Friday 9 October 2015

What's Wrong with a White Wedding?

Sorry Billy Idol, but it’s definitely not a nice day for a white wedding. It is, however, a nice day to start again.

…quota of 80’s rock lyrics has now been filled…

To put it blandly, the institution of marriage is fraught with oppressive traditions, and leaves most feminists uncomfortable with the wide acceptance and celebration of marriage. There is much to discuss in regards to feminist attitudes towards marriage, but I’ll just focus for now on the traditional “white wedding”; the manifestation of Christian concepts of marriage that has become standard across the Western world. Here are three white-wedding-customs, and the reason we should reconsider endorsing them.

1. The White Dress
It is in fact the gorgeous, pearly, floor-length gown that resides at the centre of our white wedding mental images. However the lesser known facts of the white dress’ symbolism have straight up brutal connotations. White has forever been the colour of purity, and represents virginity in the context of marriage. The incorporation of white on the bride hails from a strong history of expecting women to be a virgin upon marriage – AKA suppressing female sexuality. Firstly, this expectation is never imposed on men, but more toxic is the idea that a woman’s virginity is the groom’s property, to be claimed on the wedding night. In fact many other aspects of typical bridal attire such as a corsage or garter were originally symbolic of a woman losing her virginity on her “big night”. The man would (forcibly, painfully, without consent) have sex with his new bride and take her virginity, thereby “deflowering” her. White… flowers… wearing it on your wedding day… not wearing it the day after… it actually has a historically social significance, and it’s not pretty.


2. “Giving Away” the Bride
If this isn’t the most explicit display of women being treated as men’s property, then I don’t know what is. As the bride walks down the aisle on the arm of her father to be given her waiting almost-husband, guests witness the very essence of female subjugation. The tradition stems from a time when daughters were explicitly the property of their fathers and under their total control until marriage, when ownership was passed to the husband (think Jane Austen/Wuthering Heights society). “Control”, “ownership”, “property”; these words have slowly been erased from our social vocabulary surrounding women, but their connotations still strongly linger. Women are still implicitly expected to be subordinate to their husbands, for example in the way a wife is supposed to travel or leave her career to support her husband, but rarely the other way around. Even issues like domestic violence largely originate in the socialisation that women are men’s property, and can be treated however the “highest bidder” deems fit. Basically the giving-away tradition is subtly validating a patriarchal view of women that should have died with Victorian England.

3. Wedding Night Sex
I’ve already touched on the oppressive expectation of virginity for women on their wedding night, but this custom has even further harms (not exactly “the best part” anymore). Sex on the first night of being husband and wife can be easily analogised to a dog peeing on a post. Yep you read that right. Society has forever held the idea that once a woman has been penetrated, she is “tainted” – evident in single mothers both historically and currently being “un-marriable” as well as modern day slut shaming. So the husband taking his wife’s virginity on the wedding night is literally him marking his territory, much like a dog pees on a post. This sounds very forcible and rough, and it certainly was in some cases back in the good ol’ days, but even genuine consensual wedding night sex nowadays is quietly encouraging the idea that a marriage must be consummated to be legitimate. This not only comes with a tone of female submission, but erases same-sex marriage, trans people and asexual people, amongst others.

A wedding is supposed to be the best day of a person’s life, and if a traditional Christian ceremony with big white dresses and white flowers is the fulfilment of a childhood dream, then of course each to their own. But by creating more awareness of the origins of people’s favourite wedding traditions, we can empower women to have full control over the public display of their marriages with completely transparent connotations that suit their beliefs.

P.S. Dear Future Husband,
These are my terms and conditions.


Love, Hannah.  

2 comments:

  1. I dont think that people who engage in wedding night sex are doing something anti-feminist. theyve just spent all day talking about how much they love each other, and probably have had sex a lot of times before. if they truly were waiting for marriage, thats a religious tradition that does not have to be oppressive, their choice to wait should be just as respected as their choice not to. Respecting female sexuality is respecting that she might also not want to have sex until then. The first two points are interesting, although i hope the traditions have moved on a bit. I also understand that the importance society places on sex in marriage is harmful to asexual people. However, how is this erasive to gay people and trans people amongst others. You know that they can still have sex right?

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    1. Of course couples having sex whenever they want is not at all anti-feminist, its the idea that wedding night sex is a "tradition" that must take place, and that everyone expects to happen. This expectation of the custom to continue should (ideally) be phased out because it comes from such an inexcusable history. And by erasing queer and trans people, I meant that the tradition of wedding night sex is centred around the idea of vaginal penetration and losing virginity, which has always been extremely cis and hetero normative

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