Marriage: What does it even matter anymore?
So the cat’s out of the bag …I got married :-) Much to the dismay of many modern day Americans, I:
- Requested that my then-boyfriend call my across-the-country father to ask permission
- Was proposed to in the traditional sense (his one bent knee and a ring)
- Got a white dress
- Secured a venue (officiant, flowers, save-the-dates, please don’t make me relive this planning process)
- Wore a veil
- Had my dad “give me away”
- Hosted a reception of 80ish people that our parents very graciously funded
- And …drum roll please …took my husband’s last name
For the record, we lived together post-engagement, pre-wedding; our ceremony was less than 20 minutes and outside; I didn’t wear the veil over my face (whatever that means); and my dress was technically ivory.
The only justification that I should really have to give for all of our decisions was that we wanted to. BUT, as previously established, I’m verbose and quite opinionated, so I’ll tell you more.
Societies and cultures throughout the world (and history) hold traditions, rites of passage, and coming of age ceremonies closely in their communities. In America and many “first-world nations,” there are mild substitutes that have been put in place for these rituals; however, they left me feeling like something was missing. I was baptized in the Catholic Church as an infant (I can’t remember), confirmed at 12 (with my entire CCD class), had a 16th
birthday party in my backyard, graduated high school (alongside 400 of my peers at my school alone), eventually got my period (can you say anti-climactic?), went to Officer Candidate School for the Marine Corps, and graduated college (spoiler alert: almost no one cares). I even got baptized again of my own volition in 2012, immediately before every belief I ever thought I held dramatically changed. None of these really did it for my internal need to be recognized as a grown, mature woman in our culture.
Rites of passage are, well, strange. Religious rituals, sorority initiations, piercings, tattoos, and secluding girls at first menstruation. I’m no scholar by any means, but I can’t help but think there is some driving, primitive need that humans have for a symbolic and somewhat dramatic exiting of one stage of life in order to enter into a new one. So it should have come to no surprise to me that getting married was also …very weird.
My husband needed to buck up and call my dad. My father has spent my entire life supporting me, providing for me (in one way, shape, or form), and loving me (how lucky am I?). They had a man-to-man talk where my dad emphasized the importance of family values and my then-boyfriend committed to visiting my east coast family twice a year. “We want to be sure we’re gaining a son; we’re not interested in losing a daughter.” You go, Dad.
And for me, I wore white (kind of a lot, actually), chose the wedding dress, came up with a fairly comprehensive but somewhat reasonable guest list, danced a careful jig through complicated and emotional family dynamics (on both sides), and kept a lot of (fun, surprise-like) secrets from my future husband. Some dear girlfriends threw me a bachelorette party; I “borrowed” a necklace from my spunky 89 year old grandmother to wear at the wedding; and my husband didn’t get to see my wedding dress prior to my dad walking me down the aisle. Women who had gone before me poured advice, love, and warmth into my soul with a sense of camaraderie for the journey that I was about to officially embark on.
And I took his name with the knowledge and gratitude that he trusts me to carry on his namesake as well as the family values and traditions that we together parsed out and agreed upon. I took his name with the same honor that my mother and both of my grandmothers took their spouse’s names.
This might not be everyone’s path, but it has been ours. And maybe that’s the point: there are many paths to happiness and fulfillment, and no matter how “obscure” or even “traditional,” I hope that no one is discouraged from finding his/her own.
