marriage

My sister is getting married in a few weeks. July seventh of 2007. That whole lucky 777 thing. Michelle is twenty.... four? Yeah. Sean is older, but I don't know how old. Not terribly so. But I'm a bridesmaid, and I have to wear... pink. A tea length dress, strapless, one of those dresses that pushes everything where it is supposed to be, even if it's not really where it's supposed to be. Should be fun. Michelle's really stressed out, very emotional. They're getting married outside, and it should be fun.

We'll see.

Weddings are usually fun, but I'm not looking forward to standing up there next to her. Even though the bride and groom are supposed to be the center of attention, you know you're being scrutinized as well. It's going to be pretty tradtional.

I wrote this for my Marriage and Family Relations class this semester. It's a little dry, but that's a college research paper, isn't it? :)

Cohabitation and Marriage
Kim P
April 2007

Today many people of marriageable age, mainly those aged in their twenties and thirties, are choosing to cohabit. Cohabitation means that unmarried persons of either the same or opposite sex who are not related are living in the same household. The percentage of these couples has risen tenfold since 1960 and seventy-four percent since 1990. The percentage of unmarried couples has risen over 1200 percent since 1960, when there was one cohabiting couple for every ninety married couples. Today, there is one cohabiting couple for every twelve married couples, with over twenty-five percent of women ages twenty-five to thirty-nine cohabiting at the present time and forty-one percent aged fifteen to forty-four having cohabited at some point in their lives. Cohabitation is considered a threat to modern marriage, with just below fifty percent of cohabitating couples ever marrying, lowering the marriage rate the world over.

The other night, I was talking to Irmelin about custody/ divorce issues and It made me want to go ahead and post a blog here about what my thoughts are and some of the issues that have affected me in this topic personally.

I saw this statistic the other day “In the USA 63% - 84% of men who attempt to win custody succeed – Even when there is a history of domestic violence.” (1993 study: National Center Protective Parents)

That seriously just makes me so mad. Yes it was in 1993 but if I remember correctly that was even true as of 2000 as said in the book “Manifesta”.
What gets me, Is that you hear men as Irmelin says say “Men are discriminated against and almost never given custody of their children simply because they're men!” Yet there it is an actual statistic showing that women are the ones being discriminated even in a custody dispute where the men was a known abuser. It’s just sad.

Today, a family friend got engaged. Before then, I had been at a craft store, where the wall was lined with "Modern Bride" and "Brides Today." This got me thinking about the patriarchal traditions at a wedding.

For example: In America, the father usually walks the daughter down the aisle and "gives her away" to the groom. To me, this seems to symbolize that the father, who owns the daughter, is presenting her to her new owner. Another tradition is that the bride's parents traditionally pay for the wedding. This is a lot like a dowry, in my opinion, as if she is a burden that they are paying to get rid of.

My older sister, Christina, is getting married in a year.

BUT that doesnt stop her from becoming -- I guess what you could say is "bridezilla". I believe I have gotten 7 phone calls from her, this week, needing me to do things.

Thank goodness that is only 1 year instead of 2. I understand that it's "her day," and that she wants it to be perfect, but CALM DOWN! It's not like the flowers are just going to somehow vanish for no reason.

Anyway, seeing how happy my sissy (thats our nick-name for each other) is with her soon to be husband, Tracy, makes me happy. Seeing how they are tells me that there is that perfect someone for everyone.

New York Court of Appeals Says No to Gay Marriage - New York's highest court ruled against gay marriage today in a 4-2 decision.
[Feminist Daily News]

“Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit.” - Abbie Hoffman

This weekend, my mate and I drove up to a family wedding in northern ********. The drive was very scenic, with floods of trees waving by the window in swelling summer hills. Some cousins or another, whom I had never heard of, were to be wed in the same chapel as my mate's brother, who is an excellent Risk player and who will be a father in less than four weeks.

Having seen photos of the chapel from said previous wedding, I was excited to experience it first-hand, as its design is one of breath-taking genius. Rather than creating the enclosed, stuffy atmosphere that so many churches do, locking the congregation away from the very creation that they seek to worship, this chapel is a massive steel building that utilizes reflective glass as its walls. Awe-inspiring arches run down the length of this architectural wonder, repeating in pattern, blending in from the distance to create the illusion of a grand web. As the chapel is located in the forest, each glass wall reveals calming, natural scenery, with leaves brushing against its surface and sunlight liberally pooling in. Nothing is quite so calming to the soul as the unified presence of nature and the assuring protection from it.

That which transpired within the chapel, however, had no where near the same soothing effect on my temperament.