and if i'm beheaded at least i was wedded- my thoughts on marriage in my life
I've known I never wanted to get married long before I knew I was asexual. Asexuality is such an unknown quantity in the sexuality spectrum that I was long past high school before I even heard of the term- which is sad, because then it would have saved me at least two botched dating attempts. But marriage, well. The only windows I had into the world of matrimony were my parents, books, and television, and I have to say: what I saw terrified me.
I'm a fiercely independent, assertive person. I also have to have large amounts of personal space. I hate the idea of sharing a bedroom with someone because I need a private space of my own that I can go to for mental quiet or to read, surf the internet, or just nap in without the possibility of people wandering in. So, finding out that it was seen as unusual and horrible for a wife and husband to even be sleeping in separate beds in the same room gave me this immediate feeling of claustrophobia. Add that to the automatic presumption that the wife, the woman in the relationship, is meant to be the submissive one, to unquestioningly sacrifice what she wants to the desires of husband and family? I made an Queen Elizabeth-like pact on that fateful childhood day that I would never marry.
As for my parents, well. They fight. A lot. Usually because my dad is an insulting, offensive, privileged asshole who can't police his language or his privilege and spends a lot of time ordering people around, insulting their intelligence, and mansplaining and/or whitesplaining. Among his pet names for my Puerto Rican, overweight mother are 'spic' and 'fatty' and 'greaser', and he's constantly on her to lose weight or go on a diet. He always needs to know where she is, and gets angry whenever she's out for whatever he deems 'too long'. When she gets home, he starts demanding that she start cleaning or organizing something. And whenever he talks about Puerto Rico, it's always to talk about how filthy the island is or how lazy and violent the people are and pretty much how inferior it all is to white suburbia.
As a child and teenager and as an adult, I just sit there. I can't speak, because then I'll get yelled at from all sides- by my dad for 'butting in', by my mom for 'starting an argument', by my sisters for 'not keeping my mouth shut.' I was raised in a silencing atmosphere, and although I speak out as much as I can, there is nothing I can do with no support. So I sit there and listen to the poison coming out of his mouth and my stomach twists. It feels like someone is forcing bile down my throat. It's not even my home he's trashing, and I wonder how my mother can stand it. How can she stand sitting there, accepting it, not talking about it when he's insulting her people and her body and her culture?
Marriage started to seem like a slow, mental and emotional death for women. Something you went into and eventually got ground and broken down, until you completely lost your voice after too many years of your husband wearing on you. (It doesn't help that a lot of the more adult books I read had references to 'breaking a woman in', that were meant to be loving. VC Andrews, I owe you a good smackdown for my young and impressionable years.) I'd watch Disney movies and romance flicks with this sense of bitterness, because I stopped believing in happily ever after way before I stopped believing in Santa and the Tooth Fairy. I couldn't see the joy in the wedding as anything but fleeting, superficial and glorified.
I've only just started to accept marriage as positive, through my happily married friends. And, actually, the movement for gay marriage. It was puzzling to me at first, way back in high school. I didn't understand why people would be fighting for something that oppressive and sunk into such patriarchal tradition. I could see wanting the various rights and acknowledgment that came with it, but wanting marriage was just an alien thought to me. And even though I'm gradually moving towards a more positive, accepting view towards what marriage would mean to other people, LBGT and straight alike, I still carry around a lot of baggage about what I've been raised to see marriage as, and what it looks like in my family. I suppose I should be glad I'm asexual and have no desire or need to marry, and therefore carry my baggage with me into a relationship, but it makes me wonder about my sisters and how they'll deal with theirs.
I'm a fiercely independent, assertive person. I also have to have large amounts of personal space. I hate the idea of sharing a bedroom with someone because I need a private space of my own that I can go to for mental quiet or to read, surf the internet, or just nap in without the possibility of people wandering in. So, finding out that it was seen as unusual and horrible for a wife and husband to even be sleeping in separate beds in the same room gave me this immediate feeling of claustrophobia. Add that to the automatic presumption that the wife, the woman in the relationship, is meant to be the submissive one, to unquestioningly sacrifice what she wants to the desires of husband and family? I made an Queen Elizabeth-like pact on that fateful childhood day that I would never marry.
As for my parents, well. They fight. A lot. Usually because my dad is an insulting, offensive, privileged asshole who can't police his language or his privilege and spends a lot of time ordering people around, insulting their intelligence, and mansplaining and/or whitesplaining. Among his pet names for my Puerto Rican, overweight mother are 'spic' and 'fatty' and 'greaser', and he's constantly on her to lose weight or go on a diet. He always needs to know where she is, and gets angry whenever she's out for whatever he deems 'too long'. When she gets home, he starts demanding that she start cleaning or organizing something. And whenever he talks about Puerto Rico, it's always to talk about how filthy the island is or how lazy and violent the people are and pretty much how inferior it all is to white suburbia.
As a child and teenager and as an adult, I just sit there. I can't speak, because then I'll get yelled at from all sides- by my dad for 'butting in', by my mom for 'starting an argument', by my sisters for 'not keeping my mouth shut.' I was raised in a silencing atmosphere, and although I speak out as much as I can, there is nothing I can do with no support. So I sit there and listen to the poison coming out of his mouth and my stomach twists. It feels like someone is forcing bile down my throat. It's not even my home he's trashing, and I wonder how my mother can stand it. How can she stand sitting there, accepting it, not talking about it when he's insulting her people and her body and her culture?
Marriage started to seem like a slow, mental and emotional death for women. Something you went into and eventually got ground and broken down, until you completely lost your voice after too many years of your husband wearing on you. (It doesn't help that a lot of the more adult books I read had references to 'breaking a woman in', that were meant to be loving. VC Andrews, I owe you a good smackdown for my young and impressionable years.) I'd watch Disney movies and romance flicks with this sense of bitterness, because I stopped believing in happily ever after way before I stopped believing in Santa and the Tooth Fairy. I couldn't see the joy in the wedding as anything but fleeting, superficial and glorified.
I've only just started to accept marriage as positive, through my happily married friends. And, actually, the movement for gay marriage. It was puzzling to me at first, way back in high school. I didn't understand why people would be fighting for something that oppressive and sunk into such patriarchal tradition. I could see wanting the various rights and acknowledgment that came with it, but wanting marriage was just an alien thought to me. And even though I'm gradually moving towards a more positive, accepting view towards what marriage would mean to other people, LBGT and straight alike, I still carry around a lot of baggage about what I've been raised to see marriage as, and what it looks like in my family. I suppose I should be glad I'm asexual and have no desire or need to marry, and therefore carry my baggage with me into a relationship, but it makes me wonder about my sisters and how they'll deal with theirs.