Wedding Crap: Why Even Get Married?

(See introduction and disclaimer to this series here, and other posts in the series here.)

I think this is the conclusion to the series. There's a new page with all of the posts listed here. 

What is the tradition? 

I'm really talking about two separate things here: the getting married and the having a wedding.

A marriage is a legal, religious, or cultural agreement that gives the parties certain familial rights. The wedding is the act of creating a marriage, through a - often religious - ceremony and cultural traditions. A wedding is generally a community event, perhaps seen as a blessing or support of the marriage being formed. 

What is the origin of the tradition?

In various forms and contexts, it's a tradition as old as humankind. Marriage has historically been used to form alliances between groups and countries. It built economic and business partnerships. It creates (intended) stability between partners and for any children resulting from the marriage.

The wedding as the formation of a marriage seems like any other cultural ceremonial traditions - it's a rite of passage, a spiritual recognition, a community celebration. 

Why do people still follow it?

Even though long-term non-married partnerships/cohabitation is becoming more accepted, there can still (especially in certain subcultures) be a stigma against not being married. Some may view even a committed partnership as less stable than an actual marriage (because obviously the legal paperwork will make the relationship itself work out, always!). 

There are a variety of legal benefits from being married, such as rights to be next of kin for inheritance or medical care, joint ownership of property, health insurance, and lower taxes (there is such a thing as the "marriage penalty", but the with current US tax laws, depending on your type and relative levels of income, you're very likely to come out ahead). There are ways to create legal contracts that  give you most of the same benefits, but in a marriage they're all consolidated into a nice, simple one-page contract.

Weddings are done because they're fun, and people want to celebrate this (ostensibly) huge life change with their family and friends. 

Why is that crap? 

Weddings are crap because in our middle class society, we don't do big events like that. It's most people's one  chance to show off and be part of a huge celebration like that. They see the rich throwing huge weddings and think it's a wedding thing, so it's accessible - when really it's a rich people's party thing. It's also a bit odd when it's not a huge step, not a rite of passage - because you've already long since committed to each other, formed a household, and perhaps even had children. So there's no significant change happening at the wedding. 

The other benefits, legal and perceived stability, are just that - perceived, and arbitrary. Romantic attachments, realistically, are not exactly known for being stable. Why in the world do we think lust is the best way to form the connection with the other parent of our children? Many people have the most stable relationship in their life with someone other than a romantic partner - parent, sibling, friend. Can a romantic attachment be steady through the years? Of course, many people's spouse are their closest friend. But it's far from universal - if anything, I'd say that's the exception that proves the rule.

You also don't need a legal contract to have a lifelong relationship. Many friends are friends forever - simply by choice and trust. They don't need the government involved in telling them how to treat each other or how to support each other. A commitment might be beneficial to a child; a marriage is not necessary for that commitment.

What am I doing with this tradition?

Well, we got married, of course. If I could do the wedding over again, I wouldn't. I would use the same money to fly our immediate family to Colorado and do a self-officiating ceremony. While the wedding was fun, and it was nice to see all of our loved ones in one place - it's really fucking weird to throw a party for everyone, for all of your various groups. My work friends, my college friends, and my cousins, were all acquired in my life at different times for different reasons, and just the fact that they all know me is not necessarily reason for them to socialize together. I'd rather have made it about just the two of us and our immediate family, than our entire circles.

Being legally married, versus just committing ourselves to each other, was important to me for a few reasons. It's easier than contracting for the same benefits separately. It appeases my anxious nature to have things in writing and formally agreed upon. It was also important to my family, who sees it as an important distinction in life and a statement about the relationship - I might not agree, but it makes familial relationships significantly easier to have it be "official" to them. 

All else being equal, it made sense to take advantage of the established understanding of what a "marriage" is. It says something to my family about what we are, it says something to society about what we are. Which I don't always see as a positive - does society need to know what our relationship is? Is it anyone's business? Not really. While I don't regret being married, there are definitely ways in which getting married was simply the path of least resistance. 

How did/will you handle this tradition?

I would love to have a lively debate and conversation in the comments! Please join in!

Dissenting opinions (from the post itself or other commenters) are welcome, but I reserve the right to delete any comments that personally attack me or any other commenter.

First Quarterly Relationship Meeting

Inspired by this post on Offbeat Home & Life (and because I'm an accountant and like lists and goals and agendas), Abe and I decided to hold quarterly shareholder meetings. Basically, the point is to resolve issues - or potential issues - before they become a big deal, and take proactive steps to be constantly improving our marriage. I'm sure this will be even more important when we're balancing our needs with kids, but right now it's really crucial too, as we're still figuring each other out and determining the best way to relate to each other.

We finally had our first meeting yesterday (as we were both at home for the "ice day"). (As this was intended to be three months from our wedding, i.e., October 27, I'm realizing we're both at least a bit prone to procrastination on things like this.) 

A lot of things for this one were merely logistical things related to merging finances and such, like combining car insurance. Others were more emotionally loaded, but I think giving advance notice on the agenda, setting aside a time to talk about it, and then ending the conversation (for now) (i.e., the end of the meeting), provided a helpful venue to discuss them logically, without taking anyone by surprise or being insulted or made to feel inadequate by the topics needing to be discussed. Having a more guided, rather than open-ended, discussion helped us stay on topic and actually accomplish what needed to happen.

We started a shared Google document with agenda items a few weeks in advance, and also added to it during the meeting. I think the general categories will be fairly consistent as we continue our meetings (with "family planning" eventually just being "family" or "children"); it seems to cover the relevant aspects of life in which we need to make joint decisions or join forces on. During the meeting, we established goals for the upcoming quarter, and action items for each of us to take on items discussed.

Agenda Items

• Finances
• Determine amount to spend on charitable contributions for remainder of calendar year 2014.
• Discuss ongoing charitable contributions habits.
• Combine car insurance.
• Set up at least one joint credit card. 
• Relationship
• Satisfaction with sex life.
• Set up some sort of counseling discussions. (Note: we never got around to doing any premarital counseling; we both felt we'd addressed a lot of the common issues via online dating questionnaires and ongoing discussions, so it was never prioritized. But I did want to continue such discussions, especially as we are now looking at having kids and even more important to make sure we're on the same page, or establishing agreeable compromises, in certain areas.)
• Household
• Select wedding and honeymoon photos to print.
• Evaluate division of chores. Is it working for both?
• Community
• Recurring volunteer opportunities to do together?
• Family planning
• What needs to happen/be planned prior to trying to conceive (TTC)?
• Margaret to start on prenatal vitamins
• Review timing spreadsheet with projected cycle dates. (Note: To try to schedule maternity leave as best as possible around my busy season at work, we have a small window for our first attempt at TTC, so this spreadsheet existing isn't quite as OCD is might sound.)
• Start reading books/research about pregnancy, childbirth, and babies. Consider checking out one book per month library to both read?

Goals for upcoming quarter: 

• Have monthly date nights (not with a group or parents/in-laws (much of our social life is hosting game nights and dinners with his parents)).
• Attend tree-planting event in November.
• Have sex X times per week (being a blogger I suppose means one is predisposed to overshare to strangers on the internet, but the specifics of that goal isn't one I'm sharing. :) )

Action items

• Abe: Look into prenatal vitamin requirements and do cost comparisons.
• Margaret: Contact AAA agent for joint insurance options. Add Abe to two specific credit cards.
• Both: Will have two pregnancy books at a time, each reading, making notes, swapping, reading the other, then discuss both.

If you're married or in a long-term relationship, what did you find was the hardest thing in living together or merging life stuff? What's your most important tool to effectively communicate with each other?

Both Sides of 145 Pounds

I'm 5'0"; my husband is 6'4". I'm female; he's male. We both currently weight 145 pounds.

(Errr... when I started writing this post I was 145. As of the beginning of October I'm now 144. But, that one pound difference isn't enough to negate the overall message of the post I was working on.)

Clearly, that same weight has very difficult implications for each of us!

For me, I'm clearly overweight. Even though I think I have at least slightly more than average muscle mass, I have no doubt that this weight also reflects a percentage of body fat that is too high (never had an opportunity to test it, though I think that would be a useful piece of info to have). I want to blame part of this on my body and poorly functioning systems (hypothyroidism, PCOS, etc.), but it's also the result of many bad habits and a strong sweet tooth, verging on binging disordered eating. 

Abe, on the other hand, is underweight. Not only a low absolute number (compared to his height), but he also has a fair amount of muscle mass, so his body fat percentage is ridiculously low. Some of this is just his body type (not only metabolism, but also a narrow frame), but it is also due to an extremely healthy diet, full of vegetables that are nutritionally dense but low in calories. I wouldn't go so far as to say he has disordered/orthorexic eating habits, but he definitely has some tendencies to overvalue micronutrients at the expense of the overall health picture of a meal or day of eating. He's not going to turn down a burger if that's the most available option, but given the choice he'd much rather eat a salad full of greens.

I know I need to lose weight. He knows he needs to gain weight. We're both trying to support each other, but these opposite needs make for an odd dynamic. I know I don't want him sticking his nose too far into my food choices, but I also want to be encouraging to him and make suggestions to help him with his goals (you need to gain weight? oh, I know how to gain weight). It's an extremely fine balancing act. I've heard of spouses or friends supporting each other in losing weight together, but in that case they're reinforcing the same habits for each other. In this case, I've joked that we ought to just each plate up food for ourselves, and then trade. 

But, though my situation may be more typical in today's society, both of us reflect a not-quite-right relationship with food. He's all about optimizing nutrients, I'm all about maximizing enjoyment. Neither one of us is balanced, and that's reflected in our bodies. Our bodies should be able to find an ideal equilibrium, not too much or too little fat, if we found an equilibrium with our habits. In that sense, we both have the same goal, we're both trying to find that middle ground, even though we're coming towards it from different directions.

How would you recommend supporting a loved one when you have opposite approaches, but are both trying to be healthy?

What Makes a Marriage Feminist?

It feels slightly inappropriate to write a post about marriage when I've only been married for 34 days, but I wanted to join this bloghop by Balancing Jane. Hopefully if you've read my blog for any length of time, you already have an idea of my stance on feminism, after reading some of my rants on marriage-related and wedding-related feminist issues.

In some ways, Abe and I have made decisions in formatting our relationship that directly contradict patriarchal norms. He's in charge of the kitchen - grocery shopping, cooking, dishing. I'm currently the sole income-provider, and do most of the planning and tracking of our big-picture finances. We both wore engagement rings before our wedding, walked up to the ceremony together (I didn't have a grand entrance nor get given away), and both kept our birth last names.

Some might look at these choices, and imagine we made them to directly rebel against traditions (*cough* certain relatives *cough*). In fact, that's not the case at all. We haven't made decisions based on either complying or flouting expectations. All we're doing to forming our lives in a way that works for us, that makes sense based on who we are, not as a man and a woman, but as our individual selves and as a couple. 

Abe enjoys cooking, and loves the challenge of planning a meal that is both nutritionally sound and cheap to create. I love my career and am lucky that it pays well enough to support us as he goes back to school to find his own fulfilling path. Our wedding was full of choices that reflected *us*, regardless of typical wedding standards.

And I don't quite mean that we're following "choice feminism". I believe there are issues with that concept (the theory that feminism is about allowing choices, including the choice to follow a more traditionally patriarchal path), mainly that we aren't making those choices in a cultural vacuum. A woman who chooses to take her husband's last name and stay at home to raise children may be making a conscious choice to do so, but it's nonetheless heavily influenced by society's expectations. If she also has negative connotations with her birth name (perhaps due to poor family relationships), and finds fulfillment in child development, this might really be the option that stays true to herself. But the challenge is in truly exploring that choice, determining what is important to you, and making the choice that represents yourself.

Sometimes, the choice may seem irrelevant. For example, we just set up our joint bank account. Some might think it doesn't matter who's listed as the primary account holder. But traditionally, the man was always first, because he had legal authority over both his and his wife's assets. So it was important to us that Abe wasn't the primary account holder just because he's male. 

Alternatively, I could the primary account holder because I'm currently the breadwinner. But it's not my money, it's our money! Just like the default of the husband being listed first supports the concept that the man is charge of the money, the (previously inherently the same) default of the breadwinner being listed first supports the concept that the breadwinner has ultimate control of the joint money. We don't believe in that, either, regardless of which partner is earning the money.

Instead, we flipped a coin. I ended up winning the coin toss and being listed as the primary account holder. It was important to us, though, that this isn't because I'm the income provider, but because there didn't need to be a default. If it's our money, it's our money. We're not making a choice for or against society's expectation, but we're making a choice based on the true belief that there isn't any default. 

There shouldn't be a default as to who is listed on first on a joint bank account, and there shouldn't be a default as to who changes their last name. A feminist relationship doesn't act for or against patriarchal or feminist norms, but rather ignores norms on all sides, and makes decisions for the individuals involved. 

Yes, this makes decisions more complicated! Sometimes it would be nice to have a default to fall back on, to make a mindless choice that we know others will support. But having a husband who believes as I do that we need to make the best choice for us means we have to take responsibility for our choices, and ultimately we know that we're choosing the most fulfilling life we can create. That's a feminist marriage.

Choir Widow

Is that a thing? Like a sports widow. Although Abe is in various choirs and productions year-round, obviously the Christmas season is a popular one for performances. This past week he had: community choir rehearsal Tuesday and Thursday evening, church choir rehearsal Wednesday evening, community choir performances Friday and Saturday evening, and caroling performances Saturday and Sunday afternoon. I feel exhausted just looking at that schedule. 

Looks like next weekend will be more of the same. As an introvert, I'm certainly not opposed to the occasional weekend to myself (though we did get to have lunch together yesterday, in between caroling gigs). I took advantage of it to binge-watch a teenage soap opera on netflix (Secret Life of the American Teenager - Mayim Bialik had an entertaining recurring role in the second season), and basically do a lot of nothing. 

Source

I did manage a "long" run - 5.5 miles - on Saturday afternoon! I know 90% of the rest of the country is having this cold spell, too, but we're really not used to it here! The upcoming weather this week (40 degrees and raining) is much more typical of winter weather.

It was the warmest part of the day when I went out (early afternoon), and it was still only 27 degrees and windy. I was actually surprised I didn't feel colder than I did, once I got going. 


I don't really have any serious winter running clothes, but I finally found a pair of winter running pants that (1) come in petite length, and (2) aren't tapered tights. Of course, I still had to shorten the petite length by 1 1/2", but they're comfy and warm! On top, I only layered a short sleeve and long sleeve shirt, with gloves and a headband. Oddly, the only part that stayed cold was my stomach, even though I didn't need my gloves the whole time.

Yesterday I tried another run, in similar temps, but it was closer to dusk, and actually felt really chilly. A half mile in, I didn't feel like I was warming up at all, so I turned around and only did a single mile. I'd much rather snuggle up on the couch with Imogene and watch more tv. :)

How are you handling the cold weather? What temp is your cutoff for running outdoors?

If I Told You, I'd Have to Kill You

NaBloPoMo prompt: Tell us about the last thing you hid.

Well, if I told you all that, I'd no longer be hiding it, would I?

This reminds me of one of the profile prompts on OkCupid: The most private thing I'm willing to admit. Um, this is a profile you're using to attract potential dates. How private are you really willing to get here? 

My answer to that prompt was that I was considering not shaving my legs, because it's a totally arbitrary social norm (I actually have stopped worrying about having shaved legs even if they'll be visible, such as wearing capris to a yoga class. I do shave them about once a month or so, not for any particularly reason, though). So it was a "private" thought, in that it's not something I would necessarily share randomly with coworkers or other casual acquaintances. But it's not private in the sense that it's truly personal. 

I figured a gender-norm-bending admission would be useful in filtering out guys who wouldn't be ok with critical thinking! And I think it worked. :) 

Road ID

NaBloPoMo prompt: Tell us about the last thing a person or advertisement convinced you to buy.

I haven't actually ordered it yet, but the twitter ads/competition that Road ID has been doing have convinced me to buy a new ID bracelet (if you answer a trivia question correctly, you get a code for free shipping for the next 24 hours). I've been meaning to get a new ID tag to update with Abe's contact information (Does that mean a relationship is truly serious? When you add them to your running ID bracelet?), and they also have some really awesome new colors for the bands (I'm thinking the teal), and little decorative badges to add on (i.e., the 26.2 one).