I did not ask my wife’s parents for permission. The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. We were both mid-20s, and I saw her as a person, not her parents’ property. I proposed (completely surprised her, to my surprise), she said yes, then we told her parents later that day. Her mom told her that her dad was disappointed that I didn’t ask him first. He’s always been aloof and never expresses his feelings unless he’s super angry, so to this day, over 40 years later, he has never told us how he felt about it, or about me. I think it’s safe to say, though, that now that he realizes that his own son is a raging asshole and his ex-daughter-in-law is a manipulative narcissist, that my wife is his favorite child and by extension, I am his favorite in-law. Winning.
No. We were already living together, and I just asked her one morning if we ought to get married, since everyone else we knew was doing it, and we had been together a long time already. She said “Ooooh-Kaaayyy…” and just called her parents and told them right after.
When/if my daughter gets married, I wont be expecting the suitor to come calling, either. And when/if my son gets married, if his prospective FIL requires this, I will tell him to find another girl.
It’s such a bizarre outdated and misogynistic “tradition.” What happens if the father says “Nope!”?
Dowry? Yes, I got one. My wife is Greek Cypriot and the prika (dowry) would typically be goats or some other livestock. Since her father was deceased, she herself gave me a small ceramic goat the evening we got married. It sits on our mantel. Every year on our anniversary she gives me an additional animal figurine. One year I got a badger and last year I got a possum (opossum, of course). I’m expecting an alligator this year.
That’s kind of my feeling about it, too. I’m marrying & living with her, not her extended family. Sure, it’s good to be on good relations with them but not 100% required.
I got engaged twice, first one was estranged from her father for years so no point in asking someone something I had never had a conversation with.
Second time she had grown kids & had only met her father twice due to living in different states. Not even sure I could have gotten to him directly w/o arising suspicion. I now have his phone # but don’t think we’ve ever spoken without her there. They do a regular family zoom call but I’ve never been on it w/o her.
The other reason is OpSec, the less people who know, the less people who can ruin the surprise, even accidentally letting something slip. I know someone who got engaged a couple of months ago. They were living together but her sister had the ring for a couple of weeks so she couldn’t accidentally find it in her place. It was one of those after he proposed the families got together for brunch scenarios. The day before she was talking to her mom or sister (?) & when then ended the conversation the other person said, “Bye, see you tomorrow” which she said she picked up on & thought odd as they didn’t have any plans (that she knew of) but let it slide as one of those meaningless comments. Had the other person said see you at brunch, alarm bells would have gone off.
In the article I linked, most of the men appear to have said “well I’ll be damned” and moved on with their plans to marry.
Then you ignore him; you’ve politely made the customary but meaningless gesture, and he hasn’t politely made a customary but meaningless gesture in response, and so you shrug and move on.
I didn’t ask “permission” per se, but I did visit both her parents before asking her and told them of my intentions and asked for their blessing. I think they were touched and appreciated the gesture. They of course gave it as I knew they would. If they hadn’t for some reason, it wouldn’t have mattered, we would still have married. I see it as a sign of respect and don’t see anything wrong with it, as long as both parties understand it is only a traditional gesture, without any kind of binding significance either way.
Well then, the opposite of the blessing they were asking for!
The “blessing” bit? I can see a sweet thing of a couple inviting both sets of parents to dinner and announcing with a ceremonial “we ask for your blessings” … not just the man, and not permission. But yes we want the welcome to be of each other’s families for what we are going to do.
If asked for permission I probably would say no. Boy, if you don’t love her enough to tell me to suck it when I say that you ain’t someone I can approve of.
The current boyfriend, still unmet, has had his only introduction to me so far as my daughter calling me because she had taken one of the dogs to her apartment and when her boyfriend came over the dog started to growl menacingly:
“Dad what should I do?”
“Dump him. Dog came first.”
Of course it’s antiquated patriarchal nonsense. If my future spouse wanted me to do it out of respect for their parents (unlikely now that I am in my early 60s but work with me here) of course I would. Sometimes you need to to stupid things for your SO.
It’s not so much asking permission as it is having a discussion with their parents about future plans and such.
I certainly didn’t do it. My now ex-wife would have mocked the fuck out of me and her dad would have thought it was ridiculous. The ex and I chose the ring together and I formally asked her when we got back home just to do it. We had been living together for years and her whole family loved (and still loves) me. She called her parents and then she put me on the phone and they told me how happy they were.
He was retired Marine, and while I didn’t ask for his permission, I did ask for his blessing/approval.
Correct, the usual English term for obligatory property transfer from the groom to the bride’s family, instead of the other way around, is “bride price”, not “dowry”.
A “dowry” is the property a girl is “dowered” or “endowed” with by her family, to contribute to her future home. (Whether that’s a marital home or a convent, btw: AIUI some Catholic orders of nuns do still request a dowry at the entry of an aspirant to their order. And of course back in medieval times that was as absolutely routine for nuns from propertied families as marital dowries were for brides from propertied families.)
Nope, it never occurred to me (married in 1996). My parents gave their blessing unsolicited, knowing it wouldn’t make a difference. Their reasoning for doing so was that they were devout Baptists and Ms. P is Jewish. They wanted to make sure we know they had no reservations about us getting married.
No. In fact, the notion of even thinking of asking for his permission never entered my mind.
Kind of.
We started dating in early 1990, and by early 1991, we were pretty sure that we wanted to get married. That spring, we took a vacation in Florida, where her father lived. One morning, my then-girlfriend, her father, and I, went to the beach. While she was fiddling around in the surf, her father and I were standing a distance away, just chatting.
Him: “You know, she needs someone to take care of her.”
Me: “I know.”
Him: “Will you do that, for her and for me?”
Me: “I will.”
I let her parents know I was gonna ask her. Didn’t ask permission, just a heads-up.
No. Never thought about it.
No, never thought about it. It was her decision to make, not his.
Except this particular tradition (groom asking bride’s father for permission) began long before the age of just-out-of-highschool marriage (particularly for men) and the custom was never asking advice, but permission, and was never asked of all parents, but only of the bride’s father (not the groom’s father, and not either mother - it was permission from to male with control/veto over only female).
Not to mention the expectation that the wife will automatically take the husband’s surname.