Our ideas of what is romantic have certainly changed over the past few decades.
Our ideas about relationships and marriage have changed, too. Yet somehow, even as our world morphs into a place where fewer and fewer couples choose to marry and those who do are facing increased rates of divorce, when it comes to marriage, our culture clings to some things that are tradition.
The man asks the woman.
The white dress.
The bachelor party.
The down-on-one-knee proposal.
And Daddy’s permission.
I was watching an episode of a TV show not too long ago where one of the characters proposed to his girlfriend. She said yes, but when she realized he had not yet asked her father for permission for her hand in marriage, she told him that she could not give him an “official” yes until he did so.
Returning home, the man asked his brother, “Did you know people still did that? The whole, ‘ask the dad thing’?”
The brother replied: “Of course. What society have you been living in?”
And what society do we live in? Most of the time it appears that we, as a society, have moved past the things of tradition to a more contemporary mix of “whatever works.”
For the most part, anything is acceptable. We might call different “eclectic,” but in our P.C. world, who’s to judge, right?
But as I watched the show, I found it odd that a man who had an openly sexual relationship with an independent woman (as expected by the other characters), was suddenly being chastised for not following the “rules” by speaking to the woman’s father about marrying his daughter.
Is that a mix of the modern and the traditional? Can that mix survive in today’s world?
For decades women have fought long and hard to been seen as equal, independent, and fully capable of making their own decisions.
So, does Daddy even have his daughter’s hand to give in marriage? Or is her hand now her own, according to the feminists?
Our society seems to be sending mixed signals– woman is fiercely independent, able to survive without a man, yet still wants love of her life to confer with father over future of her life.
The whole thing left me scratching my head.
Share with Me: What do you think about this? Is Daddy’s permission still required for marriage? Should it be? Is it possible to mix the traditional and the modern and have it work?
Hale and Hearty Words 