Let's talk shit about marriage.
In advance: Appy-polly-logies to those of y'all who have been there, done that, while I armchair critique sans experience. I sympathize that it must be heavily obnoxious to read my disjointed musings about a general Fact of Life(TM), but this will only take a moment
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As to granting ownership that didn't exist previously, I'm inclined to agree -- perpetuating a minor sexist tradition isn't indicative that the marriage itself is sexist or imbalanced, although I'd wager that the general patterns that encompass marital relationships can be rather skewed in favor of the husband, so perhaps the name/aisle predicament is merely symptomatic. I'm not sure if it harbors a residual effect on the individual, but in the aggregate it's really fucking bad to kowtow to a tradition that's so aimless. I also worry that the assigned entitlement will trickle into other aspects of the partnership: the same self-important rage that fuels the "What? Are you too good to give up your name for me?" may transit into other "wifely duties".
Which leads to another point: The frequent hand-waving of it's roots. Well, it's argued, the roots generally aren't applicable to the contemporary practice, so why does the origin matter? My answer is that if the purpose is obsolete, then the practice should subsequently become obsolete. If the subscribing is devoid of meaning, then how does it simultaneously... have meaning? Why continue to humor it?
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Well, my entire point was that the denial largely stems from how reflexively bad we consider even innocuous acts of sexism. I think that if people actually lived according to the principles they espouse, they'd find live much less enjoyable than they think. Thus while I agree that you can go around calling people bigots for not being bisexual, it's just not a very pragmatic thing to do. We're all bigots to some extent by the strictest imaginable definition.. and while we should never be too complacent with that, constant self-flagellation tends to be an unproductive way of dealing with these problems.
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Also, I never suggested constant self-flagellation. :P
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