All Requests: Asking Parental Consent Before Proposing

I love all-requests.  They really stretch me.  SLR leaves this request:

I was wondering if you have any opinion on the tradition of men asking their potential bride's father for permission to marry his daughter. I had always thoughts this was an outdated, offensive, and silly tradition in today's world, but am surprised by the number of friends and acquaintances who seem to think its the proper thing to do. Is this still the common practice?

1) I have no idea whether it's still the common practice.  But anecdotally, I know at least a handful of folks whose parents knew about the marriage proposal before the potential bride.  So I think it's alive and well, if not "common." 

2) Is it outdated and silly?  Yes, I suppose so, especially if it's phrased in terms of "permission."  One hopes nobody is actually asking for permission.  A blessing, that sounds a little bit better.  It's outdated that the convention remains that the man asks the woman.  I'm not sure the parental consultation is more outdated than that standard convention.  Neighbor (fka "Housemate") asked 517 to marry her.  He said 'maybe, I need to think about it' and a few days later got Grandma's ring out of the safe-deposit box and proposed to her.  That's a nice story.  Neither asked one another's parents beforehand.   To me, the tradition of letting the parents in on the plans is more about family goodwill than about permission.  It's about trust, and about communicating to them their importance in your future plans.  It gives them a way to feel involved, even as you make plans to build a family that's independent and separate from either person's connection to their parents.  If it were a transaction strictly between men and about some kind of passing of ownership or custody, I would find it reprehensible.  But I don't think that's how it actually operates.  And it's no more sexist than the 'boy-asks-girl' convention that you didn't ask about.

Comments

[PG]

:-) I like the idea of a woman asking for her intended's mother's permission. Might as well talk to the woman who had the training of him...

[That Lawyer Dude]

I think the decision to follow tradition is one that is dictated by the respective ethics of the couple involved. Obviously a woman who is very invested in tradition is going to want her family's approval and input. A man who loves that woman is going to understand that she is invested that way and is going to do what he can to earn that "permission." Close knit families can be that way. There are a lot of traditions that probably are sexist depending who is looking at them. However the parties involved, if they are invested in those traditions, start their marriage out with respect and love for one another. Asking permission to marry is a way of humbling oneself and also recognizing that often when one marries, one not only marries their spouse, but their spouse's family too.

If the couple is young (say under 23) there is some greater sense to the tradition. As a lawyer who sees far too much devastation from the broken marriages of young people, I wish that older and wiser heads would prevail more often. Parents often do know what their children are ready for.

I am not suggesting that only old fashioned marriages last; only that if two people are invested in common traditions, then they share core values on which to build their marriage. If one party is willing to learn and adhere to a tradition that is not their's, they are learning the give and take that helps make a marriage work (so long as they involve themselves in the tradition willingly and whole-heartedly.) Either of these types of marriages are on the right path to future happiness.

[bill]

I proposed to my wife, she said yes, and then that weekend we arranged a conference call because her parents were living in different cities (this was a few years ago when conference calls not for business purposes were unusual. I asked for their blessing without exactly asking permission (I had never met or spoken to them before). Then we called my parents (my wife had met them previously). It worked out fine.

[The Happy Feminist]

I have one close male friend who asked his wife's father's permission before he proposed. He knew, from having talked to his wife about the topic of marriage in the past that she wanted him to ask her father's permission. It's odd because she hasn't bowed to tradition in any other way-- she is a professional woman, a working mother, and she retained her own last name after marriage.

I wonder what meaning the permission thing had for her. I suspect that it was in her mind just a formality or a ritual that simply had the effect of investing the proposal with greater meaning. It's similar to when otherwise progressive women have their fathers give them away during the marriage ceremony. It's just a ritual that is a way of honoring one's father.

Of course, as the Happy Feminist, I have held no truck with those types of rituals in my personal life. I told my parents of my wedding plans myself. And my husband and I hosted our wedding ourselves and there was no walk down the aisle or any giving away. My father seemed content with that because he never cared for the symbolism of that either.

[Jane]

I suspect this is the kind of thing a guy should only do if he knows his girlfriend expects it. But I don't know why any woman would want him to! Maybe today the practice is called a blessing, but as you note, its origins are clearly in the good old days when marriages were arrangements between men.

That said, I'd have to think twice before marrying someone my parents did not approve of, but I would also hope that if I was really on the road toward marrying someone, we'd all pretty much know how our families felt without having to ask permission.

But, as you also allude, so much of the tradition involved in marriage is sexist. If someone were to make a principled objection to this practice, there are a lot of other traditions that they'd also have to toss out.

[Al Wheeler]

While reading this, I wondered if those people who thought it strange to ask the father's permission also would think it strange for the father to give away the bride.

When I got engaged, my parents insisted that I make sure everything was all right with the bride's parents, and then told me it was barbaric to have the father give away the bride and tried hard to have it done some other way.

[bill]

"Giving away the bride" - we thought that was strange too, so (it's a bit hazy) I think I came into the church from the side with the best man and my wife walked up the aisle with both her parents, mine, and the maid of honor (her sister). Or something like that. The person from the church who helped with the rehearsal didn't bat an eye -- she called it a "liturgical procession."

[Patrick (yeah, it's been a while since my last post)]

I proposed to my (now-) wife without asking her father. The following weekend, we took her parents out to dinner when we all went to our yearly trip to the Georgia-Florida Football Game in Jacksonville. We announced the engagement there. We told my parents, who were on a long vacation in The Netherlands, via telephone.

To this day, I wish I had asked her father's permission before popping the question. I take the edge off the regret by reminding myself that my wife was the first to know that I wanted to marry her.