Turning 30 is riddled with clichés: hangovers that last days rather than just a morning; things that once seemed unimaginably boring (owning furniture, being hydrated) holding untold interest. But among all the generalisations, one is undeniably true – suddenly, all my friends are getting married.
While I have no plans to follow suit, a wedding is something I’d theoretically consider in future — that is, unless my partner asked my dad before asking me.
I’ve been with my boyfriend Sammi for nearly nine years, but if I found out he’d asked my father for permission to marry me, I’d have no choice but to call the whole thing off. To me it would represent a baffling denial of my agency: at best an anachronistic quirk, at worst a patriarchal nightmare.
As institutions go, marriage is one of humanity’s oldest. While it’s been subject to serious overhauls – same-sex marriage, secular ceremonies, no-fault divorce – the process inevitably dredges up some decidedly archaic ideas. In a heterosexual wedding, it’s still perfectly normal for a bride to wear white, for her father to walk her down the aisle, and for her to take her new husband’s name. Those traditions date back to a time when marriage was primarily an economic arrangement between two men passing a woman between them as if she were property – an arrangement that has roots in Ancient Rome, when a father would transfer the ownership of his daughter to her husband in exchange for a symbolic copper coin.
Of course, that’s no longer the case – women’s rights have transformed over time, and in 2023 white dresses are no more symbolic of sexual purity than a father walking his daughter down the aisle is representative of a dehumanising transaction. Modern weddings are more likely to be a celebration of a couple and their favourite people than millennia-old mores. As such, people pick and choose which traditions feel meaningful to them and sack off the others in favour of, well, whatever they like.
If I were taking the leap, I like to think I’d invert as many as possible – I’m imagining shopping for a black dress for my mum to walk me down the aisle in, before my husband takes my last name – but not everybody is like me. If you want 60 saxophonists or everyone to wear pink, a food fight or a film screening, or to elope and get married in your dressing gown with a passer-by as the witness, knock yourself out – ditto white dresses and father-of-the-bride theatrics. The point is, you do you – just make sure it is you that you’re doing, not the sneaky patriarchy.
While it’s tempting to declare any decision made by a woman feminist by default, I’m sorry to say it’s not that simple – we don’t form our aspirations, especially those so keenly attuned to the social fabric as marriage, in a vacuum. The resurgence of tradwives, women who embrace traditional gender roles that would make their feminist foremothers faint, are a case in point. All humans want acceptance and safety and romance, but our definitions of those things are inevitably shaped by the forces that shape us.
Although the world is largely kinder to women than it was generations ago, there’s plenty of ground to make up yet. Let’s not concede it where we don’t have much to spare, eh? While some traditions can be salvaged, others need to be dispensed with altogether – and for me, asking paternal permission is a step too far. Rather than sounding romantic, I’m afraid I can’t unhear the old, implicit message: Hi, I’d like to own your daughter!
I’m sure there are men who would say they’ll ask their fathers-in-law not to override their fiancée’s agency, but to be respectful, or because that’s just what they always thought they would do. I invite them to use some of their historically plentiful agency and make their own decisions rather than blindly following the conga-line of their dreadful forebears.
A case in point: here I go, a woman asserting preferences! Dad, Sammi, if you’re reading this: I’d like to think I’ve made my stance crystal clear in the years you’ve known me, but if any doubt remains – ask me, rather than each other, okay?
