No, I'm not getting married, not yet anyway. I JUST read this article about the tradition of asking a woman's father for permission to marry his daughter. The gist of the article was to see if that very tradition has lost some steam through the years.
Now, I admit, I'm not much of a traditionalist. I think some traditions are grand for the simple fact that they can bring families together, but at the end of the day, I think many of them are, for lack of a better word, silly. Given that, I got to thinking about the tradition of a man asking his father-in-law to be for permission to marry his daughter and yes, I'm going to say it - I think it's stupid. Mark it down. Quote me. Fathers of single daughters between the ages of 21 and 41, blacklist me. I'll give you some time. Given how old many of you are, I suppose I'll continue with this piece. The telegraphs should arrive at some point in the future.
Okay, before you bash me for being disrespectful to a woman's father, that I'm anti-marriage, anti-family, and if you want to give the slippery slope a try, anti-women, anti-love, anti-children, anti-life, anti-everything, etc. (as if I could find anything greater than being anti-everything. The etcetera is just there to make people wonder, even though they may no longer since I've explained what it is they shouldn't wonder if in fact they are wondering), hear me out for a second.
In most cases, both the man and the woman are living on their own and in many cases, without their parents knowing this, they're actually living with each other and doing the horizontal mambo on a nightly basis. Yes, nightly. They aren't married yet, where that seemingly pleasurable nightly event becomes a scheduled yearly event marked on the calendar taped to their refrigerator. So, assuming for a moment that both the man and the woman in this hypothetical relationship are of legal age to marry and living on their own (or with one another and possibly a threesome-partner), it sounds kind of silly to me for that very man to go to the woman's father and ask for permission to marry his daughter. Isn't his little girl grown up now? Doesn't she have a place of her own? A job? Plenty of thoughts, feelings, things and events that he will never know about? So, what, does the guy have to ask the father if it's okay for he and his wife to buy a home? Get a dog? Have children? Go to Disneyworld? Try a sexual position known as Write Your Will Before Trying This? Doesn't this seem a little, oh, I don't know, high school?
Sure, I would want my wife's parents to like me. Who wouldn't? But, it's not like back in middle or high school, when I wanted my girlfriend's parents to like me for a completely different reason - because we needed a ride to the mall, a friend's or a cornfield to smoke some weed. I (and no, this isn't just me) just wanted her parents to like me enough so that they could half-heartedly believe I wouldn't corrupt their daughter at all, their perfect little angel, whom never did anything wrong or anything behind their backs which would make them cringe, scream and think, "That's not my little girl!" If only you knew...
Now, though, I don't need to worry about my hypothetical wife's parents not giving her a ride to meet me at the mall so we can make out by a Spencer's. I don't think I'll need to do that anyway. So, yes, I'd love for her parents to like me, but we're not going to be nearly as dependent upon them as we were umpteen years ago. As difficult as it is for many parents to get a hold of (reality), their kids grow up (that's why they get taller), slowly garner independence until they're ready to make life's tough decisions, one being that of marriage.
Sure, it's nice to receive some opinions with regard to such a difficult decision, to ask friends and family about the pros and cons of marriage and what they think she should do. In the end, though, it's her decision. Not her mother's. Not her father's. Not her pet goat named Chipmunk's.
I can just see a guy, we'll call him Herb, 35 and married to Juanita for a little less than a year, going about his marriage in a similar fashion as the traditional ask-the-daddy-for-permission-to-marry-his-daughter spiel. Make a note that Herb and Juanita are living together, right across the street from her parents.
Herb: "Buster, is it okay if I take Juanita out to get some ice cream?"
Herb: "Sir, Juanita and I want to sleep in tomorrow. It's been a long work-week. Is that okay?"
Herb: "Is it alright if Juanita and I have a baby? Please?"
Herb: "Can I take Juanita out for a bit if I have her back at the house I paid for by 9?"
Herb: "Dad, would it be alright with you if your daughter and I videotaped ourselves practicing Kama Sutra, made hundreds of copies and sold them on E-Bay?"
One of these days, I think I may propose to a woman by saying, "Honey, would it be okay if I asked for your father's permission for you to marry me?" Like I said - silly. If I do go that route, however, and her father is a religious man, I may just tell him, "God spoke through her. She was speaking in tongues that she was destined to marry me, just before I slipped her my tongue." He's going to love me.
Now, I admit, I'm not much of a traditionalist. I think some traditions are grand for the simple fact that they can bring families together, but at the end of the day, I think many of them are, for lack of a better word, silly. Given that, I got to thinking about the tradition of a man asking his father-in-law to be for permission to marry his daughter and yes, I'm going to say it - I think it's stupid. Mark it down. Quote me. Fathers of single daughters between the ages of 21 and 41, blacklist me. I'll give you some time. Given how old many of you are, I suppose I'll continue with this piece. The telegraphs should arrive at some point in the future.
Okay, before you bash me for being disrespectful to a woman's father, that I'm anti-marriage, anti-family, and if you want to give the slippery slope a try, anti-women, anti-love, anti-children, anti-life, anti-everything, etc. (as if I could find anything greater than being anti-everything. The etcetera is just there to make people wonder, even though they may no longer since I've explained what it is they shouldn't wonder if in fact they are wondering), hear me out for a second.
In most cases, both the man and the woman are living on their own and in many cases, without their parents knowing this, they're actually living with each other and doing the horizontal mambo on a nightly basis. Yes, nightly. They aren't married yet, where that seemingly pleasurable nightly event becomes a scheduled yearly event marked on the calendar taped to their refrigerator. So, assuming for a moment that both the man and the woman in this hypothetical relationship are of legal age to marry and living on their own (or with one another and possibly a threesome-partner), it sounds kind of silly to me for that very man to go to the woman's father and ask for permission to marry his daughter. Isn't his little girl grown up now? Doesn't she have a place of her own? A job? Plenty of thoughts, feelings, things and events that he will never know about? So, what, does the guy have to ask the father if it's okay for he and his wife to buy a home? Get a dog? Have children? Go to Disneyworld? Try a sexual position known as Write Your Will Before Trying This? Doesn't this seem a little, oh, I don't know, high school?
Sure, I would want my wife's parents to like me. Who wouldn't? But, it's not like back in middle or high school, when I wanted my girlfriend's parents to like me for a completely different reason - because we needed a ride to the mall, a friend's or a cornfield to smoke some weed. I (and no, this isn't just me) just wanted her parents to like me enough so that they could half-heartedly believe I wouldn't corrupt their daughter at all, their perfect little angel, whom never did anything wrong or anything behind their backs which would make them cringe, scream and think, "That's not my little girl!" If only you knew...
Now, though, I don't need to worry about my hypothetical wife's parents not giving her a ride to meet me at the mall so we can make out by a Spencer's. I don't think I'll need to do that anyway. So, yes, I'd love for her parents to like me, but we're not going to be nearly as dependent upon them as we were umpteen years ago. As difficult as it is for many parents to get a hold of (reality), their kids grow up (that's why they get taller), slowly garner independence until they're ready to make life's tough decisions, one being that of marriage.
Sure, it's nice to receive some opinions with regard to such a difficult decision, to ask friends and family about the pros and cons of marriage and what they think she should do. In the end, though, it's her decision. Not her mother's. Not her father's. Not her pet goat named Chipmunk's.
I can just see a guy, we'll call him Herb, 35 and married to Juanita for a little less than a year, going about his marriage in a similar fashion as the traditional ask-the-daddy-for-permission-to-marry-his-daughter spiel. Make a note that Herb and Juanita are living together, right across the street from her parents.
Herb: "Buster, is it okay if I take Juanita out to get some ice cream?"
Herb: "Sir, Juanita and I want to sleep in tomorrow. It's been a long work-week. Is that okay?"
Herb: "Is it alright if Juanita and I have a baby? Please?"
Herb: "Can I take Juanita out for a bit if I have her back at the house I paid for by 9?"
Herb: "Dad, would it be alright with you if your daughter and I videotaped ourselves practicing Kama Sutra, made hundreds of copies and sold them on E-Bay?"
One of these days, I think I may propose to a woman by saying, "Honey, would it be okay if I asked for your father's permission for you to marry me?" Like I said - silly. If I do go that route, however, and her father is a religious man, I may just tell him, "God spoke through her. She was speaking in tongues that she was destined to marry me, just before I slipped her my tongue." He's going to love me.
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