with me being laid off, we couldn’t afford COBRA, so he was going to have to get a corp job to pay for health insurance and with the heavy cost of a pregnancy on it, they would scrutinize it. Previously, I had just lied and claimed he was my husband on insurance forms anyway, when I was covering us with my job, but I figured that health insurance would actually *check* if they had to pony up for a pregnancy, and since it wouldn’t be my insurance, it would fall through if we weren’t married.

The problem was not that he didn’t want to get married and I did. The problem was that I saw marriage as purely pragmatic, a piece of paper validating to the state that our relationship existed, because from my perspective all of the things you’re supposed to get from “marriage” were already true. And he saw marriage as romantic and a symbol of trust and love and blah blah blah, and he was disturbed by my pragmatism—he wanted to get married, but he didn’t want to get married just for health insurance. So I’m being all practical and “we have to go down to the justice of the peace in three days” and he’s all “is that all it means to you that we’re getting married?” and I couldn’t get it through his head that the romantic symbolism, to me, was inherent in the fact that I was living in his house and raising his kids. If I didn’t love him and want to spend my life with him, I wouldn’t have *been* there. I wouldn’t have gone off birth control (I pointed that out, actually, that if he didn’t want to marry me because he didn’t like my attitude he was about eight months too late, and I would consider denying my pragmatic request on emotional grounds to be a betrayal this late in the game, given that I had thought the emotional grounds were there when we agreed to try for a baby.)

We might never have gotten married if not for the health insurance and legal protections, because I think having to prove your love to the state is bullshit.

It is true that for couples that are enjoying a great relationship it is often that one partner wants to make a life long commitment before the other partner is ready to do so - this is because because human being are human and do not always match up perfectly.  And when the partner that is ready is the woman - it feeds into our cultural narratives.  But there is nothing wrong with such a woman - she’s in love and knows he is in love too but she wants a commitment that he is not quite ready to make - so she waits and it probably hurts but what else is she going to do?  Break up a great relationship?  Stop wanting to commit to spending forever with him? 

The flip side with the men ready before the women happens too and there is nothing wrong with those men.  Of course, those men are not a cliche.  *sigh*

Not to mention that the child issue adds pressure to the female side of the equation.  Only if she wants children of course but most women do.

Frankly I don’t get all the props I see everywhere about a “mature conversation in which we decided we want to get married”.  Um, call me crazy but when I started thinking marriage, in my own head, and suspected he was thinking marriage in his own head, what concerned me was who would bring it up and admit first that they wanted this (an emotionally dangerous thing to admit you want something you’re not sure your partner wants).  Whether this admittance was by a huge romantic proposal or over casual conversation over dinner made zero difference to me .  The point was that I wanted him to say he wanted to marry me - that is a proposal no matter how “mature” and “mutual” the discussion.  (I wanted him to do it because I had asked him to move in and he had dragged his feet for months so I felt it was his turn to validate - but if he hadn’t I would have in a year or so.)

Where are all these men who are afraid of marriage and commitment?  I’m curious because I would love to find these mysterious, mythical men.  I absolutely do not want commitment at this point in my life.  No matter how clear I make that to my sex partners, they just don’t get it.  My first “marriage talk” happened when I was only 17.  I have no idea why another 17 year-old wanted to get married at all, especially to someone who had no interest in commitment, but it happened.  And it kept happening.  It is amazingly difficult to find men who want sex and nothing else.  This was quite a surprise to find out, since I had been told all my life that men only want one thing.

Judging by the cover, this book just looks annoying. I’m so sick of the idea that women sit around dreaming about the “big day” their entire lives, and it’s all a matter of browbeating a guy into it. I’m 24 and I want to get married, but I have 0.0% desire for a wedding. Spending a year dress shopping, picking out venues, picking out bridesmaid dresses, sending invitations, dealing with the extended family…sounds like a complete nightmare to me. Naturally, most of my friends, my sister, and my mom treat me like a freak for being 24 and not spending every waking moment fantasizing about my Fairy Tale Wedding. Ugh.

It’s also easy to romanticize and daydream about a surprise proposal and a wedding, but facing the actual reality of getting married kind of freaks you out. I wonder how many women get an exciting surprise proposal—and then find themselves not sure they actually want to really get married.

I agree.  I’m not a big fan of proposals in either direction, especially if they are complete surprise.  If someone asked me to marry him, how could I make that decision in a split second?  I’d have to think about it, and talk to him to see if our goals and plans match up, etc.  If we’ve already talked about those things, then a proposal is unnecessary because I don’t need a shiny trinket to believe that he loves me.  Engagement should be the result of a mature, thorough conversation.  It should never be a decision that one of the partners makes hastily.  Hell, I’d put more time into deciding which washing machine to buy than some people put into agreeing to a proposal.

catgirl,

I believe they are generally to be found at bars and parties and are a little bit jerks.  If you are seeing someone who is not explicitly a “player” it is likely that they will want some kind of commitment.  Most human beings of both gender do but not all.  I’m wondering where you usually meet partners?  If it’s in casual everyday life I’m not surprised they don’t end up gung ho for NSA.

It follows logically that if access to quality health insurance isn’t often dependent on a spouse’s employer, that’s one less major benefit of getting married.

We have universal healthcare for basic care but some ‘luxury’ care (like dental post-18 y.o…. seriously, WTF? having good teeth is a luxury? and orthodonty also isn’t covered) is covered by additional private insurance, including employer benefits.

The tales of our communist-socialist ways have been greatly exaggerated. We haven’t gone out in the streets and shot the insurance guys yet.

BTW, in Quebec employer insurance is extended to your partner (same or different sex) automatically if you’ve been living together for at least a year (under the law that means you’re de facto a couple, with pretty much the same rights as a married couple). And I believe if you sign an agreement to it you can extend benefits earlier (basically you’re agreeing to being a de facto couple ahead of time, with all the legal and financial implications, good or bad, inherent in that choice).

I think another thing to consider that adds to the whole “women chasing, men running away” would be the conservative/MRA schtick that decries women as shrill, castrating harpies out to ruin men with their greedy, slutful ways (yeah, I just made that word up). To them, women are dolorous beings who are so horrible they have to use their magic vagina powers to trap the innocent males into being with them, because who in their right mind would want to be with a woman, when anything associated with femininity is the worst thing to be? Obviously there’s more to toxic masculinity than the shallow analysis I’m prepared to give it right now, because I’m busy,

I don’t know why I never bought into this.  But I never did.  And I always felt a bit of contempt for the women who do, and then attempt to use their “status” to make someone else feel like shit.  Which I personally have seen a lot of.  I never understood women who considered getting someone to marry them to be the big accomplishment of their lives.  I always thought I could do better.  And I have.

One of the saddest things I ever witnessed was a woman I worked with who had been left by her husband and father of her children after 20 years, for another woman.  She forced out the divorce for as long as she could, several years in fact.  He finally flew somewhere else, I forget where, and divorced her there.  She was so embittered.  She had no education, and she was the receptionist.  She was left with nothing.  So, she had reasons to be bitter.  But then one day, she was dancing around the front desk, humming, with a far off look in her eye.  I smiled at her while I was passing, and she said “this was my wedding song!”.

It was so creepy.  I will never forget that, and I felt really badly for her.

Where are all these men who are afraid of marriage and commitment?  I’m curious because I would love to find these mysterious, mythical men.

Well, I’m not exactly afraid of marriage and committment—they’re just not for me. That’s not to say I want “sex and nothing else,” either, just that I’m not into monogamous relationships. There are guys out there who are completely focused on sex, but they often seem to have seriously screwed-up attitudes toward women.

As I recall, you’re an NSA type like myself, so you might understand that the bigger problem is people who claim they’re into NSA but are secretly harbouring that fantasy of eternal monogamous romance. That got me into awkward situations when I was younger.

...but that’s my $0.02. Sorry, I’ve no idea why the form ate the last of my comment.

We have universal healthcare for basic care but some ‘luxury’ care (like dental post-18 y.o…. seriously, WTF? having good teeth is a luxury? and orthodonty also isn’t covered) is covered by additional private insurance, including employer benefits.

I’ve heard that eye exams and glasses aren’t covered by the public system, either. The distinction strikes me as odd, too.

Still, as others here have said, universal coverage does or would remove a major practical reason for getting married.

BTW, in Quebec employer insurance is extended to your partner (same or different sex) automatically if you’ve been living together for at least a year (under the law that means you’re de facto a couple, with pretty much the same rights as a married couple).

In the U.S., that decision is made on a company-by-company basis. As I recall, Disney was one of the first bigcorps to extend benefits to same-sex partners—forced the Xtian fantasists into the uncomfortable situation of trying to boycott wholesome children’s cartoons.

It was so creepy.  I will never forget that, and I felt really badly for her.

A modern-day Miss Havisham.

As I recall, you’re an NSA type like myself, so you might understand that the bigger problem is people who claim they’re into NSA but are secretly harbouring that fantasy of eternal monogamous romance. That got me into awkward situations when I was younger.

Yes, that seems to be exactly the problem.  I guess a lot of guys truly think that they want NSA sex because that’s what they’ve been told, but then when they try it out they’re surprised that it’s not what they expected.  I think there’s also the problem that the guys expect me to become attached even though I insist that I’m not looking for that, and maybe their egos are hurt a little when they find out I was serious, so they try to pressure me into commitment to make sure that they’re still likable.  It’s so complex and I wish everyone could just be honest and open about their feelings and their sex lives.

There are guys out there who are completely focused on sex, but they often seem to have seriously screwed-up attitudes toward women.

There is definitely a group of men who seem focused on sex and are certainly screwed up, often to the point where they are shocked to find out that I have sex because I like it and I like to at their naked bodies rather than simply tolerating them.  However, these are the guys who are most likely to talk about marriage or bring up the dreaded L-word.  Maybe they just feel like the need to win at something since they didn’t take sex from me, or maybe they really do find sex more enjoyable when their partner also likes it, or maybe they mistake my attraction to their bodies as love, or maybe they mistake their attraction to my body as love, or maybe they act the same way towards all women they have sex with, or maybe they’re jealous that I have sex with other men and they think that they can claim me through marriage without thinking about how they would also have to give up sex with everyone else.  Anyway, the guys I would least expect it from are the ones who seem most likely to get all weird about it.

I suspect marriage rates in the US probably correlate strongly with the rise and decline of the middle class.

Yes, that seems to be exactly the problem.  I guess a lot of guys truly think that they want NSA sex because that’s what they’ve been told, but then when they try it out they’re surprised that it’s not what they expected.  I think there’s also the problem that the guys expect me to become attached even though I insist that I’m not looking for that, and maybe their egos are hurt a little when they find out I was serious, so they try to pressure me into commitment to make sure that they’re still likable.  It’s so complex and I wish everyone could just be honest and open about their feelings and their sex lives.

It’s hard to be honest and open, even with yourself when the culture is telling you that your feelings and preferences don’t really exist, or are signs that one hasn’t fully evolved/grown up/matured as a sexual partner. I can say now at 39 that long-term relationships and emotional commitment are very important to my sexuality. I couldn’t say that at 19 or 21 because I didn’t know, and I believed that such preferences conflicted with my queer and sex-positive politics.

I’ve heard that eye exams and glasses aren’t covered by the public system, either.

It’s weird. It’s not covered by the universal coverage but it’s standard for all employer insurance to cover something like 50-80% of it, and if you’re on welfare it’s also partly covered (people on welfare have a limited form of insurance on top of the universal coverage… you can guess how middle class conservatives like that).

“Indeed, I pick up a whiff of fudging in the suggestion that because men marry an average of two years later in life than women, that means women are “ready” sooner—-that women are chasing and men are running until they apparently collapse from exhaustion.  Likelier to me is that these numbers simply reflect the fact that men are more likely to marry someone younger than women.”

there is a strong social prejudice for the man in any (hetero) couple to be older than the woman. while i have known many women rationalize it by claiming that women are more mature than men of the same age, i’ve always suspected it to be nothing more than a rationalization.  my wife is two years older than i, and we get the occasional surprised/shocked reaction when people find out (perhaps not as much as the reactions we get because we’re mixed race, particularly in hotbeds of racism like santa barbara, california [seriously!]). most of my girlfriends were between 1-4 years older, and i always encountered the same issue.

the greater the age disparity in favor of the woman, the greater the social stigma (didn’t demi moore date someone much younger, and the media were agog?). conversely, there is almost no stigma attached when the age disparity favors the man, apart from occasional faint “criticism” that he’s old enough to be her father - but there’s an undercurrent to that remark that makes it more like praise.

Just wanted to say: I started reading this book because it got praised on Feministing, and I was completely confused because ... the book was terrible, for all the reasons that Amanda’s stated here. It was the exact same tripe I would have expected from the cover. I have no idea why Courtney wrote about it on Feministing, because no one should bother reading it! I’m so glad to have read this post that echoed what I was feeling. I couldn’t even finish the book. It was too stupid.

I remember there was a bit in the book about how men these days are basically overgrown children who do nothing but play video-games, and don’t want to “grow up” and “get married” and “settle down,” whereas women are MATURE and want these things, OF COURSE. ::facepalm:: I took that part pretty personally, because I (a girl) happen to adore video-games, and I resent being told that this makes me a child and that I need to stop playing them and settle down. I suppose if I get married, I’ll have to get rid of all of those games, OF COURSE. ::rolls eyes:: Oh, and did I mention, I’M the one in my (het) relationship who wants to take it slow and not rush the wedding? I GUESS I AM A FREAK.

Stupid book. /rant

And unfortunately, for most people, there’s no short cut for fully understanding your sexuality with other people that doesn’t involve being in sexual relationships with other people. Ideas that are great as fantasies often turn out to be miserable realities.

Again, I can’t help but wonder at the heteronormativity: A) would I be invited if I were with a woman, and B) if all my friends were lesbians, would this shit even take place?

Just in my personal experience, for B the answer is: definitely.

Amanda, you write: “More feminist analysis about why women are constantly being coaxed to dream about the big white wedding dress validation would be nice.”

Here is just such an analysis I’ve been meaning to call your attention to for a while now. It’s a 2001 book by Jaclyn Geller called Here Comes the Bride:
http://bit.ly/9tKlhR
and it’s a provocative, enjoyably grumpy feminist deconstruction of the American wedding industrial complex, and in particular the wedding mania that grew apace in the 80s and 90s, and continues to this day.

It’s a bit over the top, and I don’t necessarily agree with Geller’s hardcore anti-marriage arguments, but the book is bracing and refreshing, particularly in a culture such as ours that is way over-invested in pretentious, narcissistic wedding spectacles, and is not nearly as skeptical as it should be about the institution of marriage.

Anyway, I strongly suggest that anyone who’s interested in this subject to check out Geller’s book.  And Amanda, I’d love to hear your thoughts about it!

@Opoponax,

Nah, there are lots of groom’s cakes that make the red velvet Amaradillo look like a work of art.  Check out the Groom’s Revenge on Cake Wrecks sometime.  I, for one, would not want a slice of the Toilet Cake.

Samus @67 I find one of the unexpected joys of being married is having someone around who’s always keen to sit around in PJs and play video games with me. If they’d advertised it like that, rather than the big white dress validation dream, I’d have been way more enthused from the very start! 

I grew up reading that chapter in The Female Eunuch called something like “The Middle-Class Myth of Love and Marriage.” It definitely influenced what I did and did not want in a commitment ceremony. I’m a very monogamous type of person and so’s he, and we both wanted *something* - but we were both feminists trying to figure out what that something might be.

Certainly, bucking people’s expectations was pleasurable, if tiring. I found some things (finding something to wear) rather weird, because few people could understand that I’d never even THOUGHT about what ‘my fairytale wedding dress’ might look like, and I simply didn’t care. Hah.

In my experience, guys are way, WAY more likely to want to get married (and have kids), than women are. - Nico

That’s because the dirty little secret of (straight) marriage is that it’s a way better deal for us guys than it is for our wives.

For instance, studies have shown that men have health benefits from marriage that women don’t have.  As mentioned above married women do a greater share of the housework than women “living in sin”.

And, “but all he gets at best is having to reduce his sexual options” is not quite right.  I only know of a small number of men who actually have that many sexual options: personally I only have had a very small number of women who have had any sort of romantic/sexual interest in me and with the exception of a few players/hunky guys of my acquaintance, it is rare for women to show anything but Platonic interest in most of my male friends.  OTOH, most of the women I know are quite attractive—physically, in terms of their personalities, etc.—and pretty much can have any guy they want.  E.g. I am married to someone far more attractive than I am—I know that my sexual options have not been reduced much via marriage, but hers certainly have.

Maybe I’m being paranoid, but I wonder if part of the role of the marriage-industrial complex (and certainly part of the role of all those drasted “princess” stories my daughter likes way too much) is to make marriage an attractive prospect for women.  After all, unless marriage is somehow sold, and sold hard, to women, as good as marriage is for us menfolk, how could we get any women to marry us?  So our society, not being able to sell women on marriage itself (which is not such a good deal for women), sells women on the process of getting married—the fancy ring that is the envy of your peers, the ceremony in which you are princess for a day, etc.

didn’t demi moore date someone much younger, and the media were agog?)

They got married, fyi.

fwiw, which is probably not much, there’s going to be at least a little bit of a skew toward men in a marriage being older because of reproductive reasons. Not so big a deal for men marrying in their 20s, but men marrying in their 30s or later and wanting genetic offspring are going to find that any women older than they are may not be in a position to collaborate in their familial desires, or may not want kids (if she did, she’d have had them already) or may have had some and not want more.

Which is horrible if you’re imagining that for each person there is an all-consuming one and only, but another thing to consider when looking at the stats and how many people actually consider getting married.

@75: Yes, I know couples that split up because while he wanted children, she already had children who were nearing adulthood.

are going to find that any women older than they are may not be in a position to collaborate in their familial desires, or may not want kids (if she did, she’d have had them already) or may have had some and not want more.

Why make the assumption that if women wanted kids, they’d have had them already, but not make the same assumption about men?  Also, women truly don’t just become infertile as soon as the turn 30.  And men’s fertility also declines with age.  Some birth defects are actually more dependent upon the father’s age than the mother’s.  Of course, men may seek younger women because they think they need to to have kids, but it’s often not because they actually need to.

I am a recently engaged person, but have been with my fiance 6 years. Before the proposal ,when people asked me how long I had been with my boyfriend I would get a “Oh Honey” when I said “5 years”. People who had never met my guy but decided he had no intention of marrying me & I was this sad girl who he duped into staying with him. It was very interesting how people who have no real knowledge of my relationship would tell me I should threaten him or trick him into marrying him by having a baby. One guy told me “You act like it doesn’t bother you, but it probably does” You explain that you’re poor & want to be established and they just go “So, get married!”
It’s a lot like the pro-life people. Get married (or have a baby) even if it’s totally impractical because we say so.

Wow, that’s obnoxious.

@75: Yes, I know couples that split up because while he wanted children, she already had children who were nearing adulthood.

While that seems to be the dominant narrative IME with most male friends and acquaintances, there are quite a few exceptions as well. 

Around 25+ years ago, one older cousin who seemed to be pushed into marriage in his mid-20s by his parents and older relatives ended up getting divorced after a few years because his then wife actually wanted kids ASAP while he wasn’t ready which ended up being a last straw for him.  What was more interesting was how even his own parents and older relatives took the bride’s side and placed complete blame on his “immaturity” for the divorce…especially when he was “at an age” where one “should” be starting a family. 

Laura wrote:
Amanda, says referring to the groom:

And I realize now that “squicked out” isn’t a specific enough term.  The correct term is “degraded.”

Me too! I was thinking about this while reading Amanda’s post. I am currently planning a wedding and completing a dissertation. Do you know what everybody cares about? Right, the wedding. Do you know what the last 5 years of my life have been preparing me for? the dissertation. I mean, I love my fiance and stuff, but I think finding somebody willing to publicly committ to me was more a matter of luck than hard work and achievement.

I always felt a bit of contempt for the women who do, and then attempt to use their “status” to make someone else feel like shit.  Which I personally have seen a lot of.  I never understood women who considered getting someone to marry them to be the big accomplishment of their lives.  I always thought I could do better.  And I have.
___________________
John from club penguin cheats

@#45: “One of my brothers-in-law got married a couple years ago and they found that venue rental, catering, tailoring, pretty much everything was half again or three times the price for a regular party or a business gathering.”

I’ll remember that and tell ‘em it’s a regular party, get a quote, and get it locked up, if I ever have to book a wedding….

Thanks for this

It sort of bothers me when people act like it is marriage’s fault that it has been constructed as a sexist institution, because one thing that I have learned about everything and anything that comes from being a free person in this society is that while there are very real PRESSURES from society, you are NOT FORCED to make anything you don’t want to do.

Sure, things will be harder (those damn pressures from society again), but I make it a point to get rid of everything in my life that makes it harder for me to make my Personal Space truly mine.

My husband proposed to me, but it was after years of many little talks about marriage and what we wanted in the future.  We never really talked about when we truly wanted to do it, but we both knew that we really enjoyed each other, and had gone through some very intense stuff together, and that we really wanted to see if our relationship could be for keeps.

When I first met him, I made him a hand-woven friendship bracelet (10 string weave with 5 colors).  Later on, we both bought each other little “promise rings”.  It wasn’t the cost of them, but the significance that mattered.

His method of proposal?  He made me an AMV.  For serious.  At first I was embarrassed a bit because it’s a bit geeky (and the footage he used was from a show that wasn’t particularly fabulous, but oh well).  He had a big old letter at the end of the AMV with the proposal on it, and it was very special to me.

We built the engagement ring together, but we were strapped for cash, so even though my ring was both unique and beautiful, it wasn’t a ZOMGBIGDIAMOND ring.  It has two tiny diamonds with white gold hearts around them on either side of a centerpiece opal (which is my favorite stone).  And it was great.  Our wedding bands are the same white gold band with a very special engraving on the inside and one tiny diamond.  I love my wedding band because it is so comfortable.  I couldn’t deal with a big gawdy ring.

Our wedding was the same way.  We planned it together.  I wore a red dress.  I bought him ruby earrings (I don’t have pierced ears).  We wrote our vows together.  We worked on the music mix we wanted played at our ceremony (our first dance was “The Luckiest” by Ben Folds).  Heck, we had two wedding cakes (and they were green and most delicious).  We were working on a shoestring budget but we didn’t care.  We made a big poster with pictures from our childhood meeting in the middle with pictures of us together.  We made a big deal about talking about US and OUR wedding.  That is the thing I remember most from that day.  That we were truly TOGETHER and that was what mattered the most.

My husband decided to change his last name to mine, but not because I’m some kind of nazi. We reached that decision together for a variety of reasons that were important to US as a couple.  And now we have a daughter together and he ends up doing a large amount of child care stuff because I have the job with the benefits and the better pay.  But even so, it is still US, as a TEAM, because even though we might be a mother and father, husband and wife, man and woman, etc, we still make these roles OUR OWN, and stand tall with the realization that WE define the roles, not the other way around.

Of course, it does take a lot of strength to make the world listen to you, but I think that it is worth it to be the person who I choose to be and not the person that society says that a person with my corresponding phenotype must be.

Which is why, even as some people might poo-poo marriage, or the very real commitments that people make in their relationships with others, the bottom line is to always make sure that you are doing things On Your Own Terms if you truly wish to enjoy your life and be happy.

And obviously, life is never perfect.  We all make mistakes.  And sometimes, we can even fall into girlish displays of stereotypical mushiness.  But that’s ok.  As long as it is a choice to do so, not simply The Way Things Are.  If we ever get to the point that we think that Wedding (or conversely Not Wedding) are The Thing To Do by Default, then we have fallen again into the pit of stereotyping failure.

Social pressure to get married is not exercised only on women. There are many cases when married men will be preferred to single ones for a job because employers consider that to be the safest choice in terms of stability and all that sh*t…