girly girly....

it swear that the older i get, the less interested i am in having babies and getting hitched. and it also seems that more and more of my girl friends (and guy friends, too) are getting hitched and having babies. and while i am happy for friends who have things in their lives that make them happy, it feels a little odd and isolating when folks talk about engagement rings or wedding pictures or baby showers.

the other side of the the-older-i-get crap is that i'm becoming more and more okay with other people's wonky philosophies on life. for example, when clients say to me on the phone, "have a blessed day" (which i hear at least twice a day) or when a bartender at a certain favorite dive bar of mine talks and talks about the power of positive thinking, rather than get all cynical and annoyed, it makes me feel happy that people are doing what they can to find even a little bit of peace in their lives. it doesn't have to be my path, but if somebody else can derive some happiness from it, well, then it can't be all bad, can it?

with that said, however, and with full knowledge of my own wonky philosophies on life, an e-mail this morning alerted my attention to the following:

I got hitched Saturday. Beforehand, I had been sheepish about telling my students I was getting married. It seemed inconsistent with my professional persona as an independent, fearless, freedom-fighting law professor. So I waited until the last possible minute to mention it. “OK, I have a quick announcement,” I began a recent Criminal Law class. “I do apologize, but I have to cancel next Thursday’s class because… um… well… my partner and I have decided to get married.” My students then began to clap. Gads, this was worse than I imagined it would be. The applause grew.

“No, no—please don’t clap. This is a truly freakish event that was never supposed to happen to someone like me.” Applause turned to laughter. Now I’d gotten myself in a fix.

XXXXX had faced none of this angst. He had told his journalism students months ago, and he’d enjoyed their applause, while I skulked around my school as if I had a dirty little secret.

I’ve critiqued the institution of marriage for as long as I can remember. Heterosexist. Patriarchal. The usual list of sins. The unit on marriage in my Feminist Legal Theory class begins with the English common law of coverture in which a female’s legal existence is erased by its merger into her husband’s at marriage.

So what’s a self-respecting feminist to do when she decides that a public commitment to her sweetheart is the next step in her spiritual and emotional growth? What happens when she loves someone in a way that—despite societal evidence—burbles with the hope of lasting a lifetime?

No new last name. No veil. No white dress. No “love, honor, and obey.” No father “giving the bride away.” No throwing the bouquet. No garter—goddess, no garter toss. No bachelor party. No church. No dieting for the big day. No updo, no French manicure. And no wife.

I told XXXXX, “OK, look, if we get married, I will not be your wife. I never want you to refer to me as your ‘wife.’ I’m serious.”

He was a bit taken aback. “Why?”

“Let’s look up the etymology of the word.” 2002 American Heritage College Dictionary. “ME wif <>wif. See ghwibh- in App.” So we looked up the root word “ghwibh-” in the appendix: “Shame, also pudenda.”

No joke.

Then we looked up “husband” and followed its root (“bheue”) into the appendix. “To be, exist, grow.” So he gets to be, exist, and grow while I am labeled a shame-pudendum? I don’t think so.

Rejecting so many labels and traditions forced us to create new ones. A surprise: that creative process was more meaningful and fun than I’d imagined it would be. What emerged was magical, warm, celebratory, and quite personal.

Thankfully, there is precedent for marriage under protest: abolitionists Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell’s 1855 declaration of dissent against the patriarchal institution signed upon their wedding day. And a dear friend of mine from law school spoke in her ceremony about continuing the fight for gay and lesbian marriage when she and her partner tied the legal knot back in 1995. So I had footsteps to follow.

Meanwhile my feminist students, gay and straight, seemed genuinely thrilled with my late-coming announcement. “When I heard you were getting married,” one said to me last week, “I was so happy. If even you can find someone, maybe there’s hope for the rest of us!”

i'm not going to tell you who the author of this post is. so don't ask. i will tell you that it's someone whom i consider to be brilliant, fantastic, dynamic, destined for greatness, and even among my list of heroes. i haven't been able to stop thinking about this post all day. (reading through a bunch of deeds with their sexist and archaic language didn't exactly calm me down, either.) but what's a girl to do? am i just wasting my energy when i get frustrated with "man and wife" or the whole white dress dowry bullshit that is the wedding machine? should i adopt the attitude that it doesn't have to be for me but if it works for others, a-okay?

see, it's not just that i don't feel that the scene is for me, either. i really and truly think a lot of it is completely offensive. yet, it's such a weird and devisive issue. i.e., it's not exactly the kind of thing you can rationally discuss with friends who are okay with the more, erm, traditional approach to the contract of marriage.

to me, this does not fall into the realm of wonky life philosophy. rather, it's more of a...crusade.

but i'm too distracted and tired to say anything more right now. i will conclude by saying that i got a really nice warm fuzzy feeling from reading the above quoted portion. what it says to me is that there is a way to do things on your own terms. it's possible to take something that's a little bizarre and effed up and make it worth celebrating. so, three cheers for the folks out there who aren't afraid to do things differently. and who have the balls to bend the rules. that's the kinda girl i want to be.