I got married the other day.
Yup, just like that. After an hour of mulling it over, I eloped to City Hall to marry my wonderful live-in boyfriend whom I love and have been with for a year and a half. No, I'm not pregnant (eye roll). No, my now-husband is not an illegal immigrant.
So why the shotgun wedding? One (evidently all-too-common ) reason: health insurance.
My bf is a bartender and a student whose school's insurance is exorbitant. I'm a reporter who works for a company that has a kick-ass medical plan. Without going into too much detail, a domestic partnership affadavit was standing in the way of my partner having awesome coverage and escaping $8000 worth of retroactive hospital bills. It was a no-brainer. Onto domestic partnership!
Problem is, the state of Illinois doesn't let you get domestic partnership if you're hetero . ("If they could, no one would get married!" the City Hall employee informed me smugly, as if 1. that fact was actually true and 2. rampant domestic partnerships would mean the end of the world.) Apparently you can't be a part of the "system" if you're queer, and you can't opt out of the "system" if you're straight. It started to seem so ridiculously arbitrary—and unfair! Did I really have to choose between leaving my honey vulnerable to unthinkable medical costs and a measly, $50 piece of paper?
The choice was obvious. We went ahead and got married (and fast, because my company's deadline for insurance stuff was the next day). The weird thing was, people were soooo into it! It was like I had become part of some coveted club, or even a higher-class citizen. I understood more than ever why gay marriage was such a big deal. I also started to get why people become so wrapped up in weddings. It's your moment. All eyes are on you . Out of nowhere, long-lost friends are posting on your Facebook wall. Suddenly, everybody loves you!
It's a situation that's left me contemplating my feminism—by getting insurance-married on the fly, did I "give in" or did I give tradition the finger? Maybe a little bit of both? I have nothing against weddings (what’s better than a celebration of love?) but the government "certificate" thing has always made me a little indignant. Either way, I feel like giving my partner health and peace of mind is just as much of a gesture of feminist love as anything else.
Thoughts?
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I don't think your getting married has an impact into feminism either way. You did it on your own terms for your own reasons; so I would suppose its feminist like that -- but that feels like a stretch.
I would like to address your bash of domestic partnerships. They exist because gay people can't get married. It's not to bar you from them; it's because they're barred from town hall eloping like you did. 20 minutes, $50 and you're done. Queers still have to provide a signed affadavit swearing themselves as partners and not just roommates who're "super close".
Do I think that the option should be closed out? Personally, no, I don't. But I think the implication that you were forced into marriage because only the gay couples can domestically partner, is roundly unfair and could be a bit homophobic.
I was also under the impression the "shot gun" was a shape of a fetus... but that's neither here nor there. Just a thought I had.
Thanks for the comments.
Gular, you said: "I would like to address your bash of domestic partnerships. They exist because gay people can't get married."
I think this is a little unfair to say that I'm being homophobic, particularly since I addressed the issue of same-sex couples being shut out of the system before I mentioned that straight people in Illinois can't get domestic partnerships. And no, I wasn't "forced" into marriage, but the clerk at City Hall did describe domestic partnerships as somehow a threat to marriage, which I found annoying.
I simply meant to illustrate how arbitrary and finicky all these rules are, not to complain that I was "barred" from DP. Didn't mean to offend!
Also, domestic partnerships don't always exist solely because gay people can't get married. In some states (like NY, my home town), they also exist so that the government will recognize "nontraditional" couples, including straight people that live together and don't want to get married--which I personally would have preferred.
The piece of paper is to put a box around who the insurance company will and will not insure, and thus charge you for insuring. Without some sort of legally recognized relationship, you could bring all the homeless people in the park to your doctor and tell her, "treat them all, they're on my plan." (Not that that's a bad thing from a humanitarian perspective, but it does make it difficult to establish a balance between services rendered and membership charges.)
There is nothing wrong with recognizing that certain aspects of a household relationship are utilitarian and contractual, and therefore dealing with them in a businesslike manner.
That said, however, it is stupid that the government draws the distinction between domestic partnerships and marriage. That right there shows that domestic partnership is still a de-facto second-class status.
It's pretty dumb that people draw that distinction socially, too. Domestic partnership is merely the government recognizing the truth of your relationship. Any of the people who matter in your life should know that truth already. (Though I have no quarrel with celebrating over a public declaration in any case. But looking down your nose at a domestic partnership versus going gaga over a marriage is foolish.)
As far as I'm concerned, the government should be in the business of registering ONLY domestic partnerships. Note I said registering, not licensing. It is not their business to control or prohibit who I do and do not choose to form family associations with. It is their business only to duly record those associations, so the business aspects can be handled cleanly.
For my part (and this is the point I tried and failed to make with the previous comment), I'm damned proud to put my family on my coverage. The fact that it's a business consideration doesn't diminish your relationship in the slightest. It's part of taking care of your family. You should be proud too, and damn what anybody else chooses to think about it.
Nor do I think it is an anti-feminist thing to do, for the same reason: taking care of your people is the right thing to do, and surely that makes it a value that a feminist would, er, espouse. The fact that your piece of paper calls it a marriage does not have to infringe on your feminist values. So you're married now; make it a feminist marriage.
p.s. Congratulations!
While we had planned to get married sometime in the future, the timing of getting married to my husband was a similar situation. We both had been unemployed for months and were both students. Getting married and being listed as 'independent' students versus dependent and thus looking at our parent's income, who had not supported either of us in years, between the two of us made the difference between barely enough grants to cover tuition let alone books to enough grants to live off of while going to school (the difference total for us was $4500 a year before and $24,000 a year after).
Yes, we took advantage of a 'privileged' option, but for us it was the difference between going to school and having a roof over our heads and not going to school and homelessness.
I don't think you had anything to do with giving into tradition. If anything, it is quite the opposite as 'traditionally' it is the man who has the job with the benefits and the woman receiving them. As the post above said, it was basically a business decision. It has no bearing on what the romantic/companionship aspect of your relationship it or is not. I can think of several "couples" I know who got married as a business decision, not because they are or were ever romantically involved.
you did what was right for you and yours, and that's all that matters.
Congratulations :)
congrats on having a person in your life who you actually want to spend the rest of your life with either way the assholes who run our government choose to catergorize it. And getting married is not unfeminist. The way I think about feminism is that it is giving women the right to choose what path in life they want to take, and if that means being happily married to the man you love than so be it
I wish you happiness and good health.
(And a functioning, accessable healthcare system, gay marriage, bike lanes, and all those other things that make Holland such a great place to live)