weddings and marriage

[adrienmundi]

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

Comments

[celticmoni.livejournal.com]

baiku and I have seriously considered getting divorced until moving to Canada.

[servingdonuts.livejournal.com]

Reading this makes me think that you care too much about what other people think.

Questions, questions... lotsa blah blah blah...

[adifferentriver.livejournal.com]

Restating my opinion here for clarity's sake, or for anyone else who wants to know... I think my thoughts on weddings/marriage break down into three main points:

1) I think people should be able to form and celebrate their (adult, mutually consenting) relationship in just about whatever way they see fit. If they want to have a wedding and call it a marriage, groovy. If not, that's equally cool to me. If what makes people happy happens to look like the Donna Reed Show, I can respect that. I don't really care what people do to/with/for themselves if they're not bothering me about it.

2) I think weddings and marriage are ridiculously overinflated in their level of perceived importance on a societal level. I can understand a wedding or being married being important on an individual level, or even to a particular group of people, and I don't have a problem with that, any more than I have a problem with barmitzvahs and stamp collecting (things which are very important to some individuals and groups, but not to me). But, I get very irritated with people acting on the expectation that weddings/marriage are and should be universally held on a pedestal, necessary, and an acceptable excuse for all sorts of bad behavior and ridiculousness. I don't like it when people try to structure my life according to their values, and I don't like it when they take it for granted that something of great importance for them HAS to be of equal importance for me.

3) I currently hold the opinion that the government should drop marriage, and instead offer the same bundled package of registered legal contracts at such a low fee to any two (or possibly more) adults who want it, without any assumptions made about the relationship of the persons obtaining such a thing (might be a romantic relationship, might be close friends, etc). Possibly it is naive to think of it as such, but I see supporting the legalization of same sex marriages as a baby-step toward that goal.

So, that's my view, which probably just covers old turf, as many times as we've talked about this.

Recognizing that you're not attacking anyone or invalidating choices in the above post, I still wonder about some stuff.

Do you feel it would be better on some level if those people who do find marriage important on an individual level (but aren't pushy about it) didn't get married or have weddings at all?

Would it make a difference to your perception of the situation if two people called themselves married, had a wedding, but didn't seek the legal priveleges? To go the other way, what if two people obtained a marriage certificate, but had no wedding, and did not refer to themselves as being married, husband/wife, etc? Is one more discomfort-making than the other?

Do you feel anything positive would be accomplished for anyone if those of us who are already in a legally recognized marriage had it dissolved, and/or stopped referring to ourselves using words like married, husband, wife, spouse, etc.?

Clearly, attending weddings make you uncomfortable. Do you find being invited to weddings offensive? (separate issue, but I find it extremely offensive if it's someone I barely know... damn gift-mongers!)

I'm just trying to feel out the parameters of this issue in greater detail, I suppose... hopefully, this doesn't come across as antagonistic.

[srl.livejournal.com]

Yes. Part of the problem, IMO, is the fluffy romantic halo that gets put around what's essentially a legal property-transfer mechanism....

[scoutfinch3237.livejournal.com]

I still want to throw a big party celebrating you and fairyhead and your commitment to each other. Not a ceremony (unless you want one) but a party. You both deserve the positive attention and a truckload of pre-selected stuff.