adrienmundi | weddings and marriage

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weddings and marriage

This has been on my mind a lot lately, so I'm going to try and metaphorically trepenate myself.

Weddings make me distinctly uncomfortable. To me, they're like the ceremonial equivalent of shopping malls: the place where strict, rigid gender normativity is brutally revealed and reinforced. The whole thing hinges on perceived sex to my eyes, from who stands and who is walked down the aisle with an escort, to what closthing is considered appropriate for guests and/or participants. Normalization is in full force in lots of other ways, too (heteronormativity, questions about when others are getting married, usw), but it's the sexism that hits me hardest and first; I have a very hard time imagining attending one without feeling under assault and pained, not to mention hypocritical.

Marriage is tied up in this as well. I want to preface this next part by saying I'm a huge, fluffy sucker for romance, true love, and relationships in pretty much any adult shape or flavor. I will happily celebrate anyone's relationship who would want me to. But, marriage is not just celebrating relationships. From my perspective, it's an inherently unfair institution. Sure, part of that is sexism; marriage has been a cultural artefact for long enough for there to be often invisible assumptions about who does what in the marriage that tend to fall along the innie/outie lines. Some people resist this, or come to mutually agreeable compromises, but I think the pressure is always present (more from the outside than from inside, I suspect). It's also unfair that for marriages to be legitimate, and in most cases, legal, it has to have a matched set: one innie, one outie. Both of these things are horribly unfair.

But there are privileges* assigned to marriage that can only exist by those same priveleges being denied to other people (in a sense, the definition of privilege). There are legal rights, sure; most of these have been voluminously enumerated as one of the cases for extending marriage to innie/innie or outie/outie couplings. There are also, however, social privileges. Watch how people are treated who are married compared to those who are not. In many social situations, one of the first questions is "Are you married?" or "Is this your wife/husband?". Those who answer in the affirmative are graspable; those who do not are questioned, as if it's perfectly acceptable to ask of them, "Why aren't you normal?" (As an excercise, when was the last time you heard someone ask why someone else was married, as opposed to why they aren't?) In short, I believe marriage is privileged at the expense of every other possible kind of adult relationship.

I come to this as someone who is not easily categorized, and who doesn't want to be. I am with a partner with whom I intend to grow old and die, but we'll never be married, even if the categories were magically made elastic enough to encompass us and our relationship. As an unmarried, I can tell you that to the majority of others, my relationship is taken less seriously, is seen as less meaningful than those who have obtained social approval for their union. I admit I have a personal stake in this issue. I'm not attacking anyone, or telling anyone that their choices are invalid; I'm trying to talk my way through why I find weddings and marriage so problematic.

*Yes, that word again. I'm not sure I can write more than two paragraphs any more without it coming into play

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The words are culturally laden, I think, but that's my perspective. I'm curious, though, since you are married; what are the reasons to introduce your partner as 'husband' rather than by name, by personal label, or something else?

Being invited to weddings is polite, and I appreciate the politeness. Sometimes, it's harder than others to distance that from the unconscious, unspoken expectation that I pretend to conform for the duration of the ceremony and gathering that follows, and I end up feeling even more alienated and cut off. So, I guess the short answer is, "I don't know".

I think the legal privileges of marriage are automatic, assuming people obtain licenses and file paperwork. If they didn't, that would be interesting. The cultural privileges are troubling me more, probably because they're less open to scrutiny, particularly by the GL marriage folks. At the moment, the cultural bothers me more, but the base inequity in both cases really drives me crazy.

I don't want to tell people what to do, or how to live. I'm very curious as to the why of marriage, and would very much like to hear as many answers to that as possible. At the same time, I don't think that anyone should turn a blind eye to the inequity. I guess, ideally, people would be able to share their reasons for marriage, and be able to hear misgivings, both with open minds.

Introductions usually go like this: "This is my wife, Jennifer." Why include the title and not just a name or other descriptive phrase? Shorthand. Husband and wife mean something to the two of us, and while its meaning isn't necessarily exactly what others might infer (although seriously, do you think any random set of people would have the same exact construction of those terms?) it's close enough that in one word we can convey a sense of our relationship that took us years to determine for ourselves.

Getting married was for us, not anyone else. If it fits with what other people consider marriage, well that's great, but not important.

Culturaly laden words, true. But I take what I want from culture, without embracing or rejecting it wholesale.

Thanks for answering. A few more questions, if I might:

Why the terms "wife/husband" and not something else? (My own inclination is to assume that it's because there is less deviation from standard meanings than not, still rendering it a useful beginning place, but that's not your opinion or experience, which is much more valuable to me)

I guess I'd expand the same roots of the question above to 'marriage', too, if you don't mind.

Thanks for answering. A few more questions, if I might:

Soitenly! :)

My own inclination is to assume that it's because there is less deviation from standard meanings than not, still rendering it a useful beginning place [..]

Got it in one. I realize there are a lot of folks for whom the differences would outweigh the similarities and who therefore might choose different words. The thing to bear in mind, though, is that terminology is an act of communication, not an act of acceptance. You're invoking a sense of meaning in a particular audience in order to imperfectly convey a concept; you're not committing yourself to whatever baggage they choose to attach to your words.

But there are several audiences: "society" at large, your particular culture or subculture, your friends and/or family, and the two of you. The smaller the audience, the more they will understand your use of the terms, and the more important their understanding is.

Did that answer your questions, or have I missed the point again?

So, then, am I correct in assuming that when you use the word "wife" or "husband", you are stating that, to the extent of your knowledge and belief, you partake more with the general/standard/statistically common definition of it than not?

A fair assumption, but filled with caveats. First, you and we may have a different understanding of what the general definition is. Second, our use of the terms doesn't indicate in which ways we match the general definition and in which ways we don't. If the details matter to someone, they should ask us.

But like Jason said: incorrect assumptions made by other people aren't likely to bother us.

Why, in our case: legal advantages. We wanted to be able to cover each other with health insurance. Otherwise we'd never have bothered. We didn't blah blah blah piece of paper blah blah blah government sanction etc.

That's partaking of privilege, if you like. I'm prepared to cop to that. I deplore the inequity that says "marriage must be X and none other" that excludes people, and that would be close to a litmus test for me if there were a candidate I could vote for who's in favor of broadening the conventional definition.

Is partaking of privilege detrimental to those who can't, in this case? Does refusing to do so help those who can't? (Asked in sincerity.)

I think Eddie has a good take on "why husband/wife" below, and I'd agree with it. People usually need or want some context for a new introduction: is this family, friend, some guy you just met in the bathroom? I don't find "wife" more troublesome a classification than "parent" or "cousin" or "co-worker".

Yes, people make assumptions about what "marriage" means when I introduce Anne as my wife. Many such assumptions are probably right (we live together, love one another and share expenses), many are wrong (we are straight, traditionally monogamous and plan to have kids). People make assumptions, and people classify one another based on insufficient and inaccurate information. This usually isn't significant enough to bother me.

People make assumptions, and people classify one another based on insufficient and inaccurate information. This usually isn't significant enough to bother me.

Ah ha, I think you have stumbled onto one of the reasons this is so problematic for me; it is significant enough to bother me, usually many times a day.

To follow up, if I may; what changed, if anything, between the time before you were married and after, in your introduction of Anne to people? Is context more readily available to others with "wife", even though many if not most of their assumptions around it are incorrect? Is there a point in which it is less communicative of your reality, but would still be utilized, and if so, why?

Is partaking of privilege detrimental to those who can't, in this case? Does refusing to do so help those who can't?

That sounds suspiciously like a pragmatic question, and as we both know, I'm no pragmatist. That being said, my answer is that if privilege and inequity are wrong (and I tend to believe that they are), then in partaking of it, I am partaking of wrongness.

I usually introduce him as "my husband, John" as a way of saying this is who he is absolutely (John), and relative to me (my husband). For me, I guess husband is convenient enough shorthand for "this guy I live with, who I am also romantically involved with, who I intend to stay with until one of us die die dies" (that being kind of a mouthful for strangers at cocktail parties). Husband/wife are not entirely accurate in their connotative baggage, but (to me) they seem to give a closer-to-reality picture to most people than some other terms we might use. I suppose I could introduce him as my monkey (mutual term more commonly used between the two of us), but most people wouldn't get that at all.

I can sort of see where you're coming from about the wedding invitations thing. I often get invitations for weddings of cousins I haven't seen since I was little, and I'm torn between wanting to believe that family is just trying to be kindly inclusive, and feeling angsty at what I see as an order to send them a gift.

For clarity, what I was getting to about the refusal of legal priveleges was that the people in question would have a wedding, use the lingo, but not file paperwork (we'll ignore commonlaw marriage, here... not even sure that still legally exists in most places). I suppose it makes sense that the cultural bothers you more than the legal... many of the legal rights can still be obtained through other (more expensive, more troublesome) channels, but there's not really an alternative route to the social status.

Good that you don't want to tell people what they should do. That would grate. I generally don't either, except in the case of policy-makers.

For me, there were big reasons for getting a marriage license and certificate... health insurance, someone I trusted having the power to make decisions if I was unable to, property or contracts that had to be in one name or the other automatically reverting to the other person if anything happened to one of us, assumption that any children I have are legally his. These things could be obtained through alternate channels, but based on my cousin's experience, the sum of legal fees for these separate concerns (neverminding the insurance situation) would certainly have cost far more than the portion of the wedding we two personally paid for (possibly more than the whole thing, though I can't say that for sure)... more than we could have afforded at the time. Yeah, that's making use of privelege. Yeah, it makes me feel guilty and uneasy sometimes, especially given that I am close to other people who want the same and can't get it through the same cheap and easy means. But, I'm not sure that my not being legally married would actually serve to help them in any way.

As for getting married and having a wedding, I think that had a lot of importance to me based on family culture and tradition. For whatever reason, that was one part of family socialization that stuck: finding someone to spend your life with and having a public declaration and celebration of that milestone seemed like good and important things, at least for me. If I'd ended up with a girl, I'd probably have still felt the pull to have a wedding, marriage, etc.. But, I never really bought into a lot of the ideas put forth in our Culture (societal level, here, not family) about marriage and weddings... that they are The End, that it's a necessary rite of passage, that insane amounts of money should be spent on a wedding or diamonds or whatever, that people should be obligated to buy us an expensive gift, that a woman should be given away, etc.. Some level of tradition and continuity appeal to me, though. Our ceremony was kind of emblematic of those views and our relationship, I suppose... we took what traditions we liked, rejected others we didn't, compromised on some things, and arranged it all into something personally meaningful to the two of us.

Dunno if that adequately answers the questions... probably only a partial answer, anyway, but there some of it is. Feel free to ask more... I'm all about an open-minded exchange on the subject.

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weddings and marriage

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