I actually tried to picture my SO asking my dad to marry. See, I have always been fiercely independent, and now that my mom is dead, dad and I are repairing our relationship and he is finally getting to know the adult me a little. So he’s starting to realize just how independent I am and how much I want my own mistakes and my own life. I’ve told him many times I could not marry (most) Indian men because of that fierce independence.
To turn around and have my SO ask him…the look of bewilderment on my dad’s face would be priceless. He’s be like WTF???
For my first wife I did. I was all nervous about it and asked. I think maybe he was caught off guard or didn’t know what to do, because he replied with “Well, I guess so.” I was like, thanks pal.
For my wife now, I did not, because her father is kind of a jackass (she will attest to this) and I don’t care what he thinks.
I asked, but much like the subsequent proposal, it was a formality - as in, if you think there’s any chance of them saying no, you don’t ask. He knew it was a formality, and he said “you don’t need my permission”, nevertheless he appreciated the gesture. I also asked her mum, since her parents got divorced when she was about eight years old so it seemed appropriate to ask the person who had actually raised her almost singlehandedly.
I must be totally clueless - I never even knew this custom was really a thing people raised places like the US or Canada still did. I associate it in my mind with the time-period of Fiddler on the Roof.
In any event, I never considered asking her parents for permission. Though we had been going out so long, it was hardly a mystery to them - more like ‘what took you people so long’?
Basically, yes. My wife and I were pretty much living together at that point, and had talked a lot about getting married. She knew I was going to ask her, but not specifically when or whatnot. After we had sort of agreed that it was going to happen, I did drive to her parents and ask her dad before I gave her a ring. Her and her dad were extremely close and regardless of what else was going on, I knew she would never marry someone that he didn’t approve of. He was absolutely the guy that would say “I want whatever makes my daughter happy” so it isn’t like this was super old fashioned or anything, just a few conversations he and I had. We got married a while later, and it was nice.
If I had to do it all over again, I may have asked him earlier. He was a great guy.
In fact, I had already asked her and she said yes but we agreed to say nothing until I got the chance to ask his ‘permission’ so to speak the following weekend. Mrs Karpov distracted her mother deeper into the garden whilst I did the deed.
They are very old fashioned types, it did no harm and I knew would please them doing so. If he had refused though we would obviously have gone ahead anyway!
He replied with “That would be very nice” which was a bit disconcerting, like I was offering him a cup of tea or something…
Would you think it’s cool to consult it with you before consulting it with her, which is what the tradition actually calls for? Because in my book it tops the list for “male cluelessness”, side by side with men starting a proposal with “I know you’ve never thought of this”.
Why the father and not the parents or just the mother? The paternalism is embedded in the tradition. And why only the daughter’s father? The sexism is also deeply entrenched, even if you no longer believe a woman is her father’s property until she is her husband’s property. Why doesn’t the woman ask her futures husband’s father for permission?
If it’s a tradition that works for you and your future wife that’s great, but to me it smacks of everything that was used to keep women from entering into society fully, including in professional fields I now work in.
To each his own. What works for some, doesn’t for others. For some tradition is important. For others not so much. Many daughters have very strong relationships with their fathers.
As someone else upthread indicated, it is important that you know your audience. Some women may wish this tradition occur merely as a matter of respect toward her parents. Others may not.
The first time, I honestly don’t recall. I was 23, and our engagement was not a “formal” thing so much as we took a vacation and found what we considered the perfect spot to get married, so we were basically engaged from then on. I do recall my then-father-in-law making a joke at the ceremony about giving her my hand, and that I wasn’t allowed to give it back. No comment on how that worked out.
For the second time, she proposed to me, and based on familial circumstances at the time, she would have had to ask my mother. But she’s a rebel, and she didn’t. Still my mother seems pleased.
By straight I mean “functionally” straight. I don’t care whom you’re attracted to, just whom you are in a committed, legal, monogamous relationship with.
Because asking the woman’s father for his her hand is implicitly ceding that he can refuse to give it, granting him veto power over her marital choices. It’s treating her as property rather than a person.
I wasn’t thinking of this when I posted the thread (what prompted the question was some really bad Liam Neeson movie whose name I am blocking out), but my stepdaughter’s ex-fiance asked my permission before popping the question. Which I found simultaneously ill-thought & troublesome. “Ill-thought” because I was never married to my stepdaughter’s mother, so I’m a stepdad only by courtesy (her actual bio father is a worthless piece of shit nobody’s seen in years); and troublesome because she’s nobody property and anybody who treats her as such is cruising for a bruising. So I told him to ask her.
I would like to think that my relationship with my daughter will be strong enough that her mother and I will have had plenty of time to talk with her about her relationship and have a good feeling about whether she is headed for marriage. I plan to tell her that any guy (or girl) she cares enough about to marry need not ask our permission/blessing.
Hell no. She said yes when I asked, that is all I needed. I did ask her son if he was OK with it though, since we would all be a family. Her parents, my parents, the whole damned neighborhood can either like my marriage or they can lump it.
Is this custom is romantic to some women? The very idea of checking anything with someone else, including her family, before I ask my partner for life is just backwards.
As I said, know your audience. These are things that should be clearly discussed between a couple before they decide to get married.
If it’s important to the people involved, then it’s important.
Most people discuss getting married, and the proposals are formality as well. I wouldn’t recommend to any person to blindly ask someone to marry them without having had discussed it beforehand.
For me, the same goes for picking out an engagement ring. This is a piece of jewelry that she is going to wear for most likely a long time. She should have some input into what it looks like, etc. I’ve known numerous women that hate the shape, color, appearance of their engagement rings. If given a choice they would have picked something else. I encourage guys that I know that are planning on getting married, to discuss these things with their intendeds well before they ever pop the question.
Sure, which is why when you say, on this board, that asking a father’s permission is peachy because “Many daughters have very strong relationships with their fathers,” you shouldn’t be surprised at getting some pushback.
Having a strong relationship with your father is no reason to cede power to your father over your romantic choices. Having a strong relationship with your father is not a reason to ask permission. I had a strong relationship with my father. His permission was immaterial.
As I mentioned in my post upthread, my husband asked my father’s blessing, not his permission. We would have gotten married regardless of what he said. I did not view it as “ceding power” to him in any way, it was merely a gesture of respect. And it is certainly not required if you don’t agree with it.
