{"id":303,"date":"2013-09-07T14:03:47","date_gmt":"2013-09-07T14:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alis.vamtam.com\/?p=303"},"modified":"2013-09-07T14:03:47","modified_gmt":"2013-09-07T14:03:47","slug":"dont-ask-your-girlfriends-dad-if-you-can-marry-her","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calaexperiences.com\/?p=303","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Ask Your Girlfriend’s Dad if You Can Marry Her"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t

It’s not a sign of respect. It’s a deeply sexist practice.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the final days of August, which means summer wedding season is finally winding down, and we\u2019ll have a few months of respite before the holiday engagement season \u2013 and the attendant ring-on-hand selfies that flood your Facebook feed — kicks in. In the months before they propose to their partners, men across America will be popping a different question \u2013 to their future fianc\u00e9\u2019s father, asking for his blessing to marry his daughter.<\/p>\n

They shouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

According to a 2015 survey from TheKnot.com of what appear to be overwhelmingly heterosexual couples, more than three-quarters of men ask for permission from their partner\u2019s father or parents before they propose. By contrast, only 58 percent of brides say they knew a proposal was coming, but just weren\u2019t sure when \u2013 for 40 percent, it was a complete surprise. In other words, more men talk to their girlfriend\u2019s father about a plan to marry than talk about marriage, in serious and relatively immediate terms, to the woman they actually want to marry.<\/p>\n

\n\tChallenging conventional\n\t<\/h2>\n

\n\t@WeddingNews\n\t<\/h3>\n\t

Challenging conventional wedding traditions may be low on the list of feminist priorities, but that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s not important to take a hard look at the rituals and norms we hold dear, or participate in without much thought.<\/p>\n\t

Challenging conventional wedding traditions may be low on the list of feminist priorities, but that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s not important to take a hard look at the rituals and norms we hold dear, or participate in without much thought. Gender equality isn\u2019t just about getting laws on the books; it\u2019s about changing a culture that situates men as dominant and women as subordinate. And some of the most stubborn and more literal incarnations of a sexist culture come along with weddings \u2013 which is why, uncomfortable though it may be, those of us who want a more egalitarian society must take a hard look at how wedding rituals undermine that goal. There\u2019s a lot about American marriage traditions that are sexist, and a lot of sexism that gets rewritten as romance. But perhaps second only to women overwhelmingly folding their names and identities into their husbands when they marry is men asking their girlfriend\u2019s father for permission to marry her. Which is why those of us in feminist relationships should reject that norm \u2013 or at least understand that by partaking in it, we\u2019re reinforcing a deeply sexist practice.<\/p>\n

The most popular arguments in favor of ask-dad-first seem to be tradition and respect. So let\u2019s tackle each. It is indeed traditional to ask a woman\u2019s father if you can marry her, because traditionally, marriage was a property transfer \u2013 with you, the bride, as the property. The legal landscape of marriage has blessedly changed, and no longer does marriage mean that \u201chusband and wife are one, [and] the one is the husband,\u201d as it was under the law of coverture, when women gave up nearly all of their individual rights upon marriage. In those bad old days, a married woman (or married girl, as the case often was) couldn\u2019t own property or refuse sex, or have any separate legal existence from her husband; women were barred from voting in part because the husband was a wife\u2019s legal representative. Happy that the laws around marriage and women have been overhauled so you can be a married woman and an individual with a full set of rights? Thank a feminist. But why romanticize the asking-permission tradition that came out of such backward laws?<\/p>\n

\u201cRespect,\u201d the answer goes. But respect for whom \u2013 and at who\u2019s expense? In a marriage, you should respect your partner first and foremost. And respecting a woman means not treating her like property, a stereotype instead of an individual, or an appendage to yourself \u2013 which means not expecting she take your name, not expecting she\u2019ll do more of the at-home work because she\u2019s the woman, and not asking her father if it\u2019s OK to marry her. There are few things that demonstrate less respect for an adult woman than asking her dad if she\u2019s allowed to make one of the biggest decisions of her life. In an attempt to \u201crespect\u201d a woman\u2019s father, you\u2019re disrespecting her.<\/p>\n

Of course, a lot of heterosexual couples do a kind of hybrid between tradition and modernity \u2013 they have a series of conversations about marriage and make the mutual decision to wed, and then the future groom has a conversation with his future wife\u2019s father. This is obviously less egregious than a man talking to his partner\u2019s father before ever seriously discussing marriage plans with her, and then springing a surprise proposal on her (please, every woman reading this, if your boyfriend does this, run away as fast as you can \u2013 major life decisions are not best made by surprise, and being forced to utter a split second yes\/no to marriage is not romantic; it\u2019s a sign you\u2019re too immature to get married).<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s not a sign of respect. It’s a deeply sexist practice. It\u2019s the final days of August, which means summer wedding season is finally winding down, and we\u2019ll have a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lights"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/calaexperiences.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/post-2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calaexperiences.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calaexperiences.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calaexperiences.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calaexperiences.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calaexperiences.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calaexperiences.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calaexperiences.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calaexperiences.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calaexperiences.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calaexperiences.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}