Really good pieces about weddings and love
Not joking, the wedding section of the Times this week is actually good. This Modern Love, about love and marriage between two older folks, is about the sweetest thing you will read this month, and if you don’t cry by the end you have no soul. This marriage announcement contains the line, “The bride, 97, is keeping her name,” which is about the best thing I’ve ever read. And this look back at a 40-year marriage defined by a commitment to social justice and a son’s well-being is also just lovely. And yes I’m a cranky feminist who will probably never get married, but a good marriage story still gets me. Maybe I’ll finally consent to the betrothal thing when I’m 80.
...read moreGroom tries to take wife’s last name, is grounded by Florida DMV
If a woman changes her name after marriage, it’s a sign of her love and enduring commitment. (Aw…) If a man does it, he’s a fraud who’s trying to get one over on the state, and such offenses will not stand!
...read moreAfter Lazaro Sopena and Hanh Dinh got married, Sopena decided to change his name to Lazaro Dinh to honor his wife’s Vietnamese family surname.
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More than a year later, he received a letter from Florida’s DMV accusing him of “obtaining a driver’s license by fraud,” and letting him know that his license would soon be suspended.
The purpose of marriage is to create unplanned and unintended offspring
That is actually an argument being made by anti-same-sex-marriage litigators. To the Supreme Court of the United States. This is not a joke. Someone give this guy a raise, because this is creative:
...read moreYour wedding is the most special, important, valuable day of your entire existence, but you are a crazy bitch if you plan it too much.
That’s basically my summary of this New York Times article, which covers a small number of women who planned their weddings (or are still planning their weddings) before they even had a boyfriend. And yes, I actually agree that spending large chunks of your free time planning your own wedding when you aren’t actually engaged to be married is… a tad bizarre, and kind of sad. There are so many other things you could be doing with your spare time! And while I think many of us have had the experience of seeing a pretty dress or a nice piece of jewelry online and going, “Oh I like that” and maybe even posting it on Pinterest (hell, even I pinned a wedding dress one time), it’s a whole other level to plan out a venue, monogrammed cocktail napkins and what you’re serving for dinner before you’ve even met the person who you’re planning to wed:
...read moreBride Price
The wonderful Chloe Angyal is writing in New York Magazine about engagement rings, and the conspicuous showing-off of said rings on Facebook. I admit: I am a sucker for jewelry, so I actually don’t hate the engagement ring shots. That said, I don’t like engagement rings very much — or at least not the giant sparkly diamond kind. My objections are both political and aesthetic. You have to be living in a cave to not know just how evil the diamond industry is, and while conflict-free diamonds do exist, the cultural tying of “diamond” and “engagement” is a huge part of what drives the diamond market. And maybe it came from working at a law firm for so many years, but the look of all of those giant engagement rings was just… boring. They all look the same to me. But then I don’t think the tradition of exchanging wedding rings is a bad one. A token or symbol of commitment tied to a ritual is great. And a cool piece of jewelry? Sign me up — especially for some of the absolutely beautiful heirloom, antique or non-diamond rings that a few pals have procured. But the engagement, with only the woman wearing a ring and the attendant sense that she has accomplished something by getting a guy to ask her to marry him feels a bit weird. Not to mention the ownership/investment symbolism.
...read moreSelfish singles are good for society.
My latest in the Guardian is about that “Rise of Post-Familialism” study that has everyone in a tizzy, panicking that Western nations are facing a baby-shortage and selfish, indulgent single people are ruining the world. I take the position that the very things the study and conservative commentators brand as “selfish” are actually just smart, and the logical responses to both social progress and continued constraint. It’s one of my favorite columns so far, so I hope you’ll read the whole thing. A bit of it:
...read moreBut the moral case against individualism and choice doesn’t have legs. It’s a moral good when people have a wide array of choices and increased personal freedom – not just for the individual, but also for children, family and society. And the evidence backs that up.
Ross Douthat would like you to have more babies
Unless you are a single woman, of course. Oh and also if you don’t have babies, you’re being “decadent” and you don’t care about the future or the very fabric of society:
...read moreBest advice: Tell your wife how you feel, give her everything in the divorce
Hey look, it’s a creepy racist guy writing into Dear Prudence!
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Women need to stay home and serve men, says woman who makes a career out of telling other women not to have careers.
I love a good hypocrite, and Suzanne Venker is today’s winner. She’s writing in Fox News about how women have ruined marriage and men are the social underdogs. How have women ruined marriage? Probably by making the same stank-face as the chick in the article’s accompanying photo. At least chick in the photo is dating a Real Man who knows that the best response is to be like, “You believe this bitch?”
...read morePrudie takes on gender transition
And it’s… not great but also not the worst worst? Definitely not GOOD, but also understandable. Unless I am way off base. Am I way off base?
...read moreA better marriage-protection amendment
As she cast her vote in support of Maryland’s Question 6, upholding same-sex marriage, Laura Helmuth asked herself the question that so many of us have asked ourselves in recent years: Why the hell is it my business to vote on who gets to get married? And if it is my business, why can’t we find a better dividing line than sexual orientation?
...read moreSleeping with the (political) enemy
There are two articles in the Times this week about cross-party marriage — this Modern Love column, and this piece by K.J. Dell’Antonia. Both women are married to men with opposite political views. It’s not obvious from either post who’s the Democrat and who’s the Republican in each relationship, but K.J. (of whom I am a huge fan) drops some hints that she’s probably the Obama supporter in her marriage. Both women conclude that what’s actually important in a marriage is love and mutual respect, and that while political differences are challenging, shared fundamental values are what matter most. And in an increasingly politically polarized country, it’s hard to write the other side off as stupid or heartless when “the other side” is sitting across the dinner table from you. Both women emphasize that they share end political goals with their husbands — expanding health care access, improving the economy — they just disagree about how to get there. Cross-party marriages, K.J. says, are good in part because they model bipartisanship and compromise, which are two virtues our country hungers for.
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