As a complete generalisation, we are obsessed with weddings and the literal blood, sweat and tears that go into preparing the ‘ceremony of the year’. Marriage itself isn’t such a big concern these days; you can get married on reality television or divorced in the blink of an eye. But there is nothing quite like a wedding to send a bunch of adults into tizz of expectations and out dated traditions.
A wedding is no longer a small and intimate affair in which a virgin girl is walked down the aisle and given to a new family. These days, a wedding budget swells to include photographers, videographers, event planners, several outfit changes, a hash tag, a horse and carriage, a custom made dress with 7ft train, a child prodigy cellist, a gospel choir, a flower wall and a brass band for a three-day event catering for 300 guests. All so you can watch an adult woman pretending to be a virgin walked down an aisle and given to a new family. The obsession and the social importance placed on weddings sees a lot of women patiently waiting on their best behaviour hoping and praying their partner is squirrelling away a shit ton of money for some obnoxious finger bling so they can ‘finally’ start their life together. When broken down, it’s not hard to see marriage as a vicious ritual of consumerism and subtle misogyny. But it’s a ritual none the less, one that the majority of us will subscribe to.
“For some people, there’s so much weight in the idea of the engagement ring, sometimes it’s the only way they really know their partner is actually committed to them,” Harriet told me, recalling conversations she overhears at work.
And of course, societies grand expectations constantly tell us that in hetero couples the balls are not only in the men’s pants but court as well. Concepts such as women waiting for men to propose, asking permission from their dads, fathers giving their daughters away like a sausage at a barbecue, women changing their surnames and becoming subsequently defined by their ‘hubby’ can make the independent babes of today feel like sewing their vaginas up.
The same modern wedding can be seen as both an exquisite show of love and opulence by one audience and a sad subscription to external pressures and societal acceptance by another. While weddings are being scrutinized from all angles, the marriage itself is often left undefined beyond the obligatory social media handle changes.
“So many married women are quick to change their Instagram bios to read ‘Wife of Mr So and So’. To me it just feels as though a woman’s worth or importance is based upon their ability to become wifey material,” Harriet, said. She followed that by admitting she’s usually the first to cry at a wedding.
If the wives of today are compromising their identity, the wives of yesteryear were a mere 5 O’clock shadow on the chin of the man whose name they adopted. We all know the tale; women were expected to do all the cooking, cleaning and child rearing. They said ‘I don’t’ to a career the second they said ‘I do’ to a guy they didn’t even know was a good schtoop or not.
I had an air of smugness about me before I was married. I loved that we brought our sweet little limbo-bastard into the world while muddying the waters of social expectation. But, perhaps I’ve undone all that good immoral work by subscribing to the institution of marriage.
I live in a community full of progressive left wing thinkers with a huge queer community and an undoubted sense of importance put on social justice issues. Marriage is largely seen as a tool of oppression rather than a cause for celebration. I’ll tell you what though, want to ensure you don’t become one of those women that talks non-stop about wedding plans? Move to an isolated city in the desert with heaps of educated, political and sometimes-intimidating feminists and see how great you become at avoiding the topic.
I had people say nothing but ask ‘why?’ when I told them I was getting married, more than a few times suffragette style rants would follow. Marrying my old mate, the father of my child, which was a nice private affair with our favourite people, threw my ethics and morals into a feeding frenzy of a public debate. My looming wedding became the social equivalent of being told your dress was tucked into your knickers. I was suddenly self-conscious. Considering the vile associations throughout history and within our present state, having a wedding doesn’t seem to be that big of a deal. I mean, I’m married; I’m not a Nazi. Still, this niggle of guilt around being ‘bound’ to a man is exactly why myself and other women I know mostly still refer to our husbands as a ‘partner’.
The idea of modern marriage still circles around the constraints of what marriage used to look like and consequently becomes a higgledy-piggledy mess of out-dated opinions and viewpoints. As shocking as it may seem, most of the married women I know still contribute to society. Those that don’t in a traditional employment sense are taking a short break to blow their vag’s apart and be milked on the couch while their stitches heal before heading back to down coal mine. More and more are deciding to keep their maiden name, most have been de facto for a long time. And, some of them even still have opinions. The point is, privileged women in our culture and society, have agency in how their marriages pan out.
I was chatting to my friends Heather and Hollie about this (now that I’m married I only mingle with other married women who’s name offer a tidy alliteration to my own) and we got onto the topic of power dynamics and the gender imbalance that is assumed to tear through a marriage like horny footballers in a nightclub.
We were left scratching our heads, as our relationships had all remained largely unchanged since we walked the aisle of doom and signed our lives away to the devil of the patriarchy. Surely this is because we had all adopted the ‘try before you buy’ mentality and had already lived the domestic truths of de facto partnering. We had cooked meals for each other, hung out each other’s non impressive underwear, discussed and genuinely cared about each others bowel movements, argued about finances, argued about cushions, bought puppies, bought properties. I’d even given birth on the lounge room floor in front of the man that would become my husband. Needless to say, the tone had been set and our decisions were informed.
This is not an uncommon tale. And we are lucky for that! The time spent in relationships that reflect mundane real life, as a precursor to marriage is a liberty our grandmothers and great grandmothers weren’t afforded and our generation is certainly taking advantage of that. Over 80% of Australian married couples live together before getting hitched.
But maybe the notion of women’s decision and choice as an expression of her independence is as messed up as having your marital bed sheets checked for traces of hymen by your dad. While my experience may reflect the contemporary variety of marriage, that’s not to say all do. Some women are still choosing, and rightly so, I suppose, to throw themselves into the lives of wives of yesteryear.
I know a woman who fell in love with and married a man from a traditional Italian family, knowing that she was to fill a traditional housewife role. Her husband has never dirtied his hands with the women’s work of cleaning, cooking or washing. A bit of a ‘mummies boy,’ she told me. While they had been together for many years before they married, it wasn’t until the weekend of their wedding that they moved in together.
Your mind may race to visions of a pastel coloured scene with a woman in heels, perfectly set curls, a tidy dress and her tits in the sink as a roast gently cooks in the oven waiting for her husband to return from work for his 5.30 wristy. What you’d be more likely to see is a juggling act. Gabby works part time as a teacher and is also studying her masters. Though in her husbands eyes this is secondary ‘extra curricular’ activity on top of her most important role as mum, wife, maid.
“No, there isn’t much equality here but I knew that prior to marrying him and I didn’t come into it with any mindset of changing him or the family,” she said.
I can jump up and down all I like proclaiming to have made an informed and empowered decision. And so can Gabby, but considering she’s the first to admit her relationship is inequitable, we’d be fools to pass this off as liberation. While they may not be the norm any more, there is still a huge problem with gendered power structures that restrict women, in many ways, all around the world. Passing it off as a ‘choice’ is a great distraction from that.
Though, I’d like to remind everyone that its not solely marriage that all of a sudden makes men and women fall into a heap of normative household roles.
“I’ve never had a problem with marriage as a thing,” Heather told me. “But I have had a problem with how you navigate being in a heterosexual relationship.
The issue isn’t even reserved for couples; I know a lot of share house situations with no relationships to speak of, meaning no sexual compensation that still find themselves in the perils of gendered duties.
“You want to think of yourself as a progressive feminist male? Why don’t you do your own fucking dishes once in a while” my friend Emily once ranted to me about housemates of hers.
I don’t think it’s fair to assume becoming a Mrs all of a sudden makes you submissive, or a subMrs if you will. There is a greater weight to a wedding these days than the transfer of property. This is probably the reason that every single person to tell me they’ll never get married for ‘this or that’ reason admits they “still love a wedding”.
Our dull deluge of a western culture lacks a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ when it comes to the celebratory customs of life. Birth, if you’re religious, may see some water thrown over your noggin, but that’s certainly not for everyone. Then it’s pretty much nothing until you’re 18, 21 and 30 at which point, culturally, we can offer nothing more than the ritual of getting mingin’ drunk, capturing the whole clusterfuck on social media which will haunt you for the rest of your life. Without a wedding making an appearance in your timeline, it’s just a steady and dreary decline to your funeral, which will most likely be a soulless affair in a generic funeral home with a paid director mispronouncing your name and a lot of oppressed grief in the room. Bland food, terrible dancing and no vibe is customary of our western way.
I’m not suggesting you’ll not find happiness without a marriage. In fact, I wholeheartedly disagree with that. My friend Leah once told me the thought of shacking up with one person for the rest of her life was “fucking narcolepsy inducing.” I’m implying marriage and what it means to be or not to be married has changed from what it was for my Nan and her horny mates of the baby boomer era, hurriedly marrying at 18 before the miraculous and unusually early delivery of a baby.
After watching, uninterrupted, thanks to the time being one of no Netflix, Snapchat or other domestic escapism techniques, Gen X’s had the pleasure of observing those shithouse marriages of the baby boomers era, live stream straight from the kitchen. No one wants to make the mistakes their parents made and so, the inherently sceptical Gen X’s have pushed, loudly and with opinion back on the patriarchal norms of their predecessors. People found themselves choosing not to marry (gasp), have children out of wedlock (double gasp) or be openly gay (triple mega gasp). This leaves the young and supple Millennial’s, like myself, Hollie and Heather reaping the benefits of liberation. And, after last years humiliating, painful and hideously expensive plebiscite, Australian same sex couples now have the same right to divorce as the rest of us…. Only taking 16 years to catch up to the Netherlands who first passed the law in 2001.
Turns out, now that partnership is no longer seen as mandatory by society, a celebration of love and the act of bringing two families, two communities together is actually quite fucking nice.
“We have no rules and no norms to live by,” Hollie told me.
“But you know what, we are also a generation of people who are so free that in a way we have become an age of loneliness,” she said. “We are suffering from a bit of an identity crisis”.
And you know what’s great for establishing identity? Ritual and ceremony! And that’s why; every full moon, Hollie and her husband, Josh stand naked in their back yard and furiously masturbate while slaughtering virgins. No, this is a lie. But, rituals, subtly present throughout our daily habits do motivate and move us. From the perfect pot of tea for example, or the exact ratio of butter to Vegemite on your toast to taking the slightly longer but more scenic route to work. Rituals are a way in which we create and sustain our identity, they make us happy and they speak volumes to our identified community. On a larger and far more significant scale, a customized ceremony that reflects our own personalities, needs and tastes are ways in which we mark the important events in our lives. Having a baby, a meaningful birthday event or… A wedding are perfect examples of this.
Today’s marriages are (mostly) so far removed from the patriarchal and religious roots of their beginnings that I don’t believe the resurgence of young people choosing to take part even consider them. The same goes for the stereotypical and obviously backwards ‘traditions’ that make up a wedding. While the unawareness is certainly not a good thing, it’s nice to know of all the weddings I’ve attended in which the bride wears white down the aisle, not one has been a virgin. In fact, far from it. These traditions that were born as symbols of control and ownership are literally now just symbols of ‘wedding’.
Rituals such as weddings are often dismissed as old fashioned, but there’s a reason they still exist. They work. Most of the women I spoke to referred to a sense of ‘before’ and ‘after’ regarding their nuptials.
My friend Alice, whose mother has always been firmly against marriage said the ritual of a wedding ceremony has solidified the fact her husband and her are a “strong team”.
“I feel a sense of belonging,” she said.
“There is one person who will be with through life and that our marriage has cemented this”.
Marriage is hard work; I don’t think anyone would dispute that. But they are for exactly the same reasons relationships are and that is because we can all be arseholes. Constantly navigating the needs of two people with slightly differing opinions on food, wine, appropriate quantities of wine, television shows, disciplining children and the correct way to hang washing is tricky and tiring. The women that mentioned the before and after effect told me that in their experiences, marriage has provided the extra oomph and effort needed to push through inevitable turbulent times. Now that commitment is an expectation decided and defined by individual couples, it’s the individual couples that need to live up to that.
“Marriage was something I did unconventionally for me, I rebelled against myself,” My friend Alannah, (who always swore against marriage until meeting her husband and marrying him 6 weeks later, much to the shock of all of us) told me.
“If I fucked it up I was only fucking myself and I’m not about to do that. So far I haven’t had a good enough reason to walk away and break my own promise,” she said.
“I committed to making something work and besides a few bumps, it has. That’s something I’m proud of every day”.
Marriage isn’t necessary and a wedding is an expense that would probably be better spent on a house or long holiday. You could have a ceremony without signing any papers (though I think nothing gets international guests to travel like a wedding will); you can elope or just throw a party. But, declaring a bond in front of whomever you want, however you want is romantic as fuck. And you know what? Knowing my husband can easily make a call on my behalf if I find myself incapacitated on a hospital bed is an added bonus. Am I glad I did it? Yes, I thought it was a great and meaningful celebration and we are left with incredible photos to remind us of it. Would I do it again? Hell no, that shit is exhausting and expensive. We can always go down the road of sacrificial virgin backyard wanking if we need to fill a void.
A Tender Gusset 