Feminist Perspectives On Marriage

In My Humble Opinion
1

Based on this interesting article in Salon (cited below) I learned there is a contingent within the feminist movement that is completely anti-marriage, but other than some broad generalizations the article did not go into any great depth as to why feminists would not be marriage neutral but actively anti marriage. I thought I was generally familar with the variety of opinions in most progessive groups but this information surprised me. While this would seem to be a dream come true for the Maxim Magazine reading cohort of the single and dating male population I somehow doubt these two goups will be intersecting to any great extent.

In any case, my question for the dopers who consider themselves to be serious (or even amusing) feminists is this. Do you think marriage (gay or straight) is a bad idea for those seriously committed to human/gender equality and if so specifically why?

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/08/15/i_do/index.html

"I do – kind of By Amy Benfer

“I won’t” feminists go up against “I did, but I have a good excuse” feminists in a holier-than-thou battle over what it means to walk that aisle.

Aug. 15, 2001 | Every revolution gets a little boring without rebellion and dissension in the ranks. For “feminists” – in quotation marks because no one seems to agree who exactly gets to call herself a feminist – marriage has become so taboo that getting hitched has come to seem like rebellion. This may be why the most traditional social institution of all has started to gain new street cred with some women who consider themselves to be feminists, a state of affairs that leaves certain other women who also call themselves feminists nearly apoplectic with rage and disbelief."

etc. etc.

2

I just don’t understand it. Even if you repeat Gloria Steinem and say “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle,” well, maybe the fish wants a damn bicycle!

3

I don’t think being a feminist is about the choices made, but rather the freedom to make them.

4

what she said.

To make the generalization that if a woman marries she is, in essence, betraying the cause of feminism isn’t only absurd, it’s nosey and hypocritical. Isn’t feminism supposed to be about equality, and emotional freedom for women? I was always under the impression that the movement was started to give women the confidence to take control of their own lives. So how does “O.K., you should have complete control over every aspect of your personal life; except you can’t get married, because men are evil.” fit into that premise?

In my experience, it seems that most of the feminists who are against marriage are “old school” feminists, who are *used to * having to fight with prejudiced old farts to make any social progress. They can’t seem to grasp the idea that constant struggling and fighting isn’t the only way to live equally with men. I really don’t understand that point of view. What, do they think men can never learn? That they’re all complete Neanderthals, and always will be? If that’s the case, wouldn’t they be just as bad as the people they’re fighting? It seems ironic that people who founded a movement for social change find it hard to move with the times.

5

I’m a feminist and I’m married. (so much for credentials)

I hyphenated my last name as a compromise. I wouldn’t give up my name and he wouldn’t marry a woman unless she took his. Frankly, neither of us was happy with the compromise, but consider it fair since we are both equally disastisfied. If you can’t negotiate and/or compromise when you disagree don’t get married.

That’s the only “pang” I’ve ever felt about being married.

The year I got married I lost two jobs, changed careers my fiancee lost his job, he changed careers, his started his own business, we moved, we had bills we couldn’t pay. Then things got worse. My mom almost died and had to have a second heart surgery. My oldest sister DID die. Some of her “friends” blamed the family for her death and my parents started receiving harassing phone calls and threats. So did I. All this during the summer we held the funeral and the burial. It was a year from hell, what can I say?

By the end of it, I decided to marry the man who had driven me several thousand miles between my home and my parents home and my deceased sister’s home (I had no car of my own at the time), held me when I cried, and would help me get my shit together every morning and get my butt to work when all I wanted to do was sob.

The thing these howling feminists miss completely is that when you marry you (ideally) become family Having lost one and nearly another close family member in less than 3 months I was terrified of being orphaned and alone in the world. Marriage made my husband and I legally familly - should I be in an accident or become ill he would be able to visit me in a hospital, take care of my affairs, and take care of me without question (all facts that make marriage appealing to homosexuals).

I also gained a tribe of in-laws who, although not always the most lovable people, are yet another family who cares for me and has helped the two of us through some of our hard times.

I have gained by getting married, not lost.

Since my husband and I got hitched we have supported each other, held each other, and yes, occassionally screamed at each other. I helped him found a business, helped him through the rough early years of self-employment, and encouraged him to pursue a career in music, which he had dreamed about since he was a child. He has encouraged me to pursue a career (a result of which I am now the primary breadwinner in the family) and to get my pilot’s license, which I had dreamed about since I was a child. He’s now encouraging me to go back to school and get a master’s degree, including assuming more of the household responsibilities so I will have time to study.

So – what the hell are these “feminists” ranting about? Yes, 50 years ago marriage was a different institution. Yes, there are bad marriages. What’s their point? You get china when you marry? Not me - we had no money, in fact we had to borrow the marriage license fee, and we eloped. Our wedding dinner was bought and cooked for us by a friend, and had all of 5 people present. We still haven’t had a honeymoon. Well, maybe that’s the difference. I married my best friend with an eye to making a lifetime partnership based on love and respect, not as an excuse to buy a white gown and get kitchen equipment.

6

I read that article too, and the whole thing struck me as rather eye-roll worthy.

Okay, women don’t need men. That’s cool, I’m all good with that. I’ve come to accept, nay, enjoy my own essential uselessness in the big scheme of things. “I am not a beautiful and unique snowflake. I am the same decaying organic matter as everything else.” I am Jack’s nihilistic apathy. ;]

But what if a woman chooses, quite consciously, after having gone over all the pros and cons, to retain a man permanently? Just because she wants to? I see no reason, philosophically or practically, why this is necessarily a bad thing. But then I don’t think I’m a feminist, surrounded in quotes or otherwise.
I think maybe some of this debate is generational. I’m relatively young (mid 20’s) and I generally do believe that women have exactly the same rights as men. Hence I think if they want to get married, that’s their right. Just like it would be if a guy wanted to get married. I assume they’re conscious of the consequences of their decisions, that they realize what this means. And, possibly, that they understand it slightly better than a comparable male, even. Trying to tell them that they can’t do that, and that it’s wrong and that they’ve been brianwashed by society, etc, etc… seems ridiculous to me. If one of my buddies buys a Ferrari, do I tell him, “Gee Hal, you should sell that thing! You know you’ve just been brainwashed by society into wanting a fast car!” Hell no! For starters, he’d roll his eyes at me and think I was a moron, and pushy to boot. And secondly, I wouldn’t get a ride in his Ferrari. Heh. I treat women the same way. They know what they’re doing. It’s their life. They’ve made their choices based on reasons.

Give the girls a little credit. They’re not dumb, they’re not blind, and their every decision is not being dictated to them against their will by “society.” If they want to marry, let 'em. If they don’t want to, that’s good too. And if the marriage turns out to be bad, that’s why we have divorce.
-Ben

7

In the past fifty years, we’ve stopped placing help wanted ads separately for men and women. In the past thirty, married women could get their own credit cards. In the past ten, marital rape became against the law.

There are fewer reasons to object to marriage now than there were. But there are still reasons. If I marry someone I love very much, who happens to stink at managing money, should I let his bounced checks trash my credit rating simply because I want to make him the father of my children?

What we need is a la carte marriage. Pick the things you want to share and the things you want to stay separate. Doesn’t have to mean you don’t love each other, but it does mean you have your eyes open.

Corr

8

That is so insane, I can’t believe what I just read. A la carte marriage??? I’m sorry, but if you marry someone, you marry all of them, not just their sperm. If you wanted that, have a kid together but don’t get hitched. “I don’t want him to ruin my credit”? You can’t just marry the parts of the person that you like. Marriage is a compromise, and to think that you can pick and choose what you want out of the other person is insensitive and degrading, not to mention selfish.

9

My wife and I both changed our names. We ended up choosing my mother’s maternal grandmother’s maiden name. I didn’t want my wife to take my last name, and I hated the idea of hyphenation. That worked out pretty well, although I ended up pissing off my dad’s family because of some poor communication. So it goes.

So far as marriage goes, it’s great. We both compromise. We both gain more than we lose – at least, that’s what my wife tells me. But I don’t feel the need to tell other people they should be married, which I always found annoying as a single person.

And I’d call myself a feminist, but it’s kind of like saying I’m an atheist: it always requires further explanation.

10

Marriage is a patriarchal institution…but then so are most others that have been around more than a handful of decades.

Speaking as a feminist-theory geek, I’d say that sexual possessiveness is inherently patriarchal; that attempts to organize sexual appetite (and also the appetite for being in love / falling in love, for which we have insufficiently good terminology) into a contractual format is…well, inherently adversarial if not necessarily inherently patriarchal.

I would say also that it is still true that laws apply to people once they are married in sexist ways, and that the body of all laws that suddenly become applicable to you when you marry are the legal essence of the institution, so although it is much better than it once was, it is still a sexist institution even if you ignore its ancient history.

I have no objection to people marrying if they wish, although I don’t think the government should recognize the institution and prefer it to other alternative structures and arrangements (including those that are deliberately loose and informal and incorporate very few definitive promises).

11

I thought that feminists only objected to bad marriages (abusive, arranged, shotgun, etc.). Gloria Steinem deciding, on her own, without any coercion, that she wanted to get married strikes me as perfectly natural, if not the best possible circumstances for getting hitched. (And I’m the only one who finds something remarkable about a woman in her 60’s tying the knot, when the chances are supposed to all but vanish around 45?) As far as I’m concerend, any real feminist wouldn’t object to it.

Honestly, I don’t see any debate here. Yes, women entering into the most hallowed of personal relationships of their own will and fully conscious is a good thing. Yes, there still are potential pitfalls, as with any marriage. Yes, marriage originated as a cornerstone of the oppressive patriarchy. No, that does not mean that nothing’s changed between then and now. Yes, a woman can take a man into her life without absolutely needing him. (I don’t need television, console games, or a cable modem; doesn’t mean I’m going to throw them out the window.)

As for hyphenation, the best thing is to find something that sounds nice and doesn’t upset anyone and go with it. Searching the archives for a respected relative is okay. Hyphenation is okay provided it doesn’t make the name too long (which is a very real concern for both present and future generations).

A la carte marriage? Well, anything that cuts down on messy, expensive divorces is fine by me. It’s unlikely that anyone would ever pass it, though. (Hell, Bill Clinton couldn’t stomach the idea of same-sex unions.)

12

Knowing what I know now, a year after beginning the
divorce, I still think marriage is a viable form
of commitment.

I also think young women are deliberately, conclusively,
and despicably left ignorant of the rights they’ll
be giving away, the reduction in safety they will
experience under the protection of the law from
both physical and financial hazard from the chosen
man, and just how hard it shall be to ever get
loose again if things go south in a terrible manner.

I can tell you, I’ll never get married again. If
I get a guy I want that much, I’ll write up a
contractual partnership. That allows for the
insurance, and finances, without putting me over
a barrel. I can limit my losses. Then, I’ll
set him up a limited medical power of attorney,
with my specific instructions delimiting his
powers, and a living will that puts my decisions
in black and white.

And I’ll have specific ‘damage clauses’ that will
say EXACTLY just how bad he’ll forfeit if he ever
even OFFERS me physical harm. He can have the same
clauses, too. “Jokes” and “hitting to be funny”
will be specifically verboten.

P.S. Been there, done that, got the Tshirt, cut it
to rags, and used it to wash the windows, already.

13

ROTFLMAO! Applause! Applause!

14

**Broomstick **hit the nail on the head, about family. They say you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family, but that’s not quite true. You DO get a chance to pick your family. That’s the reason why I plan to get married one of these days. I don’t want kids and I’m keeping my name (it is much cooler than his) & my own bank account, but what the Hell, I don’t want to sleep with anybody else anyway. I love this guy & I want to be with him for the rest of my life. So if there’s some kind of social institution that recognizes this, I’m going to go for it.

I definitely consider myself to be a feminist, but I tend to express this by doing things like making enough money and being tough enough that I’ll never have to worry about having a man around to “take care of me”. Railing against marriage doesn’t make me any stronger.

15

It all comes down to the man and the woman.

I applaud you, Ziatrice, for getting out of what sounded like a very bad marriage, bad both physically, emotionally and financially.

However, despite all our feminist desires for equality and freedom to choose, there are still plenty of women out there that want a husband to make all the decisions for them, that were raised, be it by mother or father, to believe that a little hit now and then is “okay, cause he said he loves me” or that expects the man to take care of the finances, the lawn and everything else. I don’t think the problem is with the institution - it’s with the people that enter into it.

Don’t want your credit trashed (and I’m not picking on your Corvin)? Don’t marry a man that is irresponsible with money or be the one that handles the money in the family. If he’s unreliable enough that he would go behind your back to get credit cards and the like, should you really be marrying someone like that? And that gate swings both ways: there are tons of men out there who have been ruined in a divorce because the wife went out and charged up the cards before filing and then stuck him with the cost at the proceedings.

People go into marriage too often thinking of butterflies and sunset, but should go into with the mind that they are committing themselves to a business contract. There are certain obligations and committments that you agree to in a marriage contract and if you don’t consider all of the potential outcomes of those obligations, well, shame on you.

Now, please don’t take that wrong. I realize people change and that bad things happen to good people. I think you know the type of arrangement I’m talking about, the ol’ “Oh, he’ll stop doing that after we’re married” or “I can get him to not drink as much”. etc. etc.

A marriage is only as good as the people that enter into it. Sure, it has a patriarchal history, but hopefully we’ve left the bulk of that behind and will continue to shed the skin of what is left until it is truly an agreement between equals.

16

Well, in the dept. of “a rock and a hard place”…marriage is about the only way for a guy in Oklahoma to get his fair shake of paternal rights. I would be a mean, cruel person if I refused to marry the father of my children, both for his sake and for their protection.

On the other hand, no human being is perfect. If he can love me despite my AWFUL cooking, my pompous rants at 1 AM, and my inability to dance standing up, then I can love him despite his silly little ways with a checkbook, the way he keeps moving my toothbrush, and the way he keeps calling my mom by his last girlfriend’s mom’s name.

But the kicker here is when the law gets involved (which is what marriage is.) The law says, no matter WHAT the two of us decide in our vows and swear to our friends, family, ourselves, and the Gods, that marriage IS THIS: a monogamous union for life between two people, linking their finances and making them each other’s next of kin. Despite what you swear in your vows, the law is what you get. I guess I don’t see what’s wrong with not wanting this particular set of laws to be the way it is, or to choose what you want to be bound by, and not go into it with your eyes closed. The law marks me as someone who’s broken my marriage contract. And yet I haven’t broken the vows I swore yet; my ex and I promised each other that we would remain married as long as we loved each other, and separate before we hated each other, and we did. THAT is the kind of difference I mean.

Corr

17

I’ve never seen why the government is even involved in marriage. If two people want to make an arrangement with specific obligations, that is what lawyers and contracts are for.

But just as in most movements you can find just about any imaginable extreme in the pantheon of sub-feminist movements. You can find a few that feel marriage is inherently sexist; you can find a few that feel heterosexual intercourse is inherently rape of the woman; you can probably find some that feel Spaghettio’s are the clearest signifier of the continuing partriarchy of American society.

It is just that the fringes usually talk louder.

18

I don’t know why I’m posting this. Commenting on feminism always gets me in trouble. I’m for equality. Women are capable of doing and regularly do just as good a job as men do. There’s no reason for women to be treated as second-class citizens when they are so valuable to society. I support everything about feminism

All except that damn quote.

I’m sorry. I just don’t think there’s a very good way for a feminist to explain “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” without it degenerating into “Girls r gud becuz boyz have cooties.”

Point A: A fish has no use for a bicycle. If they meant that a woman just doesn’t need a man, they could have just as easily said “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a Chinese algae-eater.”

Point B: “A man needs a woman like a fish needs a bicycle.” This would, in all likelihood, be attacked as a chauvinist, elitist statement by an ignorant, oppressive man. blink

But in my humble opinion, the most important point transcends logic or semantics. If my significant other thinks I’m a bicycle to her fish… well, damn, that hurts. I like to think that I have some use in her life, and that I’m not just a frivolous, useless-but-cute presence. racinchikki makes a good point that sometimes the fish wants a bicycle… but that still seems like maybe the fish has an irrational attachment.

Yeah, I know I’m reading too much into it.
No, I don’t care. :smiley:

19

I like to say “A man needs a woman like a bicycle needs a fish.”

Personally, I think the phrase is a bit more caustic than it needs to be, but techinically it’s true and should be recognized as such. Women are perfectly capable of being perfectly capable without a man. Of course, many of them want one, which is perfectly ok by my book.

Seriously, I think the Feminists are way out of touch with the feminists, if you know what I mean. The average woman (or man for that matter) on the street who would describe themself as feminist probably doesn’t give much of a darn what Gloria Steinem (for example) thinks about anything.

20

To discuss marriage, one must first define marriage, for the rights and responsibilities involved in marriage, separation and divorce differ depending on one’s jurisidiction.

In that time and place where I live, in Ontario, Canada, married women do not lose property rights upon marriage the way they used to, so marriage is not a negative proposition any more.

For most women here, there is a benefit marriage in that upon separation and divorce, most women they have better property right protection than women leaving common-law relationships.

For example, let’s say a man and woman move into the man’s home. Given the general economic disparity between the genders, this is a pretty common scenario. If they split, the woman would be out on the street with only the clothes on her back if they were common-law (unless she could prove a trust interest), whereas if they were married, half the home would be hers.

The way the law here is moving, I expect that it will not be too long until common-law relationships and same-sex relationships (common-law or married) are given the same rights under the law.

Once marrige becomes gender neutral, then the issue will not be the problems of marriage, but rather the problems of inequitable power relationships within relationships.

I submit that the problem is not that marriage is bad, but rather that given the general power imbalance between the genders, particularly in the economic sphere, relationships and relationship breakdown can often be problematic, and often result in women holding the short end of the stick.

The solution has nothing to do with the institution of marriage per se. The solution lies in dealing with the underlying power imbalances which often put women at a disadvantage prior to, during, and following relationships, including marriage.