This summer, on a long drive to the Utah Shakespeare Festival, we were talking about whether the tradition of asking the bride’s father for permission was a tradition that was hopelessly compromised based on its origin and what it represents or whether it was not a big deal because people don’t intend it that way any more. (My view was that it was about as quaint and necessary as Jim Crow laws and Confederate statues; in other words, I was in the “this tradition is hopelessly compromised” camp). Then we went to a performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream that very clearly demonstrated the problems with a father’s will being the only one that mattered, giving his daughter in an alliance against her wishes merely because she was his property and she had no rights, then using the law to threaten to put her to death if she wouldn’t comply. Even Hippolyta, Wonder Woman’s warrior mom, could only look on these proceedings with aloof disdain. Only the mischievous fairy kingdom could right this wrong!
Romantic comedies are usually the worst at perpetuating these compromised and patriarchal traditions, including some you will recognize. You can read more about these at various sites here, here, here, here, here, here, and here:
- The woman “waiting for” a proposal. This reinforces that women are passive objects to be chosen by a man.
- The idea in photos of the man’s “first look” and awe-love-struck expression. This goes back to when marriages were arranged between fathers, and couples didn’t know each other beforehand. If a couple is surprised, pleasantly or otherwise, at their “first look” at the other person, maybe they shouldn’t be getting married. Wedding pictures in general have many standard poses that are inherently sexist as one photographer showed when she role-reversed them. Essentially, anything that treats the bride as a prop or an object is problematic.
- The veil, representing a woman’s hymen, that will be removed by her husband when he deflowers her on her wedding night.
- The bridal shower, focusing on loading up the bride with household goods, implying that she bears sole domestic responsibility in the marriage.
- The bachelor party, implying that his “freedom” to debauch himself will end with the marriage.
- Expecting the bride’s family to pay for the wedding. This is similar to a dowry or bride price to sweeten the deal for the groom’s family who will be taking on the expense of the bride who would traditionally join her husband’s family, leaving her own.
- Brides wearing white. In the western world, this originated with Queen Victoria (white was worn for centuries in Japan). Prior to that, brides just wore their best dress. In the 18th and 19th centuries, expensive courtesans wore white because it was costly to clean. After Queen Victoria wore white at her wedding, magazines popularized the idea that it represented the bride’s sexual purity, that she was untouched before her wedding, because brides who were not virgins were considered less valuable for husbands.
- Carrying the bride across the threshold has its origins in Roman culture where brides were literally dragged into the bedroom for their deflowering (which was generally public so that witnesses could attest to the marriage’s consummation). Likewise, the groomsmen were chosen for their physical strength to fight off suitors, and the groom was to the bride’s right to allow his right hand (his sword hand) to be free to fight off the bride’s family, other suitors, and the bride herself if necessary. Tossing the garter is a remnant of these public consummations because sometimes the witnesses would clutch at the bride’s clothing to help disrobe her for what followed.
- The bridesmaids dressing up (originally to look like other brides) was meant to trick demons into being unable to identify the true bride and plague her. This one’s not exactly sexist, just weird. But the expenses rained down on bridesmaids are tantamount to a sexist tax if bridesmaids are asked to foot the bill for fancy hair and make-up to match each other in addition to dresses and shoes.
- The father walking the daughter down the aisle, then literally “giving her” away.
- Unequal vows for the woman to “honor and obey” that aren’t present in the groom’s vows. Fortunately, these are mostly a relic of the past.
- Saying “man and wife” rather than “husband and wife.” Come on, people.
- An engagement ring for her, but not for him, implying that she’s now his property and off the marriage market. Plus, blood diamonds.
- Tossing the bouquet to the singleton women in the crowd, because all single women want husbands and need to fight each other for the privilege like desperate savages.
I didn’t mention one of the most obvious ones which is the wife changing her name. This one is even more problematic when the woman has had independent professional accomplishments prior to marriage. Even without that, though, I can’t tell who the heck my childhood female friends are on Facebook. Their identities have literally been erased by marriage to the point that it’s nearly impossible to find them if they’ve changed their names. Many couples resolve this one by keeping their maiden name (you have to see the sexism in that term–there is no male equivalent of the term “maiden name”), then hyphenating for the children, or hyphenating their last names, or in some cases keeping the wife’s name for both or choosing an entirely different name. The problem with keeping your birth surname as a woman is that it’s still patriarchal–it’s your father’s name, not your mother’s. Some feminists switch to a new last name that reflects their matriarchal parentage such as Ellensdaughter or taking their mother’s maiden name, but again, since naming conventions have been sexist in English speaking cultures for so long, it’s difficult to get away from it without just removing the problem by a generation. When I served my mission in Spain I noted that everyone has two last names: their father’s and their mother’s. This makes genealogy and finding people a whole lot more common sense, although I should add that it’s still patriarchal because the name that gets passed down a generation is still the father’s. [1]
I recently attended a Mormon temple wedding, the first time I’ve attended a live sealing since my own 26 years ago. There are elements to the wording of the ceremony that are incredibly sexist and disturbing, even above the levels of normal sexism in current non-LDS weddings (harking back to polygamy and the wording in D&C 132), but surprisingly, there are some elements to the ceremony that are in fact less sexist and much more practical than non-LDS traditions. A lot of the sexism I saw that day was what the officiator brought to the table: asking the groom to help his bride kneel and stand like she was some kind of invalid or fragile crystal figurine, and inviting the groom to kiss his bride (rather than the couple). Plus, the officiator spent about 15 minutes giving what amounted to a really boring generic church talk directly prior to the ceremony. [2] Worth noting:
- The sealing ceremony is very spartan, so there’s less room to insert sexism.
- There’s no giving the bride away or walking down the aisle.
- While the witnesses are all men, an “equivalent” sitting area for the women of the family mirrored their seats at the other end of the room. These women were all acknowledged as were the male witnesses.
- The couple (only) greeted their guests. This was showing their new unity. There was a lot of emphasis on them as a newly created family unit rather than her as his acquired prize.
- Rings were exchanged after the sealing, and it was equally done for both.
- There is no veil over the woman’s face in the sealing rite.
- This bride was a returned missionary, so the sexist elements often present in a woman’s own endowment were not presented; however, there is one part of the endowment rite that is sexist and unequal that is done in these cases that is between the couple and not in the sealing room.
- The woman’s vows are done first; this is different than most traditional marriage ceremonies in which the groom speaks first.
- Both are wearing white, not just the bride. It’s not just women who are supposed to be pure in heart.
One of the most important differences between a Mormon wedding and most non-LDS weddings is that our weddings are generally less extravagant, not saddling the new couple or their parents with debt to cover what amounts to a single big party in which they can pretend they are the royal couple.
As I look back at my own wedding, we avoided some of these sexist traditions just because we weren’t that interested in them. There was no proposal. We became engaged after I said “Do you think we’ll ever break up?” and he said, “I was just wondering if we’d ever get married.” He noted that it was the same question, just worded backwards. Instead of an engagement ring, we bought a VCR. We announced our plans to both sets of parents, not specifically asking for permission or a blessing. We were adults and assumed they would be supportive, which they were. We had a very simple back yard reception, and then another open house at my parents’ place where I didn’t know anyone other than my parents (I had never lived there). We had a couples shower that we both attended with our friends (of both sexes). Our engagement photos were not great, IMO, and I objected to the photographer’s insistence that we look like we were watching an invisible tennis match. I hate those photos. That guy was the worst. The actual photos on the wedding day were taken by my brother, but the photography just wasn’t a big focus for us.
- How do you feel about wedding traditions? Do you think some are hopelessly compromised by sexist and patriarchal roots like I do, or do you think they are mostly harmless because those intentions are no longer there?
- Did you avoid some traditions and keep others? What were your choices?
- Would you do anything differently now than you did then?
- Are you surprised that many elements of the sealing are more egalitarian than non-LDS wedding traditions or do you disagree that this is the case? [3]
What’s most important, regardless of the origins of traditions, is that couples can choose how they want their wedding to go, just as they choose their partner. Marriage should be entered freely by both, so the traditions surrounding it should reflect that it’s a matter of choice, not coercion.
Discuss.
[1] Also, let’s not fool ourselves into thinking Spain, as a macho culture, isn’t sexist. They just got this one thing better than the English who are particularly bad when it comes to sexism (hello, entailed estates!).
[2] When my husband and I were married, neither of us can remember a word of what the officiator said after he said “now, I know this day is going to be really busy, but I want you to pay special attention to what I’m about to say.” That’s all we got.
[3] Polygamy ties certainly put a heavy thumb on the scale.
Wheat & Tares 
It’s clear you spent a lot of time on this, and a lot of good content here. Yet this is only half the story as sexism is not something that is only propagated against and negatively affects women. That you only see the negative effects on women in wedding traditions is dare I say – sexist?
For example, do you think men like to go and have that awkward conversation with their hopeful future-father-in-law? How many women are jumping forward to have the same conversation with their hopeful future-mother-in-law? Or how does it feel to be culturally viewed as the one responsible for the marriage and often inherently expected to “take care” of his new wife and family? Many women in our traditions hold a sense of entitlement to be swept up and given this type of treatment, taking advantage of the lack of accountability and responsibility that is culturally expected of them.
In other words, this sexist contract is a collusion that perpetuates not only because of tradition, but because it allows for both parties to indulge in particular self-interested aspects on either side of the coin – and everyone loses. That said, I am totally on board that there are a lot of wedding traditions that are sexist and would be valuable to change.
I managed to avoid almost all of these sexist (and yes, they are sexist) practices. Not because I was particularly enlightened at the time (I wasn’t), but simply because we were Mormon and poor. My list would look very similar to yours. We didn’t even do rings at all (by poor, I mean really poor).
One thing we would do differently is the names. She took my name, and at the time I probably would have been hurt had she not. But I see it differently now, and if we had it to do over again she would have just kept her name.
So, being British and married in Britain I got to do the whole church wedding thing before the temple sealing. But I didn’t do it the traditional way. No veil, no bridesmaids, and I walked down the aisle with my husband, not my father. I didn’t want to be “given away”.
My parents did pay for the reception in this country, but that was pretty equitable as my in-laws paid for the reception for Japanese family held in Japan before actual the wedding in Britain.
The temple sealing was pretty good too, given that the sealer, who I knew as a member of the stake in which I grew up, explained that the whole bride giving herself was to ensure it was of her free will, given history (it’s only much later I’ve come to learn of other interpretations of that).
The only thing I could do nothing about was male witnesses in the temple. As it happens we also had male witnesses to the civil ceremony – both fathers, it was a way to include the Japanese side who wouldn’t be attending the sealing, and also compensate my father since I had opted not to be walked down the aisle by him.
One of my brothers took the photographs, mostly informal, and another took video footage of the reception.
We also didn’t have a formal engagement and I don’t have an engagement ring, which led to some confusion when my husband applied for his fiance visa prior to the marriage, and was unable to answer the question “when did you get engaged?”
LOLing at not remembering anything the officiator said. Me too.
I hate the big, expensive party mentality. My nephew, who I adore, married a girl from a pretty wealthy family. My sister is not, her husband has been disabled for years, so they have just her salary. I was flabbergasted at the showy reception…tent, fancy DJ/dance flooor, probably $30K just in the huge flower chandeliers, catered dinner, for about 500 people. Nephew is still in law school, presumably on student loans, and all I could think was that this money could have been used to ease the new couple’s debt burden. Or put a down payment on a house. Or feed a 3rd world country.
We had an afternoon reception, I did buy a dress, but it wasnt white (wore my temple dress for the sealing), but we had no bridesmaids or groomsmen, although my silly sisters all showed up in the same outfit. We did buy rings, but due to Sam’s debt left from his 1st marriage, we got what we could pay cash for. He didnt ask my dad for permission, I was 35 yrs old, lol. His sisters gave me permission to marry him…not that I asked.
When my son got married, his wife’s family didn’t have the means for anything. The kids paid for the bulk of it themselves, we helped what they couldn’t do. All totaled it was around $2000, biggest expense was postage stamps. Afterwards, Ry told us that the reception was an epic party, (backyard dance) with everyone he loved there, to celebrate the occasion of he and Sue agreeing to spend eternity together. And that he couldn’t imagine that spending $20K on it would have made it better.
Ok, that got rambly. As far as the traditions, I am kind of in the “the intent is no longer there in most cases, and traditions are sometimes nice” camp. I have always hated the garter thing, or asking the father’s permission. I dunno if any of my sisters’ husbands asked my dad, but he would have totally said, “Why are you asking me??? Ask her!”.
A few marriage memories from my wife and me:
Our engagement lasted a year, despite all of her friends saying we would either get married earlier or break up. Her parents were divorced; I did not seek either parents’ permission to propose.
She asked her older brother to walk her down the aisle, as he played a bigger part of her upbringing than her father.
My wife was only too happy to take my name; her maiden name descends from Czechoslovakia and is usually mispronounced.
As newlyweds, we both worked and were tight with money. One day she called to say her (female) co-workers invited her to lunch; was that okay? Sure, we can spare that. She was admonished for getting her husband’s permission first, but she replied she didn’t need my permission; it was simply good manners to ask. Touche’
BTW, she handles our home’s finances; 30 years and counting.
I actually see a lot of value in some of the sexist traditions of our forebears. Don’t get me wrong, if anyone finds them objectionable, by all means, jettison them — for their own wedding. Just be careful badmouthing them for others’. If I had time I’d happily engage, but I don’t. Self-righteous progressives need to be careful what they say at other people’s events.
I will say that the family name problem has no good resolution. Personally, I think there’s a lot of value for the nuclear family to share the same family name, but to each her own.
Ellensdaughter is a good way to go. Matronymics makes for fun genealogy work, and much easier finding the matriarchal line. It doesn’t make finding families harder, just different. You’re gaining women that were ignored because of patriarchal naming conventions.
To my shame, I asked my father in law, the second one anyway. It was a horrible experience and one I’ll not try again (perish the thought of there being an opportunity). For my daughter, anyone who comes and asks is going to be told no, followed by a lovely quote from Billy Gibbons (of ZZTop) on the tv show “Bones”:
” If Angie finds out that a man – you – asked another man – me – for her hand or any other of her fine parts, horrible complications will ensue.”
A number of these origins of traditions are “old husband’s tales.”
Steve S: I agree with you that female entitlement is a huge drawback to Mormon sexist culture. It’s a double bind, too, because when you tell women their entire future is to be financially (and often spiritually) dependent on a man, it’s not good for either party if they desire more equality.
We eschewed most of those traditions. There was no actual proposal — just a discussion about getting married. We both got engagement rings (with sapphires, not diamonds) that we picked out together, and there was no asking parents for permission. We were almost 37! I don’t need my father’s permission to get married! There were no bridesmaids or groomsmen because we actually like our friends! (No need to make my friends in their forties and fifties wear stupid matching dresses.) We got married in an Episcopal church where I’m in the choir (my husband is Catholic), and I had both my parents walk me down the aisle. We followed the standard wedding ceremony from the Book of Common Prayer, and it gave us a couple of options for the scripture readings. We purposely avoided the most sexist ones (“wives, submit to your husbands”). My parents were our witnesses, which was a deliberate choice on my part to have a woman be one of the official witnesses. We paid for the wedding ourselves, and I didn’t change my name. There was no bouquet tossing, and no bachelor/bachelorette party. I did have a bridal shower, but that was because my friends were excited to throw one for me.
The ‘first look’ photo trend is very recent – like within the last couple years. It’s meant to capture the look on the groom’s face the first time he sees the bride in full paraphernalia (if the photographer’s lucky, he cries). I don’t think it has any connection to arranged marriage.
I care very little for traditions, but had a very traditional Mormon-style temple wedding. For me the traditions were for other people who cared about them. I didn’t recognize the sexism until years later.
The one tradition I loathe and regret is forcing close non-member or inactive relatives to wait outside the temple for the sealing. The marriage should be for everyone, and if necessary performed before the sealing.
I think another cool tradition would be for the married couple to choose a new family name, rather than to simply carry on the father’s name. It need not be a hyphenated or mix name. They could choose a virtue or anything meaningful for their new life together. Alas, this would possibly cause problems for geneologists, but the sexist tradition would be replaced by one more fair. The new family name could also be treated as a middle name, so the husband and wife maintain their identity.
Problem I have with feminist is they don’t want to submit. But family life is all about submission. Wife submits to husband husband submits to wife children submit to parents parents submit to children and everyone submit to God. Why is the patriarchal order the order of Heaven? It’s probably the only thing that really works.
The last name question seems like a conundrum full of trade-offs. If the wife takes the husband’s name it’s tradition at best or sexist at worst. If the wife keeps her name it seems there is nothing tying the spouses together or children to both parents. If the children hyphenate do their children have to double hyphenate, etc. It seems like the children or grandchildren at some point will have to choose who they want to claim for family identity or genealogy purposes. The choice seems to be self identity vs family identity. Maybe there’s a system that works equally and I don’t know about it.
Birth control – at least in the United States is very sexist. The pill or some sort of implant seems to be the temporary birth control of choice and there’s no male equivalent that I know of but I think that’s mostly due to biology and technology. But permanent birth control for men in the form of vasectomy is much cheaper for men than tying tubes for women, especially for those with insurance. When I got snipped it cost me $10 out of pocket. For my wife to get her tubes tied it was a couple of thousand dollars. Again some of this is due to the relative complexity of the procedure but I suspect some sexism is present there among insurance decision makers.
There’s the wedding announcements. ABC announce the marriage of their daughter to the son of someone else. We chose the Toad and Princess have chosen to marry verbiage.
There’s the idea that women are guardians of virtue, only to relinquish it on her wedding night. LDS are terrible at teaching about sex. I’ve heard lots of good girl syndrome but never heard of good boy syndrome, although I have heard of premature launch syndrome.
At the risk of thread jacking, there’s the tremendous sexism present in allowing men to be sealed to multiple women but not the other way around.
Back down to earth… my wife wanted to elope and I was the one who wanted some of the trappings for family sake. In hind sight it might not have been a bad way to do it. One of the worst arguments of my marriage was 2 nights before the wedding about wedding details. I honestly thought about calling off the wedding because my wife to be was such a basket case. I decided (and hoped) it was the stress.
In response to the author’s last bullet point question:
1. The sealing ordinance, as revealed and practiced in the Church, demands that the woman “give herself” to the man, but not that the man “give himself” to her.
2. Any practice that requires only one party to give itself to another makes the giver a possession of the receiver, and is thus in-egalitarian.
3. The sealing ordinance, as revealed and practiced in the Church, is in-egalitarian (from 1 and 2).
4. A thing is right to do only if it is egalitarian.
Conclusion: It is wrong to participate in the sealing ordinance, as revealed and practiced in the Church. (from 3 and 4).
It’s a valid argument. Is the conclusion true? If not, which of the premises is untrue? And yes, those are the only options.
I don’t like the ceremonial temple clothing, especially the ridiculous hat. The elastic is perfectly positioned to induce headaches and leaves a forehead mark for hours after taking it off, and it always messes up my hair in ways that require serious intervention to fix (all extremely inconvenient traits if you have to take photos afterward, especially photos that will be displayed in your home for the rest of your life). And it just looks silly, and I feel really stupid wearing it. Now, when I’m just doing a regular endowment session, I can tolerate it because every man in the room is dressed the same way. During my own sealing, though, I really didn’t like the fact that I was the only one in the room wearing the full regalia, and surrounded by smartly-dressed attendees in their secular finest, with me and my wife being the focus of attention. I suppose you could call that sexist, because my wife was in a beautiful white bridal gown (beautiful by secular and religious standards), while I was across the altar in a cultish quasi-Masonic getup. The overall beauty of the event wasn’t strong enough to cut through the awkwardness I felt.
I’ve been married so long I can’t remember what we did. (Ducking blow from wife)
This year my only daughter married a wonderful guy, who is not LDS. She planned HER dream wedding. They were both transplanted into the South during the first 4 years of their life and grew up here, embracing mostly the positive aspects of their new culture. They live in a medium sized but very Southern city. Both are professionals, high achievers, and completely self-reliant financially. She went to about the most liberal university in the South and loved it. He attended a typical State University with a football team routinely ranked in the top 10 or even 5. They are building a house worth over half a million and paying cash for it. They earned the money themselves, neither family is helping pay for it.
The wedding was very traditional, held in a glass wedding chapel in the springtime woods (outdoors but no rain, insects, heat or humidity) at high noon. They both wanted to do most of the usual traditional occurrences and they did it well with class and respect and honor. I have to say it was one of the most remarkable events of my life. They got it right, preserving traditions but stripped them of the sexist baggage. My relatives who flew in from Utah were curious then frankly astonished at the event.
He asked me for her hand during a walk in the woods and he did it with such dignity that I felt honored by the request. She played the passive traditional role during the wedding events but the reality of the planning process and the event was that she controlled about 95% of it with a very skillful wedding planner as her agent. She wrote the minister’s talk and the details of a mixture of a few traditional ceremonies; that was tricky because the families range from orthodox Mormon , Catholic, Evangelical to unaffiliated. (She and my wife planned about 5 weddings because they were having so much fun doing it together and then whittled it down to one).
During their first dance I was standing by the father of the groom. He leaded over and said in a Southern accent, I do believe we did pretty fine by them. I will never forget that moment as long as I live. It perfectly summed up my daughter’s childhood and primary membership in my family which shifted that day to primary membership in her own family. And the same for him.
A few weeks later this father of the groom began to have severe stomach pain and was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer and will not see Christmas again. The wedding album of pictures especially selected to highlight his family is his most prized possession. He sleeps 20+ hrs a day from the morphine and is only awake a few minutes before the terrible agony grips him. He eats very little and looks at those pictures and recalls the last best day of his life. We pray his suffering will not be long and we are all so glad that we did the wedding the way we did.
The LDS church builds up the temple wedding to be an event of eternal significance and never to be forgotten (and if you believe in the divinity of the temple and Priesthood it is a big deal). Often the actual temple wedding ceremony falls short in many ways (except spiritual if you believe it). But my daughter’s wedding was an actual expression of all the dreams of a young girl for her wedding day being fulfilled that resonated with traditions that go back centuries.
I am going to go way out on a limb here and speculate that Hawkgrrl has never been to a really good wedding done right. She would have a different perspective, not discounting the accurate points she makes. I could be wrong and apologize if so.
Mike: I have actually been to a few really good weddings, including one in which the couple also exchanged vows with their children who were present (a second marriage for both). My personal preference is to ditch the sexist components, but I am first and foremost a proponent of individuals making their own choices about this important event.
For me, I couldn’t really imagine a scenario in which I would be comfortable pretending to be someone’s passive property, even knowing it’s not how I’m going to live my life. But everyone has their own views and what they care about. I’m nobody’s wedding planner.
I’ve only skimmed, but has anyone mentioned the husband knowing the wife’s temple name, but her not knowing his? No way – at least I don’t think – to finesse that. I read (maybe at fMh awhile ago) about a couple who just … didn’t do it. She whispered to him something like, “tell you later.” And the implication, I thought, was that they would share both names.
But hands down the biggest wild card, and often the biggest fail: the sealer. I have been to some sealings that would have had me fuming or crying were I the bride.
And you don’t have to be a bridezilla to dislike the aesthetics of white tube socks.
If they marry in the temple, I’d be on board for my daughters getting sealed in the morning – close family and friends only, and then ramping up the celebration, add music, add all the people who couldn’t attend the sealing, add color, add personality.
The church wants the sealing to be the highlight of the day, but what if people just start making it the beginning of the celebration? The sealing could be referenced. (They could enter the room together with music playing.) “ Jacob and Emily were sealed for time and all eternity this morning…” Then Jacob and Emily could expand on that, say something meaningful in front of *all* their family and friends (not just temple-goers), exchange rings and be presented as husband and wife. Then have your reception; it doesn’t need to break the bank.
Ruth, the new-name thing is another weird quirk that I didn’t notice until years later. Why does my husband get to know mine, but I NEVER EVER get to know his? Is this vestigial polygamy or just garden-variety sexism? It’s not mentioned anywhere in the scriptures.
The thing I find particularly strange is that my husband found out mine BEFORE we were actually married. You do the veil stiff and THEN go to the sealing room. What’s the doctrinal reasoning for that? Aren’t they worried that one of us might get cold feet and then for the rest of his life the man knows the “new name” of some random woman he almost but didn’t marry??
From the table next to us at lunch one day, “….yeah, so the husband knows the wife’s secret name and if he doesn’t call her up for resurrection, she doesn’t get resurrected!”
My face was flush with embarrassment. Why? Why can’t the backward, sexist, and humiliating aspects of the temple be changed?
I think various people quoted Brigham Young on how it’ll all work, William Clayton for sure, but I don’t have references.
Ruth: ” Why can’t the backward, sexist, and humiliating aspects of the temple be changed?” Because the people who are humiliated have no say and can be marginalized as faithless.
Angela C.
We both agree about the part of people making their own choices and the later comment about why it won’t be easy to change the temple ceremony. I don’t think my daughter was “pretending to be someone’s passive property,” They both had an active role. She is a professional performer and she was center stage where she loves to be. If anything the groom had the passive role. Advice to future grooms; Do exactly what your wife (or mother-in-law) tells you to do on your wedding day. On your wedding night, that’s another matter….
Ruth:
I agree the sealer is the biggest fail. Oh, the stories I have heard. The worst one will be plenty.
The groom was a dignified accomplished Japanese business executive and a good friend who asked my wife and I to be there since neither of them had any Mormon family. He was a convert during college and was sexually active before that and served a mission later. The bride was once a wild cheerleader at a Southern college, formerly married to a football player who crushed beer cans against his head. They had several energetic, undisciplined children before he started crushing beer cans and his fists against her head. Apparently the abuse went both directions, she had a fiery temper and could dish it out as well as him. After the divorce she got a job working for his Japanese company. He took her to a church activity as a friend at first. The romance blossomed after her baptism.
I understood his attraction for her, a tall curvy gorgeous blond and she kept her temper and her children from scaring him off while dating. I didn’t understand her attraction for him. Perhaps it was his class and wealth or maybe his calm, tolerant approach to her children which greatly improved their behavior. They had been married civilly for over a year because she had not been a member long enough for a temple wedding when they fell in love.
As we gathered around the altar in the temple, the seasoned old sealer came into the room. He must have assumed she was right out of high school. During the little sermon he started giving them detailed advice about sexual activity as if they were naive and had never done it. And the advice was personal, embarrassing and ridiculous.. Then he told them not to be afraid of having children, start with one and then another and another and soon you will grow and gain wisdom as parents. She was on the verge of a melt down. I could like see with my spiritual eyes, steam coming out of her ears. He was in some Buddha-like happy place where he went whenever he was not happy. My wife whispered in her ear many times to get her through the ceremony.
She had been kneeling when he came in. At the end she stood up and he noticed she was about 6 months pregnant. He must have assumed they had lied to their bishop and he turned to the groom and said, “Why, you sneaky Jap.” No response. The sealer stormed out to find the temple president. They asked me to explain and confirm their status.I could vouch they had been legally married for over a year. Then, I had to remind them that they were supposed to seal her children to both of them. I pointed it out to them on their paperwork.
About then the wild children all came bouncing into the sealing room not the least bit reverent. The sealer tried unsuccessfully to quiet them down. The groom remained silent with a stony smile on his face. She let them have their fun for a spell and then she said in aloud voice: Y’all shut the hell up or I is gonna whoop yo asses red, white and blue. She told us later that she would not have said that except to punish the sealer for being so ignorant. She left the room humming the chorus of a hymn by Toby Keith ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NynbLtRLisg).
An unforgettable time was had by all.
Mike: I wasn’t even there, and this story is unforgettable!
The OP asked what I would do differently. Lots of little things, but in the temple I would have requested that the sealer just seal. It would have been a very short, sterile ceremony; but better that then a (well-meaning) man neither of us knew from Adam improvising.
I think that Millenials might have the guts to make such a request.
I’m not ascribing bad intentions to higher-ups, but perhaps this is an example of higher-ups so removed from the rest of us that they can’t see a problem. When their children and grandchildren are sealed, I imagine they might hand-pick a sealer who moves in the same circles, someone already close and trusted. And it’s beautifully done. No problem.
There’s no good solution about the last name thing, at least not that’s obvious to me.
It is often called a family name, and for many people that’s exactly what it represents. Having the same last name tells others you are a collective unit.
While having one person – commonly the wife – take her husband’s last name can be viewed as sexist (indeed, it’s hard not to), having the wife keeping her own last name can be equally sexist.
For example, historically in most of China, wives never took their husband’s last name (in a few they did add it as an additional name). But not because of preserving her own identity but to distinguish that she remains an outsider. I.e. – she’s not really part of the family in the same way. I even overheard this once in our ward in Taiwan, in which a son asked his mother why all the Westerners called her by his dad’s last name, since she wasn’t part of that family. It’s also reflected in the name for maternal grandparents, which begins with the character for “outsider” (the same one used for foreigners). Let’s just say my mother in law didn’t appreciate when I explained that one to her.
Keeping one, changing one, compounding… all have negatives and positives.
I know for my wife, she doesn’t regret changing her name, and it is something she wouldn’t change even if she could. She likes having the same last name as me and our children. While she respects those who keep their name, most our their children take their fathers name, and she couldn’t imagine her children having a different last name than her (perhaps impacted by, as a child of divorce, growing up primarily in a home where her parents and siblings all had a different last name than her). But she also didn’t see having the kid’s take her last name and their father having another last names as any better.
Hyphenating both our names just felt like kicking the can a generation – as per the Spain example. And cumbersome – and our last names were both short.
The only option that was marginally tempting was to create an entirely new name for us as a couple – a new family name to identify us as a new family. I think the long term genealogy impact (imagining a world in which that was the solution) is what dissuaded us.
That, and where would you even begin in such a creation?
I like the hyphenated name idea. After 3 or 4 generations we will have 8 or 16 names. It will make doing family history so much easier. And we will know at least one thing about all those ancestors which is better than I know now.
I’m a big believer in intentions, so I’m not as concerned about the sexist implications of some cultural traditions. If I believed my husband *truly* saw himself as superior, that would be a dealbreaker. The formality is just cultural for me (like trick-or-treating on Halloween or doing Santa Claus). I was young when I got married, so my parents put out the money. I got a dollar expectation (based on what they had shelled out for my siblings), and worked within that. Because they are traditional, I went traditional. I really didn’t care either way, but I was willing to put my personal spin on certain items they expected. We had the sealing and reception hall reserved well over a month before the “official” engagement. Both my husband and I come from very patriarchal families, so he asked my dad’s permission hours before the official ring proposal (though he may have also wanted to cover his bases because my parents were not thrilled when my sister’s husband didn’t ask years before). Again, though, we’d been unofficially engaged and planning the wedding for awhile – it was a moot point. The only thing I would’ve done different is not asking my college friends to be bridesmaids. It was an unnecessary burden on them.
An issue with women taking their husbands last names is that I literally can’t tell who some of my FB friends are at this point. People from my high school intermarried in a lot of cases, and so they all have the same last names, and nobody looks like they did in HS now, so I can’t tell in a lot of cases if the person I friended was really my classmate or just the wife of my classmate. It’s very frustrating. Who they were has literally been erased.
“Who they were has literally been erased.” I do family history, so I get the frustration of having a father’s surname replaced by a husband’s surname. But you can’t suggest a person’s core identity is determined by their surname (or nickname, or whether they go by first or middle name…).
Blerg, no, I just mean that I can’t tell who they are / were anymore because of the name change (coupled with the effects of aging).
Absolutely. While my wife changed her last name, on Facebook she put her previous last name before her current one, for exactly that reason.
I don’t mind going by my husband’s last name. I regret loosing my maiden name though. I wish we could legally have four names without hyphenating (because then you have to write out the full hyphen when signing legal docs, etc.). So First, Middle, Maiden, Married – for women.
I remember chatting in the car with my fiancé about changing my last name to his, and it hit me for the first time that I wasn’t keen on changing my name; at least not being the only one to change my name. I suggested we both change our last names to something we both like. “Maybe Cheesecake? We both like to eat cheesecake…We could be the Cheescakes.” He replied with something about how he had always pictured sharing his last name, something extremely valuable to him, with his wife. It wasn’t intended to be an emotional manipulation, but I could tell that it would break his heart a little if I didn’t take his last name. The idea of breaking his heart broke my heart a little, so I acquiesced… for about the first 5 years of our marriage I felt like I had lost a name, not gained a new one. About 5 more years and I felt like my new last name was actually mine… An entire decade to adjust….And I also have my FB name using both my maiden and married last names. In conclusion, I’m a huge fan of inventing a new last name as a couple. New family unit. New adventure. New name. Genealogy be darned. If I could go back in time and find a new last name with my then fiancé, I would in a heartbeat. To this day I would still gladly respond to Sister Cheesecake.
Who says you can’t? My kids all have four names with no hyphen.
My wife and I fall into the category of if we could do things differently, we would have created a new family name. It really does come across as the best fit for everyone, and I agree is fits in nicely with the creation of a new family unit. I think part of what holds us back from changing it now is the family and social pressure that would come from such a move- it’s not emotionally worth it right now for us both.
Just a quick response for those who worry about the genealogy aspect of creating a new name, in today’s day and age with the amount of personal data that’s out there, it’s not hard going to be hard to connect the dots between a couple who both change their last name once married. There will be more than ample paper (and digital trails) that future genealogists can follow.
Just one example – currently, when a woman goes in to legally change her name once married, the previous name and the new name all are recorded on that application, and all the data gets captured by the Social Security Administration – which will likely be publicly available once that woman is dead and gone. It’s safe to assume that this would be the case for a couple who jointly decide to change their name – there will be a record trail to follow.
Besides, we can’t make it too easy for our descendants – we gotta help keep the ‘work’ in family history work 😉
Am I the only one who knows about the darker pervy side of society?
I think some guys never get over their girlfriends and more especially their fantasy goddesses. They have the potential for stalking them for years. The internet makes this even worse. That little pervert who sat behind you in the 8th grade might still entertain unholy thoughts about you and may eventually act upon them. To catch most of them would require unacceptable limitations on the freedom of the rest of us. It is my impression this problem is somewhat common among men and rare among women. I would guess about a 100:1 ratio but anyone who works at the police department might have a better idea .
When a woman takes her husband’s name it allows her to more effectively hide from these unwelcome ghosts of her past that she may not even know exist. I would favor both partners changing names during their wedding to be fair..
Kullervo – Cool. My best friend did a bunch of research just before she was married and said best she could find was hyphenate. This was back in the 90s, so hopefully things have changed.