Why Don't Women Propose?

What's the big deal?
 

Women proposing to men is not socially acceptable. Why not?

social norms and traditions - men do the proposing, not women, and that's the way it's always been.

Changing the rules changes the game. Many people believe that changing the way things are done (women proposing to men as opposed to men proposing) would mean changing the whole idea of marriage (with men being the breadwinners and women being the subservient housewives).

There is some kind of fundamental attachment between gender identity and social actions (like proposing marriage).
A man is a man if he proposes marriage. A man feels emasculated if he is proposed to by a woman.

Women think it's weird just as much as men do.

Women suffer from "princess syndrome" in which they wait for a man to come and save them, rescue them. A princess isn't impulsive or aggressive. A princess waits for her prince to come get her and get down on one knee and propose. This is in large part due to the media - commercials, television programs, movies, etc.

Disney alone sets the example for how girls should be when they grow up. If a little girl wants to be a princess, she gets the message that she needs to look pretty, keep quiet, not be smarter than the prince, be patient, and wait for the prince to come and save her. Then she can be a good princess when she grows up. These little girls would never do the proposing because it goes against everything they've been dreaming of their whole lives.

Marital Rape... are men and women both victims?

 

I don't really want to go down this path too long. Rape, of any kind, is a sensitive issue and it's not the main concern of my research. However, there are some things about marital rape that I think are necessary to discuss.

According to RAINN (Rape Abuse & Incest National Network), marital rape has been illegal in every state and Washington, D.C. since 1993. That's not that long ago. Why did it take so long to make this an issue?

"Marital rape occurs when your spouse forces you to take part in certain sex acts without your consent." This refers to men and women, husbands and wives, but how many marital rape cases involve the men getting raped?

"While every state has its own laws on the subject, broadly defined, marital rape includes “any unwanted intercourse or penetration (vaginal, anal, or oral) obtained by force, threat of force, or when the wife is unable to consent.” 
This definition is specifically talking about the wife. Why? Why isn't this an issue for husbands? Why are women getting raped by their husbands? 

"It was not until the late 1970s that anyone was convicted of raping his spouse in the United States. Before then, criminal codes typically included a “marital rape exemption,” or provision barring prosecution for the rape of one’s spouse. Such laws reflected then popularly held views that only stranger rape constituted “real rape” or that forced sex is a “wifely duty.”

Forced sex is a "wifely duty" - this is one of the most ridiculous statements I've ever heard.

So, what does this all mean? What does this have to do with women proposing to men?

Marital rape is an issue because women are seen as property, as something/someone belonging to the husband. If a wife is a man's property, then the man can do what he pleases with his property since it is his right to do what he wants.
Of course, marital rape does not occur within every marriage, just like not every husband treats his wife like if she is his property. But it is important to understand the history of our society's traditions. The fact that marital rape is an issue, and an issue victimizing only women, indicates that these views aren't so "old" or in the past.

Marriage is preceded by the engagement and the proposal initiates it all.  
If a man proposes to a woman... the man has certain rights, just for being a man, and he becomes the head of the household.
If a woman proposes to a man... would this mean that the woman has certain rights over the man? can she force him to do his "husbandly duty" just because she initiated the marriage?

Brief History of Marriage

I found some surprising information here on the history of marriage.
 
"... marriage... was not about the relationship between the man and the woman," said Stephanie Coontz, the author of "Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage," (Penguin Books, 2006). "It was a way of getting in-laws, of making alliances and expanding the family labor force."
 
This getting of in-laws and expanding the family network... does it make any difference who does the proposing? When a man proposes to a woman, he is inviting her into his family, his network. Both men and women can expand their family network with family ties on either side of the union. If a woman proposes to a man, does it automatically mean that she is inviting him into her circle and that that circle is the main family network? Does it make any difference?
 
"... marriage wasn't about equality until about 50 years ago. At that time, women and men had unique rights and responsibilities within marriage. For instance, in the United States, marital rape was legal in many states until the 1970s, and women often could not open credit cards in their own names, Coontz said. Women were entitled to support from their husbands, but didn't have the right to decide on the distribution of community property. And if a wife was injured or killed, a man could sue the responsible party for depriving him of "services around the home," whereas women didn't have the same option, Coontz said."
 
It's interesting that they say marriage wasn't about equality until the last 50 years. I think it's been much sooner than that. Marital rape is a thing now and women can own property, but that doesn't mean that they are suddenly equal to men. There is much more going on. The fact that I'm writing about whether it's socially acceptable for women to propose marriage, and that it's even an issue, says that women are nowhere near being equal to men - at least not in the home.
 
"By about 50 years ago, the notion that men and women had identical obligations within marriage began to take root. Instead of being about unique, gender-based roles, most partners conceived of their unions in terms of flexible divisions of labor, companionship, and mutual sexual attraction."
 
I don't think most partners have this kind of union. There are still traditional gender roles where the man is the head of household and the breadwinner and the woman is the caretaker. Even when the woman works and contributes equally to the money coming into the household, she is still most often expected to be the one in charge of the home.

Marriage - a contract of ...?

So, what is marriage? Kant has an interesting take on it and brings up some good points.

"Marriage resembles property right: it involves a right to a person as if she were a thing. It does not mean that persons are actually owned as things... Marriage right is like property right in that it hinges on a right to exclusive use: my rights to my spouse hinge on the fact that no one else has a right to him."

I don't necessarily like these terms - property, rights, thing - but it is basically true. You are married to someone.  You belong to him/her. You are tied to him/her. Your spouse has a right to know where you are, what you are doing, and to be informed of what's going on.

According to Kant, a marriage makes up "a society under the head of the household. And, Kant tells us, these relationships are different from other rightful relationships (like those delineated by contract) in that they are "a society of unequals (one party being in command or being its head, the other obeying)."
Who is the head of the household? In most cases, the head of the household is the man, the leader, and the breadwinner. So if there is a head of the household that is the leader then there has to be a household to be led. This household is below the head. Generally speaking, the woman is below the man within the union.  

Kant brings up another very interesting point about engagement. He says, "... a woman engaged to a man in Kant's juridical order is actually afforded greater rights to equality than she is after she has married him. While she is engaged, the united will ensures that she is equal to her partner, both in mutual possession of the other's promise. Once she is married, she retains that right to mutual possession in terms of sexual relations-but otherwise, she finds herself "under the head of the household" (1996, 283). The equality of wives as sexual partners, therefore, must be examined against the inequality of wives as subordinate members of the household."
While engaged, men still need to seal the deal and treat women more equally. After the marriage, men become the heads of households and now possess their wives. 

So how does this affect the proposal? If men propose to men with the hope of getting married and forming a union in which he is the head of the household, then what would happen if women proposed? Would the roles just flip? Would that mean that women have to be the head of the household? How does that impact men? Are men now the household that is governed by the women? Does the proposal automatically mean all of that? Does it have to go to that extreme?

Exploring the Meaning of Marriage

I read an article from proquest on the frcc database about what marriage means. There were some very insightful points that were raised about the issue of marriage in general.

Marriage hasn't always been traditional. It wasn’t connected to Christianity the way it is today until after 1215 when the Roman Catholic Church first defined it. How marriage is defined has a huge impact on how it is viewed.

What is the definition of marriage? Merriam Webster defines marriage as “the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2) :  the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage <same-sex marriage>.”By this definition, marriage between men and women is a legal commitment. Does everyone define marriage this way?

What about religion? If two people were married through the church but not legally, would they still be married? If two people were married legally only and not through church then would they still be married? It depends on how you define marriage but is it defined differently for everyone?

 

“… if you change any marriage rule, you’re changing the very definition of marriage... Define marriage as a lifetime commitment, and divorce flouts its very definition. Define marriage as a vehicle for legitimate procreation, and contraception violates that definition. Define marriage as a complete union of economic interests, and allowing women to own property divides the family into warring fragments. Define marriage as a bond between one man and one woman, and same-sex marriage is absurd.”

 

So changing any marriage rule means changing its definition. A woman proposing to a man would definitely be a change to the marriage rules. What are these rules?

Changing the definition of a word means changing the meaning of it. It would mean changing your complete knowledge of something. Most people will understand something by the experiences they’ve had. If one grows up in a family where both parents, heterosexual, have been together for 30 years then his/her concept of marriage is going to be different than one who grows up with divorced parents or with two moms or two dads, and so on.   

"Altering marriage would virtually destroy the moral and social efficacy of the marriage institution.” Why? Why does it have to go to that extreme? What is the moral and social efficacy of the marriage institution? What is the marriage institution?

“But define marriage as a commitment to live up to the rigorous demands of love, to care for each other as best as you humanly can, and all these possibilities--divorce, contraception, feminism, marriage between two women or two men--are necessary, even inevitable.”

It is fascinating how slightly expanding the definition of a word can expand its meaning by so much.

Marriage is tied to law and religion. How does this impact women? How does law and religion view women? Does this have an impact on women being able to propose marriage to men?

Is it OK for the girl to propose?

Is it socially acceptable for women to propose to men?
Why is it not socially acceptable for women to propose to men?
What are the reasons behind the social norm of men proposing to women?
Why do women change their names when they got married? Why not men?
What is the history of marriage and the history of the name changing?
Women can't propose because they would seem too forward - What does that even mean? Why are we (as a society) still concerned about women being too forward? What about men?

As much as we talk about equality and as much as we have advanced as a society, there is still a major gap between women and men when it comes to gender roles in the family. The proof is in the fact that it's still a big deal for the man to propose to the woman and not the other way around. If there was more equality, then either sex could do the proposing.

I read an article at livescience.com that discusses whether it's ok for women to propose to men. It was a very interesting piece that explored various angles. This article was a good start to my research and has opened up many more questions and directions to explore.

"... the study of college students at a liberal-leaning university found that not a single man or woman wanted a proposal in which the woman asked the man to marry her."
Why not? What's so wrong with the woman proposing? Why are men (and women) so against it?

 "... while 60 percent of women said they were "very willing" or "somewhat willing" to change their surname to their husband's upon marriage, 64 percent of men said they were "very unwilling" or "somewhat unwilling" to do the same for their wives."

I have some issues with this statistic. I actually think 64 percent is low for the amount of men unwilling to change their last name. That is pretty unheard of. Women almost always change their last name when they get married. It would be interesting to see married couples create their own last names in order to create their own identity as a couple. Instead of Mary Patton marrying John Smith and then becoming Mary Smith, it would be neat if both John Smith and Mary Patton became John and Mary Smitton, or John and Mary Pattith, or whatever name they came up with together. Of course, there's a lot that goes into names - family, traditions, legacies, identities, etc. But why do women have to change their names and men don't?
    
"... the strongest believers in traditional marriage roles tend to be people high in benevolent sexism, or attitudes that women should be cherished, protected and given special treatment."

Benevolent Sexism - what is this? (explore a bit more) basically, the idea that women are the weaker sex and should be taken care of or protected... or put on a pedestal.

feminist activist Gloria Steinem: "A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space."

"One man, for example, said that if he did not propose, he would "feel emasculated." A woman responded that female proposals would just be "very awkward.""
Why would a man feel emasculated? That would mean that the marriage proposal is somehow tied to his male identity. How does proposing make him a man? How does not proposing make him not a man? Is this because of social norms or is there something else here?

Reasons why men "should" propose

• traditional gender roles
• romance
• women fearing rejection
• women seeming too forward

Marriage Proposals...

Who should propose? Men or women? Why?
Brainstorming ideas
~ Social Norms
~ Gender Roles
~ Equality