I’m getting married next year. Something I’m really excited about. We’ve had a long engagement, so we’re really getting ants in our pants about finally being legally husband and wife. We are really happy together and really looking forward to being married.
But according to some people, and I’ve seen this kind of sentiment rising lately, that makes us “brainwashed” “life-script zombies” and that our marriage is “just a piece of paper” and that “humans aren’t meant to be monogamous” and “there’s no such thing as a life partner. It’s pointless to get married.”
Okay, I understand that some people don’t want to get married. That’s fine. Some people prefer the single life, some people prefer cohabitation, open relationships, or what have you. That is fine too. What an individual does with their relationships, long or short term, and how they live their lives is personal choice. And the decision not to get married for whatever reason is perfectly valid.
…But so is the decision to get married.
I don’t know what’s going on, but it seems like everywhere I turn lately, marriage is being lambasted from every corner. Some People who don’t want to get married don’t just say they don’t want to get married, they outright reject and insult those who do. I’ve been accused, whether outright or implied, of being brainwashed by religion, conservative agenda, familial obligation, cultural obligation, or Disney. I’ve heard that women are all out there to capture men and enslave them with marriage and children and men should run away from any woman who says she’s looking for long term. At one point, I was even accused of making up my own engagement. I’ve heard marriage makes you fat, it makes you boring, it will ruin your sex life and destroy your personality. It may even make you smell like gym socks. Oh the horror! Oh the corn-chip smell!
Can we all just take a step back here and breathe for a second?
I realize that not everyone wants to get married. Fine. If you don’t want to get married, then don’t. No one should force you into something that life-changing if you really don’t want it. And I can totally understand if those people who have chosen a matrimony-free lifestyle would like to have that decision accepted without being insulted or scrutinized like there is something wrong with that. But as a person who has chosen to get married, I would appreciate the same courtesy.
Marriage is something that I want. It’s something I chose of my own volition with no “brainwashing” from any sort of entity, religious or otherwise. It’s something that works for me in my life in the same way that not getting married works for other people. Sure, there are some really outdated and sexist concepts involved with marriage. However, that doesn’t mean I have to strictly adhere to them. For example, my fiance and I have opted NOT to have the officiate say “Who gives this woman to marry this man?” We’re not having that in our ceremony because my dad isn’t giving me away as property and it’s not a necessary part of the ceremony anymore.
So really, if you don’t want marriage, that’s your choice entirely. And if you want to get married, that is also your choice. And if you want to get married, do it in whatever way suits you. If that means that you and the bride/groom standing on your heads and smashing watermelons after saying “Smesh blam!” in the middle of death valley.
10 Comments
Well said. A hearty “smesh blam!” to you and your fiance.
Hehe, thanks! My fiance was like, “Can we?!” After I showed him that.
I know that when I hear people say they want to get married, I worry more about the history marriage has had. Y’know, like how it was originally just about selling daughters off and giving their husbands power over them, yadda yadda yadda, I’m sure you’ve heard it all. Hell, I had one friend literally shop around for a husband, and I was honestly very sad that she was willing to debase herself just for the sake of getting married — not because she met the right one and they really wanted to get married, but because she just wanted to be a wife, and was willing to change herself to be the ideal bride. But, honestly, I think it is necessary to have models of marriages which are NOT based on inequality and control.
So, that being said, here’s to hoping you and your man can really make it work!
Congratulations and Smesh Blam!
I agree with everything said here, which Feministing regulars already know because I voice it every time someone posts some sort of rag on (heterosexual) marriage.
Your life is as unconventional as you choose to make it. Also, watermelon chunks would make a good late evening snack, see what you did there?
I heartily agree that no one should slam marriage for the sake of holding up other life choices as valid, believe me. I’d like to get married as well, if I meet the right person. But I don’t really understand the persecution you feel. Marriage has been held up and worshipped for a very long time, and even though there are a few stories asking how useful it is, it’s much harder to escape the pressure to get married than it is to avoid articles about why marriage is supposedly outdated. My point is, I think those comments and stories you’ve seen, while I don’t think its necessary to tear down others, is meant to balance out all the vitriol dished out to single women over centuries. Just a little tipping of the scale if you will that hardly balances out the loads of favoritism and acceptance you and many others WILL receive as a married women.
I guess this is yet another example of how a woman can never make the ‘right’ choice, because I rather sympathize with Veronica. As a married feminist, I see–or at least notice–people denigrating marriage more than I see them denigrating other arrangements or simply staying single. Some people feel that marriage is an institution that cannot be saved, and they’re totally entitled to their opinion. It doesn’t stop me from feeling attacked when I see comments along those lines though. It doesn’t stop me from feeling attacked when people talk about the name-change issue. Even though that may not be the intent, it DOES feel like an attack against me sometimes because of the choices I made.
I’m well aware that in many ways I’m privileged in being married (how can I not be, given that the legal benefits were a motivating factor) and there probably are a lot of things that unmarried women notice that I don’t because of it. None of that stops the feeling I occasionally get of being a ‘bad’ feminist for being married, despite being completely comfortable with the decision and knowing that it was the best choice for me.
Nobody including me AT ALL suggests you’re a bad feminist. I would like to get married too, there are beautiful things about marriage. But I don’t know the world you’re living in where you feel constantly attacked. People pity my aunt, an intelligent happy woman, and constantly feel they have to invite her to things because the “poor thing” doesn’t have a family. People are always asking me if I’ve met anyone and I haven’t even reached 24.
I think you’ve gone over the line, the line being reality, by saying you’re MORE attacked as someone who wants to get married. And if you support people’s individual choices and want them to support yours, why are you saying that someone is trying to upset you personally by not adhering to traditional name changes? I would understand if they tried to force it on you but it sounds like you’re bothered just by their mentioning it…
Sorry, as someone who IS married.
Wow. I really wasn’t trying to say I get attacked more (and certainly not constantly), just that it feels that way to me–there’s probably a lot of stuff you notice that I don’t because of our different circumstances and I’m not going to deny what you say you have to deal with, because I believe you. I was talking about my subjective reality only, and I know that I’m certainly reading into things a bit much sometimes. I was only trying to be honest about the way I perceive things, not make an objective statement about the Way the World Is.
Oh totally, I’m aware that married women are inequally favored in social standing. No doubt about that. I mean, look at the crap that Tracy McMillan spews against single women (blech).
I just don’t think the way to balance that out and make it more of an equal playing field is to rail against it in an insulting way.