marriage today

This just in, from GWP’s Veronica Arreola (aka Science Grrl)! -Deborah

Once upon a time there was a little girl who had big dreams. She was going to be an archeologist, a teacher, and maybe one day the President of the United States. She knew she wanted to get out of her small suburban town and see the world. When other girls were playing wedding, she joined in, but deep inside didn’t think that she would ever find a boy who would marry her. She did dream about having children one day. A husband was always optional. Fast forward to early adulthood and the little girl did find a boy who said he would marry her and tolerate, some days love, her crazy feminista ways. They married in a tiny chapel in Las Vegas. And they left the hotel-casino to live their Happily Ever After.
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When I hear people talk about defending the institution of marriage, I wonder if my marriage would really qualify. Yes, as a woman I married a man, but we were not married in a house of worship, even thou the justice of the peace did throw in a lot of “God this and God that.” I tried to change up the ceremony so that my dad was not asked “Who gives this woman away” because well, at 18 I left on my own accord, but the JoP still said it. I also thought about having both my parents walk me down the aisle, but was talked out of it. We were introduced as Mr. and Mrs. MYLAST name after we were married, which was a fun surprise for many reasons.

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From GWP’s very own Jacqueline Hudak! For a whole bunch more, be sure to see the posts contributed at Write to Marry Day’s host site, Mombian. – Deborah

I happen to think kids are very smart people.  And there are some kids who have been around my relationship with my partner, Sarah for a number of years.  So I thought I would solicit their opinion about marriage.

With just a little time, I tracked down my daughter Lauren, age 17, a senior at The  Emma Willard  School in Troy, NY, and sent her this email:

“I know you’re very busy honey, so if you don’t have time to answer this, I completely understand.  But, if you get a chance, can you give me a sentence or two? Do you think Sarah and I should be able to get married? Why or why not?”

Here’s her response:

“Honestly, when has discriminating against someone or a group of people EVER ended well?  When has it ever been a good idea to tell someone that they’re not as good as someone else, or that they’re restricted from participating in something because they’re different?  People get married because they’re in love, not because they’re heterosexual, so I think you should be able to marry whoever makes you happy.  You and your husband, wife, or partner deserve the same happiness and benefits as the people who find love in different places than you do.  So obviously you and Sarah should be able to get married =)

I happened to see our friend Lincoln today, who I might add, is an avid GWP reader! His Mom and I are best friends; I have known him since he was 3. Lincoln is now 16 and a junior at Allied Academy for Health Sciences here in NJ.  We were doing a typical drop off/pick up when I posed the same question. He indulged me, as he often does with my queries, took a moment to think and said,

“Of course you should be able to get married.  It’s no different than any other relationship, any other marriage. It’s no different.”

Finally, on the way home from school today, I told my son Vincent about this column.  Vincent is 13, in eighth grade, and has known Sarah since he was 8.

“Mom, you should be able to get married because you guys really love each other.”

And to that I say, “AMEN!”

So here’s what I have to say today in response to the wisdom of these children: Sarah, I love you fiercely, will you marry me?

PS. Katie, Sammi, Aaron and Georgia, I am so sorry I didn’t have time to talk to each of you about this! Please post your comments and get your voice heard!

-Jacqueline Hudak

I’m so pleased to share this post today from Bob Lamm, in honor of Write to Marry Day, and in protest of Prop 8. Bob is a freelance writer and teacher in New York City whose articles and personal esays have appeared in more than 40 periodicals, including the New York Times, the Village Voice, and Ms. magazine.  Among many other things, Bob is the author of the essay, “Learning from Women,” which was recently reprinted in Shira Tarrant’s anthology Men Speak Out.  Here’s Bob! -Deborah

Mildred Loving, who became famous for battling the ban in the United States on mixed-race marriage, died on May 2, 2008. Late in her life, she spoke out against banning same-sex marriages.

In 1958, Mildred Loving and her husband Richard Loving were in bed in their home in Virginia when police arrested them. The Lovings had married in Washington, D.C., five weeks earlier. Since Richard was White while Mildred was African American, their marriage was invalid in Virginia, one of 16 states which barred interracial marriages. (The Virginia statute applied not only to marriages actually performed in that state but also to marriages performed elsewhere.)

Both the Lovings were briefly jailed by the authorities. Under a plea bargain, they left Virginia and agreed not to return together for 25 years. A judge told them that if God had meant for Blacks and Whites to mix he would not have placed them on separate continents. But, years later, because they decided they wanted to return to live in Virginia, the Lovings launched a legal battle with the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union. Eventually, in the 1967 case of Loving vs. Virginia, a unanimous United States Supreme Court ruled that miscegenation laws violated the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution. This ruling effectively ended all bans on laws against racial intermarriage in the United States.

In 2007, in a statement prepared for the 40th anniversary of the Loving vs. Virginia ruling, Mildred Loving wrote:

“I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people’s civil rights.

“I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.”

-Bob Lamm

Now this is just the kind of blog action/activism that makes our hearts sing over here.

Join bloggers around the country and around the world tomorrow to blog in support of marriage equality for same-sex couples and against California’s Proposition 8! It’s Write to Marry Day.

The event will give bloggers a chance to voice their opposition to Prop 8 and highlight what they may have already done, online or off, to stop the measure. The campaign will also educate California voters of the need to “go all the way” down the ballot to vote on the proposition.

We’ve got some posts of our own in store, but if any GWP readers are interested in sharing their ink with us tomorrow, please feel free to submit your wares!

Thanks to our own Gwen B for the heads up, and to Mombian for organizing.

Today we bring you our first official column from our sociologist from Framingham State College, Virginia Rutter, “Nice Work.” Nice work, Miss Virginia! -Deborah

Lotta talk about markets and the economy right now. But let’s change the subject for a moment and talk about marriage markets.

A “marriage market” refers to the notion that there are in any given community a bunch of people seeking mates, and they will make the best possible match that they can. Using the marriage market metaphor, researchers have noticed that characteristics of “the market” (I’m not talking Wall Street) will influence what kind of “deal” people get. When we say “he has high market value” on the marriage market, we mean he can get a better-than-average mate. When we say, “she can do better than that,” we think that her market value is above her partner’s.

Turns out that the marriage market itself can influence not just how “good” a partner you can find, but also how good the resulting relationship might be, too. An innovative new study in the current issue of the journal Demography examined what happens when there aren’t enough men in a (heterosexual) marriage market. UPenn’s Kristen Harknett compared unmarried mothers who live in communities where women outnumber men with those in communities that had a more favorable ratio. When the marriage market was tight—that is when women didn’t have a lot of men to choose from—their matches weren’t as good.

Now all this is not saying the guys didn’t have the right degree or weren’t cute enough. (In fact, Harknett found that “the economic quality of a male partner has much more to do with unmarried mother’s own characteristics than it does with the marriage market or local economy.”) I’m saying that the relationships themselves aren’t that good—there is more conflict, less supportiveness, and fewer signals of commitment. That’s right. The market forces don’t just affect what product you get. They affect how you enjoy your product! And so it makes marriage for these unmarried mothers less likely.

This is useful information. There’s a lot of research that shows the benefits of marriage—the benefits of a good, well functioning marriage—to the adults and any children who are in it. But, taking Harknett’s study to heart, marriage may not always be the rescue plan for single moms that we might otherwise think it is. Sometimes, a marriage bailout is a bust.

–Virginia Rutter

Check out this new poll about gender and power released last week by the Pew Research Center about who makes decisions at home. It got play in media outlets including USA Today, Today Show, ABC World News, and The Washington Post. Among the findings:

• In 43% of all couples it’s the woman who makes decisions in more areas than the man.
• By contrast, men make more of the decisions in only about a quarter (26%) of all couples.
• About three-in-ten couples (31%) split decision-making responsibilities equally.

From Pew’s website comes this zinger: “They say it’s a man’s world. But in the typical American family, it’s the woman who wears the pantsuit.”

We’ve known this for a while now, but there is much in the study that also looks new. For instance, on a totally different topic related to gender and power, the survey asked whether people are more comfortable dealing with a man or with a woman in a variety of positions of authority – doctor, banker, lawyer, police officer, airline pilot, school teacher and surgeon. The answer? Well, public attitudes are mixed. Read all about it here.

(Thanks to NCRW and CCF for the heads up.)

It’s great to have models for married life, I tell ya. On Sunday, one of our favorite older married couples hosted a brunch for 4 newly marrieds — one of which still had “just married” painted on the back of their car, absent the tin cans.

From left to right: John, Sheri, Marco, me, Dawn, Isaac, Rebecca, Jeremy. Awww. (Thank you, Ricki and Jeff! You guys are the best!)

I loved all your unveiled feelings-about-veils comments yesterday. And cuz it’s Friday I thought I’d round the week out with two last (unless you tell me you want more!) wedding photos — one more featuring “the costume,” left. The beauty in black full length gloves is filmmaker Ilana Trachtman, a dear friend from college who reminded me during her toast that I once stole a Ding Dong with her from The Village Corner in Ann Arbor.

The photo below is of Marco and me and our gaggle of flower girls. Because matter how cynical or intellectual one might be, it was very hard for me to resist inviting every little girl in my life to be a flower girl. I stopped at six.

Marco, always looking out for me, fears I’m going to lose my feminist cred if I keep wedding blogging. But I beg to differ! I’m still the same ole Girl with Pen. Ok ok, so your Girl is a little wedding obsessed right now. Thank you for indulging me.

Linda Hirshman’s guest post over at Broadsheet yesterday, “Getting Nudged into the Chapel,” is summarized thusly by Salon: “There’s something in all of us that craves the trappings of a classic wedding — even intellectuals who rail against the institution’s traditions.” Well, color me intellectual, but I had a BLAST dressing up as a 1950s-era bride, white gloves, veil, and and all. I figured, if I’m going to be the bride, why not camp it up and play it as a role?

Weddings are theater, we figured (our guests were invited to dress in 1950s garb and many of them took us up on it) so why not have some fun. The soundtrack was mambo (and klezmer) and we pretended — sort of — that we were at a Catskills resort, you know, the ones where Latin bands like Tito Puentes’ taught the summering Jews how to dance. Since Marco and I are Latin-Jewish fusion and all.

But here’s the thing: though I went into it “playing” the bride, I utterly became one. And it was the veil that did it. I became a bride not in the retro pregnant-in-kitchen kind of way (though I must say, at 39 and undergoing fertility treatments, I certainly wouldn’t complain about the pregnant part–and regarding the kitchen, I’ll always be an active labor force participant by necessity and choice). Rather, the veil helped me become a bride in the physically-spiritually-transformed-special-and-set-apart kind of way. My groom, who donned a white linen suit in order to feel his own kind of special, was in costume too.

Sometimes a veil is just a veil. And sometimes it’s not. What about you, dear GWP readers? Did the marrieds among you don it or ditch it? I’d be interested to hear.

(Hey–Shira–someone’s gotta write about brides, feminism, and fashion for your new book. Any takers?)

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