# Straight married men: did you ask your wife's father for her hand in marriage? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 12, 2014, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-married-men-did-you-ask-your-wifes-father-for-her-hand-in-marriage/704478 "2014-11-12T21:43:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-married-men-did-you-ask-your-wifes-father-for-her-hand-in-marriage/704478/181 "2014-11-15T00:54:20Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Nobody we have actually heard of in this thread literally believes such permission would be withheld - That’s not true. As I wrote earlier, my father would have said “no” if my husband-to-be had asked for my hand in marriage. No joke, he would have been quite sincere. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-married-men-did-you-ask-your-wifes-father-for-her-hand-in-marriage/704478/182 "2014-11-16T02:33:56Z")
> [@CairoCarol](#): > > That’s not true. As I wrote earlier, my father would have said “no” if my husband-to-be had asked for my hand in marriage. No joke, he would have been quite sincere. Plus **Shodan** says above (in post #151) that the answer would definitely have been “no” if he had asked. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-married-men-did-you-ask-your-wifes-father-for-her-hand-in-marriage/704478/183 "2014-11-16T02:58:44Z")
> [@CairoCarol](#): > > That’s not true. As I wrote earlier, my father would have said “no” if my husband-to-be had asked for my hand in marriage. No joke, he would have been quite sincere. Which is a perfectly good reason not to ask. The ritual is only fun when the answer is known, it should never actually get in the way of a marriage. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-married-men-did-you-ask-your-wifes-father-for-her-hand-in-marriage/704478/184 "2014-11-16T03:01:52Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Are we talking about getting permission, or a blessing? There’s a world of difference between the two. Not in the context of the ritual, actually, since the de facto permission was given long before - and given by the mother of the groom in the same way that my wife and I gave de facto permission. Plus we’re all atheists, so we don’t do blessings. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-married-men-did-you-ask-your-wifes-father-for-her-hand-in-marriage/704478/185 "2014-11-16T03:04:30Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > If they are harmless, why do we need to fix them? > > Regards, > Shodan Not to mention that in our case all the relationships would be exactly the same the “permission” was requested or not. I was not expecting either to ask, and I would not have been offended if they hadn’t asked. You wanna talk about something sexist? How about the tradition that the father of the bride pays. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-married-men-did-you-ask-your-wifes-father-for-her-hand-in-marriage/704478/186 "2014-11-16T16:13:59Z")
I asked. I had already proposed and been accepted, (not that there was any surprise in that), a couple of days earlier, but we were making the tour of the parental homes announcing our engagement, and when we got to her parents’ home I opened with, “I’d like to ask for Deb’s hand in marriage.” He responded, “She’s an adult, ask her.” ETA: the “asking” was just a nod to old traditions. We’d have married without permission and his answer was as close to saying “No” as he was likely to get. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-married-men-did-you-ask-your-wifes-father-for-her-hand-in-marriage/704478/187 "2014-11-17T13:26:44Z")
> [@Octarine](#): > > My two cents: Prior to this thread, I was completely unaware that the whole “asking the father for her hand” thing was still, well, a thing. Huh. Me as well. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-married-men-did-you-ask-your-wifes-father-for-her-hand-in-marriage/704478/188 "2014-11-17T13:34:16Z")
> [@CairoCarol](#): > > That’s not true. As I wrote earlier, my father would have said “no” if my husband-to-be had asked for my hand in marriage. No joke, he would have been quite sincere. This leads to people not asking. No-one in this thread at least has claimed that they (or their partner) asked, were refused, and as a result of that refusal, actually did not get married. In short, people only ask if they know the answer will be “yes”. They are not asking a question the answer of which is in doubt; the marriage does not hang on the father’s grant of permission, as in _Fiddler on the Roof_ (well, at least the first marriage in that play/movie). Certainly, there are parents who do not like the husband-to-be, and would love to have a veto on the marriage; but such veto is not, in general, exercised by the husband-to-be formally asking for the daughter’s hand in marriage … and being refused … and the daughter and husband-to-be sorrowfully parting ways. At least, I’ve not heard of that happening, and I suspect it is pretty uncommon. In short, it is a ritual. ---
**Author:** ![dasmili](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@dasmili](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmili)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-married-men-did-you-ask-your-wifes-father-for-her-hand-in-marriage/704478/189 "2014-11-17T14:18:56Z")
I’ve never met my wife’s father. From what I’ve heard about him, that’s probably a good thing. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-married-men-did-you-ask-your-wifes-father-for-her-hand-in-marriage/704478/190 "2014-11-17T17:31:35Z")
Not so much asked, as told. My wife was absolutely insistent that I get his permission, and I, as a 35 year old man (at the time) wasn’t really excited about asking anyone’s permission. So I cornered him at one point when we were all getting out of the car and sort of gently informed him that I was marrying her, and that I hoped he was okay with it. He burst into laughter and said that it was fine, and that he thought it was particularly funny because that’s exactly how he’d done his father-in-law years before, when he married my mother-in-law. ---
**Author:** ![raspberry\_hunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@raspberry\_hunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raspberry_hunter)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-married-men-did-you-ask-your-wifes-father-for-her-hand-in-marriage/704478/191 "2014-11-17T17:50:51Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > This leads to people not asking. > > No-one in this thread at least has claimed that they (or their partner) asked, were refused, and as a result of that refusal, actually did not get married. > > In short, people only ask if they know the answer will be “yes”. They are not asking a question the answer of which is in doubt; the marriage does not hang on the father’s grant of permission, as in _Fiddler on the Roof_ (well, at least the first marriage in that play/movie). Certainly, there are parents who do not like the husband-to-be, and would love to have a veto on the marriage; but such veto is not, in general, exercised by the husband-to-be formally asking for the daughter’s hand in marriage … and being refused … and the daughter and husband-to-be sorrowfully parting ways. At least, I’ve not heard of that happening, and I suspect it is pretty uncommon. > > In short, it is a ritual. Nope. It does happen that the parents say no; I posted about just such a case in my family, and it just leads to bad feeling all around. The bride and groom are angry that the parents are making this difficult because they were “supposed” to have said yes; the parents are angry that the bride and groom pretended to care about their opinion and then made it very clear that they didn’t. So yeah, it didn’t make a difference as to whether they got married, but it did have pretty obnoxious consequences. Ahem. I might have had to talk all these people down, at the time, so I feel kind of strongly about this. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-married-men-did-you-ask-your-wifes-father-for-her-hand-in-marriage/704478/192 "2014-11-17T18:16:13Z")
> [@raspberry\_hunter](#): > > Nope. It does happen that the parents say no; I posted about just such a case in my family, and it just leads to bad feeling all around. The bride and groom are angry that the parents are making this difficult because they were “supposed” to have said yes; the parents are angry that the bride and groom pretended to care about their opinion and then made it very clear that they didn’t. > > So yeah, it didn’t make a difference as to whether they got married, but it did have pretty obnoxious consequences. Ahem. I might have had to talk all these people down, at the time, so I feel kind of strongly about this. First, as you note, it was not the case that the bride and groom actually agreed to not be married because the parents said no. So your example is not actually a counter-example to my point. It is more an example of a failure to communicate. Second, would you consider this scenario “common” or “uncommon”? I simply cannot believe that if often[/u[ happens that daughters think their parents like the fellow, when they in fact dislike him so much as to be willing to make a big stink over it by saying “no” when he asks. Third, if the parents dislike the fellow so much as to make such a stink over it, it is hard to believe that bad feelings were not inevitable - whether they followed this ritual or not. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straight-married-men-did-you-ask-your-wifes-father-for-her-hand-in-marriage/704478.md?page=9)