In Which I am Grumpy About Happy Things

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?