quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: *tiny writing* But then, isn't expressing any political position, any -ism, a belief that people should think a certain way. There's no real such thing as apolitical thought. Apart from maybe the thoughts of stoners. See! I just don't know. Curse you vikram!
Well, yeah, that's true and that did cross my mind. But I guess it's the whole "Women died so that you didn't have to do what they tell you, so you'd damn well better do this," thing. It's not really progress. It's not really any different at all. And I don't think women did fight so that you had to not take your husband's name, I think it's more like the fight was one when it became the case that, if you did take your husband's name it was no longer symbolic of his ownership of you.
I dunno, it's like say there was this black kid and all she wanted to do was become a lawyer or something, and black activists kept ragging on her going "Malcolm X died for your emancipation and all you're doing is working for the man and paying your tax to feed white society", wouldn't you be a bit like "Leave them alone and let them walk their own path for fuck's sake." It's like, it's not doing any harm, so butt the fuck out. London actually said she thinks less of people who change their name and slung a couple of low grade insults around, but once you've got to the point where it really isn't doing any harm in any way why even care about it?
I dunno - I've just sat in all evening waiting for the third time for a pair of speakers that never arrived so really I'm just lashing out unfairly at someone, and I'm sorry if it sounds like that, which it must do. But you know, I do kind of mean what I say at the same time.
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Hey, Thorn. Did you ever make that cd you wanted to send to me? I haven't received anything see. Just want to be sure it's not lost in the post sort of thing.
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quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: I dunno - I've just sat in all evening waiting for the third time for a pair of speakers that never arrived so really I'm just lashing out unfairly at someone, and I'm sorry if it sounds like that, which it must do. But you know, I do kind of mean what I say at the same time.
I hope that ya dished the venom like a silver service viper, my friend.
quote:Originally posted by Louche: OJ even posted on here about 'the shiver of cold fear' that went through her when, after she got an email from me in my new married name, she realised she could never ever face changing her name.
D and I went out for a meal last night to celebrate our second wedding anniversary ('cotton', apparently). When I related the above gem to her - adding the bit about OJ being your witness - she got so angry she glassed a passing waiter. While I think this reaction was a little excessive, I can understand where it came from.
'fwiw' though there's no technical rigmarole for a husband to go through, (informing banks etc.) having D take my surname did alter the way I felt about our relationship - though it wasn't something I was really aware of at the time, looking back the change was pretty profound. To put it crudely, it symbolised that - even before Sam was born - we were a family... a single unit rather than 'two people together'. For both of us, this was what our marriage was/is about and the name change reinforced the symbolism.
Though historically the name change might have had more to do with ownership and patriarchy, well, so did the whole concept of 'being married'. Surely if you reject the first on those grounds you have to reject the second as well. You don't even have to look into history - in the present day, in this country and around the world, marriage continues to be a from of slavery, certainly submission, for millions of women. Forget the past: for women living today, on your street 'marriage/name change = subservience'. The point, surely, is that though this may be the case for some, it needn't be the case for all.
To make out that a symbolic gesture can only ever have one meaning - and that meaning remains forever immutable - is to deny human reality.
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quote:Originally posted by dang65: So, the question is, what are the legal implications of getting divorced, and what are the financial implications regarding stuff like pensions and life insurance? And how much does it actually cost? Can you just buy a pack from W H Smiths for 3 quid and send it to HM Office of Bits of Paper in that London?
More fundamental, surely, is how you're going to explain this to your kids in a way that won't leave them confused and resentful.
This isn't the sort of thing you can 'just go along with', Dang - you have to decide how you feel about it and you have to make your feelings clear to your wife and children. Looking like you don't give a fuck either way could irreparably damage your relationship with each one of them.
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quote:Originally posted by ben: This isn't the sort of thing you can 'just go along with', Dang - you have to decide how you feel about it and you have to make your feelings clear to your wife and children. Looking like you don't give a fuck either way could irreparably damage your relationship with each one of them.
FWIW, I would agree. I know this isn't the advice you came looking for but the man is talking sense.
Have you sat down with her and really tried to find out why she would want this? It is certainly a unique idea but there seems to be more to it than that.
quote:Originally posted by jonesy999: Plus it doesn't make any sense.
Since when did women have to make sense? Some of them don't even want to change their names on marriage for God's sake.
Seriously though Dang, I completely agree with the Ben on this one. I can kind of understand your lady's reasoning, but I really don't think this is something you can just blithely accept, for precisely the reasons ben states above.
In terms of names at marriage I'm all for it being a woman's choice, or in theory a man's as Thorn suggested. But really I would like the woman I marry to take my name, and I'm not entirely sure why, it may be as simple as Ms Fanjita senior's reasoning that it just seems a nice thing to do (I equally agree with Fanjita Snr keeping her professional name), or maybe I'm just an evil man who wants to stamp his possession of his woman on her.
Oh and here's something on how the Icelandic surnames thing works, though I'm stumped as to how this is more egalitarian than our system.
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I appreciate you have tried to explain it here, Dang, and that you are still trying to understand your wife's position yourself, but the whole idea still seems to be a lot of cobblers to me. Your wife feels twenty years of marriage and raising a family have robbed her of her individuality? Fine, I can understand that. Whatever paths a person takes they can always look back and brood over the experiences they missed out on. Each decision in life compromises the alternatives, so anyone can take stock and feel cheated by what they haven't done. As you say, whatever Mrs Dang had done, whether she was a housewife, a D.A, a charity worker or the first person on Mars, she'd likely feel restless and find her life lacking. She obviously can't get back the years and the opportunities but she'd like to address the problem now. Fine. Your fragile china wedding anniversary would seem a nicely symbolic time to do it. Well enough. She wants to stay together but needs to recapture her own unique life. Again, fine. What is the best way to do this? I don't know, maybe pursue her individual drives and interests, develop a life independent of the family unit, be a little selfish and focus on what she wants to do. All fine, assuming it isn't detrimental to the kids – which I suppose it could be, but let's leave that there for now. Does she do any of that? No, not yet. I don't know, perhaps this symbolic section of her journey is a necessary first step towards her reclamation of the self, but as an independent gesture it fucking blows. It's clear from this thread alone that marriage still holds a powerful symbolic sway for many people, so maybe I'm failing to grasp the logic of getting divorced (even though you want to remain together and it seems nothing else will change) in an effort to get one's freedom back.
I'm so far from understanding this that it's making me feel like a moron.
If futile gestures to appease an irrepressible soul are the norm with her then I don't think there's a lot you can do. If they aren't then I'd point out to her just how fucking stupid this is as an idea. By all means try and understand her position, but if you do, surely you have got a duty to help her cope with this sense of deficiency by coming up with a decent solution, rather than just agreeing with her crack pot divorce idea.
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quote:Originally posted by ben: This isn't the sort of thing you can 'just go along with', Dang - you have to decide how you feel about it and you have to make your feelings clear to your wife and children. Looking like you don't give a fuck either way could irreparably damage your relationship with each one of them.
I don't think so. They're happy-go-lucky kids and nothing will change for them anyway. We don't need to make some grand announcement that we're no longer married, we'll just do it and then carry on.
I know this sounds eccentric to some/most people, but it's the way we've always done things, and it works for us. We've been married nearly 20 years, but we've been together longer than that, known each other since we were 14, and will probably be together till one of us decides to find out what this 'death' business actually involves, out of curiosity.
I've read up on the divorce process now and it looks like it's just a formality anyway as long as it's not contested. The finances and children aspect is separate and only of interest to the courts if there is a dispute of some sort. If you fill out the form to say, "We're agreed on childcare, it's all sorted, mate" then the judge will just stamp the form and off you go.
That's what I've read anyway, and it makes sense. Why make a big fuss if two people don't want to be married any more?
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quote:Originally posted by dang65: Why make a big fuss if two people don't want to be married any more?
Why make the big fuss? Well, firstly, you did ask. I know you were more concerned with the practicalities of the divorce rather than people's opinions on the decision but, well, this is the internet, it is TMO and you had to expect it. Secondly, it isn't really a big fuss (I'm not going to turn up at the divorce court like Benjamin Braddock or anything), it's just something I can't seem to shut up about. I think I'd be the same if I opened the curtains this morning to find someone I liked saying, "you know, I really miss my long lost brother so I'm going to build a scale model of the twin towers out of edam and the dog’s nail clippings. Wish me luck."
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quote:Originally posted by ben: This isn't the sort of thing you can 'just go along with', Dang - you have to decide how you feel about it and you have to make your feelings clear to your wife and children. Looking like you don't give a fuck either way could irreparably damage your relationship with each one of them.
I don't think so. They're happy-go-lucky kids and nothing will change for them anyway. We don't need to make some grand announcement that we're no longer married, we'll just do it and then carry on.
I think something like this could be instructive for your kids. Make a day of it. Have a party! Explain to your kids that they can do anything they like, that they don't have to be suffocated by conformity and toe the line. Tell them to stick two fingers up to tradition and authority and expectation. Show them there are other ways of doing things and that social institutions are essentially garbage.
[ 23.02.2006, 04:36: Message edited by: Black Mask ]
quote:Originally posted by dang65: That's what I've read anyway, and it makes sense. Why make a big fuss if two people don't want to be married any more?
I think this is where you are loosing people. When two people don't want to be married anymore it normally involves not living together or even talking to one another.
On the plus side she could never give you shit for forgetting your anniversary.
Also, what do you have planned for your 30th? Or would that just be your 10th anniversary of not being married?
quote:Originally posted by jonesy999: If futile gestures to appease an irrepressible soul are the norm with her then I don't think there's a lot you can do. If they aren't then I'd point out to her just how fucking stupid this is as an idea.
I'm not really clear why it's a stupid idea to get divorced? I mean, plenty of people told us it was a stupid idea to get married in the first place. One would think that those people would say, "Oh well done for getting divorced, I always said it was a stupid idea to get married didn't I?" But, no doubt, the same people will actually say, "What? You're getting divorced? That's a terrible idea."
People also told us that having one child was stupid, then two, then three. They told us that it was stupid to buy a flat at the height of the 80s house price freak out. That I was stupid to change jobs, each and every time I changed jobs. Because the old job was so comfortable and consistent. Fuck that. People even tell me I'm stupid to cycle everywhere because it's so dangerous. ffs!
Thing to do in life is whatever the fuck you want to do. No truer a cliché was ever included in the Oxford Dictionary of Clichés than "Life's too short..."
Sorry Jonesy, that's not a rant at you, just a statement of my philosophy.
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Would Mrs Dang be angry if you brought a new girlfriend home to meet the family? What would the girlfriend think of you living with your ex-wife?
quote:Originally posted by dang65: Sorry Jonesy, that's not a rant at you, just a statement of my philosophy.
It's fine, and I dig your philosophy, I really do. I guess my problem is that I don't properly understand what this divorce will achieve. The way you've painted things above, the idea of the divorce as a reflection of the type of relationship you have and the kind of people you are, rather than as an act that will have any noticeable effect whatsoever (other than unnecessary admin), helps me come to grips with your plan a little. If Mrs D has a burning desire to get her life back, perhaps a key part of that life was a propensity towards original acts – and getting divorced would be enough to rekindle that sense of originality and individuality. If that's the case then you have my blessing, son. If not, and five minutes after the ink is dry on the divorce she's like, "Hmmm, nothing's really changed. I better go join the Taliban for a couple of years" then you'll just be, like, wow my wife's a terrorist and what's more, I've got to fucking write to HSBC to change the name on the VISA card, so she's got cash for bombs and burkas and shit.
quote:Originally posted by dang65: Thing to do in life is whatever the fuck you want to do. No truer a cliché was ever included in the Oxford Dictionary of Clichés than "Life's too short..."
Life's too short - more importantly, too precious - to endanger your closest relationships on a whim.
At the very least you need to consult with your kids to find out they think of this idea. 'Happy go lucky' they may be, but if they're presented with this as a fait accompli there's a strong possibility you'll pull the ground from under their feet. Detailed consideration of what that conversation will actually sound like and where it might go may well cause you to think again.
Whatever the unwelcome grief you'll have had to bear from gobby friends and relatives on getting married, having a second child etc etc is as nothing compared to the reproach you'll direct at yourself if this divorce transforms your family in unforeseen ways.
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I imagine you're struggling to explain yourself Dang, as only you know your wife and she sounds like a very unique and intriguing person.
If it really is a simple bit of paperwork, and nothing else changes in your domestic routine, and your attitude to each other, then I think it could be quite interesting. How would friends, family and neighbours react? Would they forget to refer to you as "partners" rather than "husband and wife"? Would they refuse to, thinking you're just being silly? Would your wife/partner get annoyed by still being addressed as Mrs? Would she refuse to answer to this? Also, if you eventually decide to get remarried that could be fun.
I get the impression that you have a very solid family unit that can take whatever is thrown at it, so fair play.
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quote:Originally posted by dang65: They're happy-go-lucky kids and nothing will change for them anyway.
Although I don't claim to know the first thing about your children, please don't assume that because of their generally sunny disposition what you're planning won't affect them at all.
quote:Originally posted by jonesy999: If not, and five minutes after the ink is dry on the divorce she's like, "Hmmm, nothing's really changed. I better go join the Taliban..."
I don't deny that this could happen. Perhaps not the Taliban, but she's quite likely to do some training and get a full time job and stuff.
Things will change in that she won't be there all the time for the kids. But at this stage in the family cycle that's what many people do anyway, people that have been at home with several young children go back to work as the children start school and there's more free time. Our youngest starts school in September, just as our eldest finishes school. Routines from the last few years will be changing anyway. Kids can handle that, no sweat.
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quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: she sounds like a very unique and intriguing person.
If one of the forum's female posters had this proposition made to her by her husband, I reckon the general reaction might be 'somewhat different' from the above.
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If Dang's just planning on carrying on as normal anyway, why does he even have to tell the children? It can just be mummy and daddys 'cool little sercret', surely?
Anyway.
quote:Originally posted by ben: Though historically the name change might have had more to do with ownership and patriarchy, well, so did the whole concept of 'being married'. Surely if you reject the first on those grounds you have to reject the second as well. You don't even have to look into history - in the present day, in this country and around the world, marriage continues to be a form of slavery, certainly submission, for millions of women. Forget the past: for women living today, on your street 'marriage/name change = subservience'. The point, surely, is that though this may be the case for some, it needn't be the case for all.
To make out that a symbolic gesture can only ever have one meaning - and that meaning remains forever immutable - is to deny human reality.
Well, yeah. For a long time I did want to reject the notion of marriage entirely on those grounds – that it in itself was a completely outdated notion, redolent of slavery etc etc etc. But then as I grew older I started trying to separate my actual beliefs from 80s feminist doctrine – to work out what I wanted, what I believed in, what experience had taught me and how that might differ from traditional 2nd-wave feminist schools of thought. Whether the desire to cleave to another was more than just ‘HERE Is how MAN oppresses the WOMAN’, whether to pair off was a basic human need or not – could we live without it? Whether female weakness /male strength mean that the way society has evolved is inevitable, has indeed ultimately been good for the female, has eventually led to the situation we’re in now, where technological advance (created by men) has freed women from the drudgery of housework to the point where we CAN go out and get careers, that women are immensely privileged at this point in and essentially owe that to male thought BLAH BLAH BLAH…
And then I thought that maybe that desire to make a statement in front of all those people, a statement of your togetherness and intent to make that togetherness permanent, was beautiful, and right, and that maybe that was why marriage had evolved. When I broke up with Jake we were three months shy of the 14th anniversary of the day we got together. We’d been going out for 13 years, and yet now, looking back, my sister’s five-year marriage gets far more respect from family and friends than a 13-year completely monogamous relationship did, a relationship that took me through my late teens and all through my twenties – my whole fucking adult life. Yes, marriage is important, I now realise; and yes, marriage is beautiful. I wish I had married Jake. I wish I could now say ‘my ex-husband’ because then people would, well...get it.
But that doesn’t mean that, in accepting that, you have to swallow wholesale all the traditions and ties that have evolved to go along with it. I’m just questioning those rituals and whether they have a place, what that meaning is. I’m trying to separate feminist doctrine from human experience, and human experience from post-feminist thought, and so on and so forth. I don’t buy this whole ‘you have no right to comment on the personal lives of others’ thing that Thorn’s pushing because, as Benway pointed out, the personal is political. What else, historically, have women had? The domestic realm was pretty much all they were allowed to access or influence; to speak of women’s lives at all was to speak of their personal lives.
I’m not sure how to take Thorn’s attack since he later undermined it by saying that he was just annoyed because he was having to stay in to wait for some speakers. Somehow that’s how Thorn seems, like this big angry weird parasite that sits up in a tree waiting for someone who’s dared to express a strong opinion to walk past so he can jump down out of the tree and ARGUE THE FUCK OUT OF THEM. I think that claiming that I’m oppressing women by expressing my opinions is pretty fucking rich. Am I supposed to take this seriously, Thorn? Is it worth getting into? Why am I not a feminist just because I’m able to say that 2000 years of male-dominated society may have twisted women around – me included of course – just as it’s twisted men around? What the fuck is this ‘personal agenda’ that I’m supposed to be pushing, that I’m furious / confused if women deviate from, this personal agenda that is apparently as virulent and aggressive as anything men may have done under the patriarchy? What are you talking about?
ps - and also, you don't actually know anything about what I write, what it's about, who likes it, what I say, whether or not my writing could be seen to come from a feminist viewpoint, etc etc - so please don't dismiss what I do with it as 'writing like a teenager for a website' when you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
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If the wife no longer adopts the husbands name then how do family names continue ?
Time was a man with only daughters knew his family name wouuld die out, like me really I was the last male Reeds till Beckett was born (though Femke and I are not married, in Holland you can have the fathers surname for the childe if you wish).
Are you allowed to choose your surname or the origins of the surname in England ?
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As I'm aware of it my surname isn't entirely from the male line of my family, it has been for a few generations but some way back it was passed down from the female side of the family. I think that was around the point the Portugeuse fisherman was invovled though.
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quote:Originally posted by London: I think that claiming that I’m oppressing women by expressing my opinions is pretty fucking rich. Am I supposed to take this seriously, Thorn? Is it worth getting into? Why am I not a feminist just because I’m able to say that 2000 years of male-dominated society may have twisted women around – me included of course – just as it’s twisted men around? What the fuck is this ‘personal agenda’ that I’m supposed to be pushing, that I’m furious / confused if women deviate from, this personal agenda that is apparently as virulent and aggressive as anything men may have done under the patriarchy? What are you talking about?
It's not just 'expressing your opinion', though. Expressing your opinion would be saying "I wouldn't take my husband's name", but instead you said that other women shouldn't take their husband's name and that they were delivering a slap in their face to their forebears by doing so. It's telling people what they sould be doing - that's the parallel between 2000 years of patriarchy. It may not be as virulent, but it's much the same attitude. "This is what you should be doing". It was the same when there was a debate about body image and you said
quote:What I meant is that, if, in attempting to praise the fuller-figured female, our skinnier sisters get insulted in the process, this is not something which concerns me overly.
Kovacs went on to describe it as 'self-centred and offensive to millions of women', which I agree with. Where's the progress? You're advocating using feminist rhetoric to make women feel bad, and to urge them to do what you think is best. It really annoys me. It's just swapping in one set of bullying for another.
The parasite comment, I dunno. It's not a case of me pouncing on anyone daring to express an opinion as it is 'me disagreeing with you'. Don't insult me because I've dared to express my own opinion etc etc.
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[off topic]I've been in a deep blue funk and as such I can't honestly be 'bothered' to do anything, in fact just getting out of bed is a struggle in itself, I will make an update today, though it won't be much to read... But yes, I'm still off the booze and there's only a week to go[/off topic]
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