Things I Swore I'd Never Do

Despite having trained for a half-marathon in March and continuing to train for another one in August, I found myself feeling like the pounds were creeping on. I am afraid I fell into the old, "I've just run 5 miles, I can eat whatever I want and however much I want of it" trap. I, therefore, decided that I needed some discipline. I re-joined Weight Watchers. As I submitted payment by typing in my American Express account number, I started thinking about how this is something I promised myself that I'd never do before my wedding. I swore up and down that I would not be one of those brides who insists that she lose 10 pounds before she walks down the aisle. "I am what I am," I proclaimed in my most feminist of tones. "This is just one day, an important day, but just one day. I refuse to succumb to those discourses which make women feel that they should look "better" on their wedding days." Anyway, sometimes I just need a little disciplining in my eating habits. This is probably the sixth time in my life that I have joined the big WW. One would say that shows how much it doesn't work, but it helps me get my balance to add my points and make sure I stick to them.


In any event, I've yo-yo'd since I've re-joined. We've given up the internet in our apartment, which hinders my obsessive tallying of points. Therefore, I haven't really done it in two weeks. Maybe it is a good thing and maybe it isn't. I'll guess we'll find out when I put on the dress. Either way, we're just going to have a good time celebrating that day and hopefully, nobody will be counting their points.

Maybe I Should Return My Midriff Baring Mini-Skirt Wedding Ensemble?

Check out the Newsweek article on how slutty modern brides have become here. : http://www.newsweek.com/id/200495?gt1=43002 and the Feministing response.

I find this part amusing: "While most sociologists agree that women admitting to lust and wanting to be sexually empowered is a good thing, they see a problem with making exhibitionism the centerpiece of the wedding ceremony: it might crowd out other aspects of the marriage."

What else is the modern wedding if not an exhibition? Why else do people pay tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars for a one day event? Why else do women daydream their whole lives over the perfect, fairy tale wedding (whether or not she wears a "princess" dress or a slinky Vivienne Westwood gown)? Why else spend months painstakingly picking out linens, shoes, favors, invitations, flowers, etc.? I think Newsweek missed the mark here.

Feminist Thoughts On Marriage Norms

They are not my thoughts, but thought I would share. Check out this blog entry posted on Feministing.com called Marriage Norms for the Twenty-First Century.

I would add busting up the wedding industry that is allowed to bleed brides and grooms dry all to create that "perfect" day that can, I imagine, never quite live up to expectations. Furthermore, we need to counter the discourses that proclaim the "wedding day" as the most important day in a hetero girl/woman's life, while the hetero boy/man simply shows up because he has more important things to do/worry about.

A 19th Century Feminist Marriage

I've been trudging through Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. On my way to work this morning, I read a particularly striking passage about Lucy Stone, a 19th Century American woman who refused to accept anything less than what she felt acceptable. She lectured on women's rights and anti-slavery. She was often attacked for her political views. Nevertheless, and perhaps not without a bit of surprise, she married - a man whose ideology was akin to her own.

Zinn provided part of the "Marriage Protest." I found what I assume is the rest of it at about.com:

The following was signed by Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell prior to their May 1, 1855 marriage. The Rev. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who performed the marriage, not only read the statement at the ceremony, but also distributed it to other ministers as a model that he urged other couples to follow.

While acknowledging our mutual affection by publicly assuming the relationship of husband and wife, yet in justice to ourselves and a great principle, we deem it a duty to declare that this act on our part implies no sanction of, nor promise of voluntary obedience to such of the present laws of marriage, as refuse to recognize the wife as an independent, rational being, while they confer upon the husband an injurious and unnatural superiority, investing him with legal powers which no honorable man would exercise, and which no man should possess. We protest especially against the laws which give to the husband:

1. The custody of the wife's person.

2. The exclusive control and guardianship of their children.

3. The sole ownership of her personal, and use of her real estate, unless previously settled upon her, or placed in the hands of trustees, as in the case of minors, lunatics, and idiots.

4. The absolute right to the product of her industry.

5. Also against laws which give to the widower so much larger and more permanent interest in the property of his deceased wife, than they give to the widow in that of the deceased husband.

6. Finally, against the whole system by which "the legal existence of the wife is suspended during marriage," so that in most States, she neither has a legal part in the choice of her residence, nor can she make a will, nor sue or be sued in her own name, nor inherit property.

We believe that personal independence and equal human rights can never be forfeited, except for crime; that marriage should be an equal and permanent partnership, and so recognized by law; that until it is so recognized, married partners should provide against the radical injustice of present laws, by every means in their power...

Amazing, isn't? I find those spaces where the "oppressed" find their voice simply fascinating. Surrounded by like minded people, she did things as her conscience dictated. She even kept her name. There is now a group devoted to that choice, called the Lucy Stone League.

Over one hundred and fifty years later, I still have to explain myself when I tell people that I am not changing my name. I wonder what Lucy Stone would say about that.