In Which I am Grumpy About Happy Things

[forestofglory]

People I know have been getting engaged lately. This is mostly good. I am happy for them. However their announcements are making me realize that I hate our current narratives about deciding to get married. I hate the whole giant proposal thing. I hate the thing were women in relationships with men feel like men get to do all the asking. I hate women telling their friends they have decided to get married by posting pictures of diamond rings.

I think people should decide to get married by having a serious talk about it. A talk about marriage and what it means. Marriage is complex institution, with some pretty messed up history. I don't think you should decide to get married without thinking about that history. People need to ask themselves is marriage an institution they want to be part of? Clearly I'm not saying people shouldn't get married; I'm married myself. But I want people to think crucially about that choice. (Maybe a bit oddly, learning more about marriage equality was one of the things that made me want to get married -- I kept hearing about all the awesome rights involved.)

A yes, most likely the women posting diamond rings, and squeeing about men proposing to them did have these conversations before doing all the drama. (I did a romantic proposal after we had decided to get married, but I wish I'd though more critically about it.) Why are we focusing the story on this one staged moment, rather than highlighting the complex process?

Comments

[liv]

I agree with you entirely. I don't really approve of the big dramatic moment proposal with the diamond ring, at least not of having that as the default for how you get engaged. And then there's this weird thing where people do in fact have the conversation and consider all the implications etc, and then stage a big dramatic proposal with a ring anyway, just in order to be able to tell the expected story. (Me, I got engaged after six months of discussion from the time that jack asked me if I would consider thinking about getting married. So yes, in some sense he did initiate that discussion, but he didn't Propose, he just asked me if I was interested in thinking about it.)

[forestofglory]

You and Jack managed to be entirely sensible and entirely adorable :)

[pretty_panther]

Yep. I have no interesting in being married because of the way society is about it. I do think it should be a big talk about what people want from life. I hate there are women who refuse to propose because 'he should' and end up spending years miserable because he won't for whatever reason and instead of talking about it, everyone gets upset.

Biggest thing I hate though is public proposals. I think there is so much pressure to say yes or look like a horrible person and it is a huge decision that should be thought about not rushed because a whole restaurant is staring at you.

[forthwritten]

I have no intention of getting married without a discussion of what we want out of such a institution, what it would mean for us, how it would affect our relationship and so on. I'm okay with going down on one knee for someone, but it would be the conclusion to those set of discussions rather than coming as a surprise to anyone.

[lethargic_man]

A jeweller friend once told me the Kimberley process is fundamentally flawed, and there's no such thing as an ethical diamond. If I ever get married, diamond rings will not be involved. My girlfriend knows this; I think she wasn't happy to learn it, but has had plenty of time to get used to the idea...

[darthbitsy]

I've leaned that when someone tells me that they are engaged I am best served just saying "congratulations" and hoping the topic doesn't continue. As I do get rather annoyed when people I consider otherwise sensible go on about engagement sorries, as it does seem like they are sort of losing sight of the legal contract in favor of flowers and jewelery.