Marriage and wedding customs

[Lobotomy]

The questions in this thread are directed towards other women, but men can offer their opinions as well. I wanted to bring up marriage customs; especially the practice of women adopting the name of the man they are married to, but other marriage customs as well. My mother did not change her last name upon marrying my father. I remember when I was a child I thought it was weird, but now I admire her for it. Though the idea of marriage is becoming less appealing to me for more personal reasons, I feel like I would do the same thing if I were to get married. I see a lot of traditions in marriage that indicate women's oppression, such as the woman claiming the title of "Mrs. (husband's name)", or in weddings when the father of the bride walks the bride down the isle to the altar as if he were relinquishing his ownership of her and transferring it instead to the husband. Can anyone give any history or other interesting information about these kind of traditions? Why do these traditions continue to be popular? Women, would you ever get married? If you already are married, what traditions did you keep or discard in your wedding and/or marriage? Or if you are not married but plan to be sometime, what would you keep or discard and why?

[redz]

The questions in this thread are directed towards other women, but men can offer their opinions as well. I wanted to bring up marriage customs; especially the practice of women adopting the name of the man they are married to, but other marriage customs as well. My mother did not change her last name upon marrying my father. I remember when I was a child I thought it was weird, but now I admire her for it. Though the idea of marriage is becoming less appealing to me for more personal reasons, I feel like I would do the same thing if I were to get married. I see a lot of traditions in marriage that indicate women's oppression, such as the woman claiming the title of "Mrs. (husband's name)", or in weddings when the father of the bride walks the bride down the isle to the altar as if he were relinquishing his ownership of her and transferring it instead to the husband. Can anyone give any history or other interesting information about these kind of traditions? Why do these traditions continue to be popular? Women, would you ever get married? If you already are married, what traditions did you keep or discard in your wedding and/or marriage? Or if you are not married but plan to be sometime, what would you keep or discard and why?

Sorry, you're getting this feedback from a commenter of the male persuasion...

Marriage itself is a fundamentally reactionary institution rooted in class society and the need for a social mechanism to transfer property to heirs; especially within capitalism, it has also facilitated the structure of the family unit that provides an efficient, private means for engendering, nurturing, and rendering workers for the workforce (wife maintains home, cooks, breeds kids, etc.).

That's a "nutshell" version of the context in which all the rituals and traditions of marriage operate...

Obviously, much of these traditional roles is changing under the pressures of modern life, the decay of capitalism, the need for women (wives) to enter the workforce, the trend toward less formal partnering arrangements ("fiances" instead of spouses, etc.) and so on...

HOWEVER ... many of the traditions and rituals you cite still tend to persist, and they often include vestiges of the original property-focused origins - such as "when the father of the bride walks the bride down the [aisle] to the altar as if he were relinquishing his ownership of her and transferring it instead to the husband."

It sounds from your posting that you're beginning to see through the absurdity of these vestiges - such as the woman assuming her husband's surname as a mark of his "ownership" of her - and I would hope your understanding in this regard will continue to grow.

Redz

[Bad Grrrl Agro]

The questions in this thread are directed towards other women, but men can offer their opinions as well. I wanted to bring up marriage customs; especially the practice of women adopting the name of the man they are married to, but other marriage customs as well. My mother did not change her last name upon marrying my father. I remember when I was a child I thought it was weird, but now I admire her for it. Though the idea of marriage is becoming less appealing to me for more personal reasons, I feel like I would do the same thing if I were to get married. I see a lot of traditions in marriage that indicate women's oppression, such as the woman claiming the title of "Mrs. (husband's name)", or in weddings when the father of the bride walks the bride down the isle to the altar as if he were relinquishing his ownership of her and transferring it instead to the husband. Can anyone give any history or other interesting information about these kind of traditions? Why do these traditions continue to be popular? Women, would you ever get married? If you already are married, what traditions did you keep or discard in your wedding and/or marriage? Or if you are not married but plan to be sometime, what would you keep or discard and why?

I plan on having it: Esperanza [my last name] de [my fiance's last name]

[TC]

I wanted to bring up marriage customs; especially the practice of women adopting the name of the man they are married to, but other marriage customs as well. My mother did not change her last name upon marrying my father. I remember when I was a child I thought it was weird, but now I admire her for it.

In the past its often been worse, when Mr. John Smith and Miss. Joan Brown were married, traditionally she would only be Mrs. Joan Smith as a widow, but while her husband was alive, actually get correspondence as Mrs. John Smith.


As you can see the very traditional form of assuming the husband's first and last name robs the wife of a public identity except through her role as kind of junior associate of her husband (to use the most generous interpretation).

The form of taking "Mrs. Joan Smith" or even "Ms. Joan Smith" could be seen more positively as preserving Joan's separate identity while also confirming a shared family (with the children named Smith), but it remains an explicitly unequal joining


why should the man keep his name and the woman lose hers?


Why should the children bear the father's name when the mother did 99.999999% of the work to bring them into the world?

The obvious answer is that its a vestige of patriarchy and one that you wouldn't think that a truly equal partnership would carry on.


Taking the husband's lastname as a second lastname is equally problematic in practice because Ms. Joan Brown Smith will become known as Joan Smith and not Joan Brown (how often do people say Secretary Rodham Clinton? Almost never unless they're trying to make a point?)

So I think the politically responsible thing is to either keep original names and choose a new third name for children, choose a third name for both the husband and wife - or frankly have the kids take the mother's name - that seems to me to be fairer than the reverse since biology has not allocated equal burdens in reproduction (even though society should allocate equal burdens in childcare).

Though the idea of marriage is becoming less appealing to me for more personal reasons, I feel like I would do the same thing if I were to get married.

Good for you.

I see a lot of traditions in marriage that indicate women's oppression, such as the woman claiming the title of "Mrs. (husband's name)", or in weddings when the father of the bride walks the bride down the isle to the altar as if he were relinquishing his ownership of her and transferring it instead to the husband.

Exactly.

Can anyone give any history or other interesting information about these kind of traditions?

I would strongly advise picking a copy of Shulamith Firestone's Dialectic of Sex ( http://books.google.com/books?id=aNU...ed=0CCMQ6AEwAA ) up from the library.

It has some of the best feminist histories of family relationships you can find - and its told from a Marxist informed socialist feminist position.

You can read the introduction here:

http://www.marxists.org/subject/wome...lectic-sex.htm

Why do these traditions continue to be popular?

Patriarchy is still a powerful force in our society and the unspoken expectation remains that women will subordinate their public identities (and careers and social lives) to their male partner's while men will defer to women in (mostly meaningless) small scale home-sphere decisions (like what type of cleaning agent to buy).

Even couples who are politically engaged respond to both overt and subtle social pressure to conform to these dynamics.

Women, would you ever get married?

If I was in love with someone who I both wanted to spend the rest of my life with and I felt a need to have the public social validation of marriage, then I would get married, but only if we could have truly equal roles (and not the faux equality of separate but equal spheres).

If I did get married it would not be in a house of worship, it would be conducted by a secular officiate, and I would want to have the same roles as my hypothetical fiance - so I would never have a traditional wedding...

It would be a very difficult decision though because there is tremendous cultural and political baggage on marriage as you've already described.

But because marriage is such a profoundly powerful social institution - while the abolition of marriage is an excellent socialist/anarchist goal in a future society - when we have to live in the present society we are confronted with the fact that non-marital relationships are not regarded as being as serious or meaningful socially as those that are recognized marriages.

Gay marriage isn't a threat to straight couples, rather, putting marriage on a pedestal demeans everyone elses relationship...

...but thats why gay marriage is so important, and the only reason why I would consider getting married myself if I was in the type of relationship where I wanted that sort of social recognition.

On the other hand, should civil partnerships ever have *all* of the rights of marriage, and be made open to heterosexual couples as well as gay couples (as is the case in France) then that would probably be the best solution for me...but for the reasons I described I certainly would never begrudge someone else for wanting to get married!

[Widerstand]

Regarding name changes:

Why are these at all necessary? Why can't Joanna Smith stay Joanna Smith even if she's married? I mean I understand why they came to be, but why would anyone keep onto them? Especially anyone aware of patriarchy?

[Bad Grrrl Agro]

Regarding name changes:

Why are these at all necessary? Why can't Joanna Smith stay Joanna Smith even if she's married? I mean I understand why they came to be, but why would anyone keep onto them? Especially anyone aware of patriarchy?

I want to adopt my fiance's name as a sign of my love for him. It's a personal decision.

[kitsune]

In Japan a married couple has to share a surname so they belong to the same household for the koseki, family registry. But the husband may take the wife's surname. It's not very common, though. There's a huge furor going on right now about changing the rules to allow married women to keep their surname. I know some don't register their marriage so the wife can keep her surname, and the records list her as "unregistered wife."

In South Korea, women do not change their surname at marriage, and they are never called Mrs. (husband's name).

Western style weddings have become very popular in Japan, but when I was growing up I always kind of fantasized about a traditional Shinto wedding ceremony. A lot of people nowadays just skip the formalities and have a simple party with family and friends. That's what I'm inclined to do, though I'd kind of like to rock a wataboshi.

[Sentinel]

For some reason my mother, who is very much a communist and a feminist, took my fathers name when they got (civilly) married. She just didn't seem to regard is as an important issue, and didn't even change it back when they got divorced. I find this weird, as I would have -- but as I'm a man, I'm not going to have to make that decision in my own life. Anyway, my only guess for a reason is that she hates her 'maiden name' even more.

This said, my personal opinion is that as long as there is mutual consent and all couples and individuals are equal before the law, people should be allowed to perform whatever rituals, and change their own names to whatever, they wish and see as appropriate when making their relationship official.

[manic expression]

Speaking as a male...

why should the man keep his name and the woman lose hers?

Why should the children bear the father's name when the mother did 99.999999% of the work to bring them into the world?

The obvious answer is that its a vestige of patriarchy and one that you wouldn't think that a truly equal partnership would carry on.

In the context of traditional life, it's not arbitrary. The wife typically joined the household of the husband, and so it would make no sense for her and her children to bear the name of a family that they aren't living with and have less contact with. The name denoted with whom someone lived as much as anything else.

Beyond this, the wife was expected to do the work of labor, but the husband was expected to provide for the family and act as the head of the household, as well as defend the community in times of war. It's no coincidence in European societies a last name would oftentimes come directly from the labor of the father...hence Smith, Baker, Miller, etc. Also, traditionally, names bear the weight of the father's social importance, and so passing it on was essential. There's nothing equal about it, traditional family structures are consciously unequal precisely because their societies were obviously so. Bourgeois society of our age falls under this category.

But this presents us with the quandary: if lineage is to lose a substantive connection with social roles, then why not just continue patrilineality as a matter of consistence? If patrilineality and matrilineality make as much sense in terms of family life, then why go out of one's way to switch?

Taking the husband's lastname as a second lastname is equally problematic in practice because Ms. Joan Brown Smith will become known as Joan Smith and not Joan Brown (how often do people say Secretary Rodham Clinton? Almost never unless they're trying to make a point?)

So I think the politically responsible thing is to either keep original names and choose a new third name for children, choose a third name for both the husband and wife - or frankly have the kids take the mother's name - that seems to me to be fairer than the reverse since biology has not allocated equal burdens in reproduction (even though society should allocate equal burdens in childcare).

I agree that there isn't one answer to it, and I think that's the best answer...I say let each couple figure out what they want to do. At least, that's the best I can come up with.

On the point of reproduction, while labor is a "burden" (almost every mother I've ever talked to doesn't see giving birth as a burden at all, but that's beside the issue) of the wife, reproduction certainly doesn't begin and end with the physical act of birthing a child. Men were and are expected to initiate, support (aka fund) and lead relationships to and especially after childbirth. Socially speaking, the act of saving up money to afford a piece of jewelry or a house to legitimize a relationship/marriage before you can have a kid is just as much a part of reproduction as labor. Saying that women do 99.99999% of reproduction plainly lacks understanding of the male experience.

[Desperado]

The name changing (and the Miss/Mrs v Mr discrimination) is mostly a reflection of repression, and not repression itself. Many people don't care or think about it, and really there's not much to a name. It still says something about society however, and standing against it remains a symbolic gesture (like rebelling against all capitalist conformities (hair style, fashion for example) that aren't really oppressive per se but still carry a lot of meaning).

[Quail]

The questions in this thread are directed towards other women, but men can offer their opinions as well. I wanted to bring up marriage customs; especially the practice of women adopting the name of the man they are married to, but other marriage customs as well. My mother did not change her last name upon marrying my father. I remember when I was a child I thought it was weird, but now I admire her for it.

If I were to get married, I would want to keep my own name because my name is part of my identity and I don't know, I just don't think kayl <someone else's name> would sound right. Taking somebody else's name could be seen as joining their family, but I don't see why it should autonmatically be the woman that loses part of her identity to her husband.

I see a lot of traditions in marriage that indicate women's oppression, such as the woman claiming the title of "Mrs. (husband's name)", or in weddings when the father of the bride walks the bride down the isle to the altar as if he were relinquishing his ownership of her and transferring it instead to the husband.

I think this tradition is seen as outdated, and it does feel a little like the exchange of property. Alternatively perhaps people see it as an exchange of "protector" because I think the attitude that women need to be protected is still very prevalent. My parents, for example, gave my twin brother a lot more freedom when we were teenagers simply because they seemed to think he was more able to look out for himself.

Women, would you ever get married? If you already are married, what traditions did you keep or discard in your wedding and/or marriage? Or if you are not married but plan to be sometime, what would you keep or discard and why?

I'm undecided on whether or not I want to get married. I really want to keep my name and my identity as myself as opposed to somebody's wife. I do quite like the idea of some kind of wedding ceremony because, well, it would be a really nice day and I would like an excuse to wear a pretty dress!

[Palingenisis]

Regarding name changes:

Why are these at all necessary? Why can't Joanna Smith stay Joanna Smith even if she's married? I mean I understand why they came to be, but why would anyone keep onto them? Especially anyone aware of patriarchy?

Dont want to be Ultra-Leftist but arent in a way second names a left over from feudalism? Would people have them under Communism?

[Decolonize The Left]

Given that marriage was (and in many cases is) a religious institution, the "wife" is viewed as the property of the man. This is why the more traditional phrasing is "man and wife," rather than "husband and wife." Given that the wife, and the subsequent children, were all viewed as property of the husband, the substitution of the woman's last name for that of her husband can be viewed as a simple transferal of property from the father to the new husband.

TC makes many excellent points above, most notably the fact that the woman is denied a coherent recognizable individual identity. This is naturally due to the fact that the woman was viewed as property and hence devoid of individual identity apart from that of her owner, her husband.

As for the OP's question on marriage, I am a male and hence the question as stated doesn't apply to me. I was merely hoping to contribute to the discussion on names and patriarchy.

- August

[Hexen]

Leftists should oppose marriage because it's basically another manifestation of property that basically puts a fence around a person just like intellectual property rights puts a fence around ideas and ultimately private property rights which puts a fence around land (in this case the wedding ring is really no different than a copyright/trademark stamp). Remember the motto "Fuck Bourgeois Democracy Property is Theft All Hail the Revolutionary Left...dot com" and take that into consideration especially the bolded part.

[28350]

I've been thinking about more egalitarian ways of name-inheritance, but it's a tough puzzle. If you take both parents' names, each generation will have longer and longer surnames to a ridiculous point.

[Hexen]

I've been thinking about more egalitarian ways of name-inheritance, but it's a tough puzzle. If you take both parents' names, each generation will have longer and longer surnames to a ridiculous point.

Why not just ditch the whole name inheritance (well even our Abrahamic based names) altogether and just refer our selves as titles or analysis or something similar like usernames? Like for example my name could be "Hexen". Or maybe title based on whoever that person is and what they did in life like the Native Americans used to do it like "Crazy Horse" or something like that?

[Widerstand]

Why not just ditch the whole name inheritance (well even our Abrahamic based names) altogether and just refer our selves as titles or analysis or something similar like usernames? Like for example my name could be "Hexen". Or maybe title based on whoever that person is and what they did in life like the Native Americans used to do it like "Crazy Horse" or something like that?

Howabout we just not have rules for names at all and let people call themselves however the fuck they want to?

[Hexen]

Howabout we just not have rules for names at all and let people call themselves however the fuck they want to?

I guess I would go with that.

[TC]

Howabout we just not have rules for names at all and let people call themselves however the fuck they want to?

Personally, I like the idea of having no distinction between surname and given name and just having people given two to four given names - one used as a formal name, one used as a personal name, and the rest used to distinguish them from the other people with the same first and last name combination (since giving people a single name would make it difficult to distinguish between people in speech when they aren't present).

I also like the idea of having a tradition of children choosing their own names at a certain point or when they're ready.

But in the society we live in, there is an expectation of a given name and a surname/family name and family names have family significance.

Given this I think for practical purposes its best to arbitrarily choose a family name so that a child isn't saddled with the difficulty of not having one, but the parents aren't engaged in a patriarchal and demeaning tradition.

[redz]

I'm undecided on whether or not I want to get married. I really want to keep my name and my identity as myself as opposed to somebody's wife. I do quite like the idea of some kind of wedding ceremony because, well, it would be a really nice day and I would like an excuse to wear a pretty dress!

Kayl, I would encourage you to keep your own name.

I think that, as humans, we still retain monogamistic impulses and the instinct to pair up with a partner, usually of the opposite sex. This feeling can be quite strong, and it's understandable that one would want to celebrate it.

What fascinates me, and to some extent puzzles me, is how this impulse can sometimes mutate, fade, dissipate, etc. In some relationships, the partners remain attracted and somewhat loyal to each other, but branch into polyamorous relationships, or "alternative sexual lifestyle" behaviors (swinging, hotwifing, etc.) as a result of the surrounding highly charged sexual environment of modern life.

You can consider the paragraph above as a kind of amendment to my previous observation about monogamy, lubricated somewhat by a bit of evening whiskey.

Redz