weddings and marriage
Oct. 11th, 2005 05:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adrienmundiThis 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
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
no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 12:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 02:41 pm (UTC)