Howdy, Pardner!: An argument for marriage

I always look forward to reading the Modern Love columns in the Sunday New York Times. This week's, in which the editor of the column distills some of his wisdom gleaned from reviewing hundreds of submissions over the years, was particularly insightful.

He addressed a qualm about marriage that both the Mr. and myself have expressed - to each other - since we got engaged: is it possible, or even reasonable, to stay faithful to one person for dozens upon dozens of years? That we're both older than your 'average' newlywed takes a few years off that count, but we're still looking a loooooooong way into the future. How to sustain a relationship until we're in rocking chairs?

The insightful Daniel Jones suggests it's all about confiding such concerns, and offers this reassurance:

Some people think we live too long to commit to one person for life. Monogamy may have made sense a few centuries ago, they argue, when we tended to die in our 40s (after raising a dozen children). But being with the same person well into our 70s and 80s? That simply can’t be natural.

This is a question, by the way, asked almost exclusively by people in their 40s (or younger). People in their 70s and 80s do not ask this question. They are, by and large, very happy to have shared a lifetime with the same person.

O.K., but that’s three decades before the appreciation kicks in. What if you want to feel appreciated now? And what if the person who makes you feel appreciated isn’t your spouse?

Here’s a heartening trend — husbands and wives choosing to talk honestly with each other about their needs, desires and temptations, even (or especially) when they threaten the marriage. In the stories crossing my desk, sneaking is increasingly being replaced by confiding. And the sky isn’t falling and clothes aren’t being thrown from windows. The conversations are hard, rage may have to be expressed, but many couples find a way through.

After reading hundreds of columns, Mr. Jones is no stranger to the 'what to call your spouse' question, as it relates to all sorts of couples. His answer, which could resolve both the Trouble with Wife, and the Introduction Conundrum, is for all of us - regardless of gender or orientation - to refer to our partners as just that: partners. With a spot-on allusion to Dr. Seuss, he writes:

Why not tear a page from the wranglers’ handbook and require all married folk to call each other partner? Think of the benefits. Not only would life start to sound like a permanent square dance, we’d also lose the language that distinguishes gay marriage from straight. And perhaps like Dr. Seuss’s famous Star-Belly Sneetches, who finally learn that no one kind of Sneetch is the best on the beach, we’ll see that marriage is marriage, meant for devotion that thrives, and not just for unions of straight husbands and wives.

Though I referred to Mr. Barefoot as my 'partner' before we got married - as did/do most of my friends with their respective sweethearts - I've made a conscious effort to recognize our new status in my references to him. But, now I wonder, why? There's the social recognition of a public commitment -- relevant in the personal arena, less so in the professional one. It's not really the business of my professional colleagues and students what my marital status is. And I wear a ring, so people will most likely assume I'm married. In any case, I like the gender and orientation neutrality of 'partner,' the solidarity with same-sex couples, and the whiff of Wild West cowboys and ranches, so... meet my partner, Mr. Barefoot.

Lasting names

Scene: Reception desk at a Caribbean island resort hotel, where Eric and I are staying for three days to relax after trekking in Patagonia (more on that soon). We've booked the "Honeymoon Special," which offers a free airport transfer, and a bottle of Champagne in the room.

Receptionist: Are you Mrs. Hislastname?

Me: No, I'm Elizabeth Barefoot.

The Receptionist gives me a perplexed look.

Me: We ARE married.

[I bring my left hand - with its delicate band - to the counter. I've left my engagement ring at home during our travels. I suspect that, compared to the hardware she sees on many honeymooners' hands, my low-key bling is not very convincing.]

Receptionist: But what should we call you? How shall we address you?

Me: Ah, I guess you can call me Ms. Barefoot.

Receptionist: Is that "Missus" Barefoot, or "Miss" Barefoot?

Me: No, it's "Miz" Barefoot.

An even more perplexed look. We're not in Berkeley anymore, Toto. Back home, at least half the married women I know have kept their birth names. And everyone goes by their first names, anyway.

Me: [searching for some handle that will make sense...] Or you could call me "Dr. Barefoot." [Since even my students call me by my first name, I figure I may as well get some mileage out of my hard-won degree.]

Receptionist: [lighting up] You're a DOCTOR? Oh my goodness! I want to ask you a question...

Eric: [breaking in] .... Not a medical doctor....

Me: But if you have an environmental problem, I might be able to help...

At that point, the Receptionist gave up trying to figure out what to call me. We offered up "Professor," but that didn't gain any traction, either.

This was my first real confrontation with the name-change expectation. Given the amount of time and effort and commitment I've put into establishing my professional identity, changing my name never made sense to me. Actually, even before all that, it never made sense to me. In giving up her name, it seemed that the woman was being asked to subsume her identity to that of her husband, a role I wanted no part of. After living with one name - which I like very much - for decades, I didn't have any desire to change it. I'm also profoundly uncomfortable with the idea of being defined only by my relationship to someone else - in my mind, "Mrs." sounds a lot like "possession."

Our friends and family (especially mine, who have known me to be stubbornly independent) implicitly understood this: I've fielded only one question about what I was going to do about my name. Both my sisters-in-law have their birth names, as do my best friends. My mom reverted to her original name when my parents divorced, and stuck with that name after she remarried. In this context, it would have been almost strange for me to change my name.

Eric and I had several conversations on this topic before we got engaged. He probably would have been happy for me to change my name - to harmonize with cultural expectations - but fully understands and appreciates the reason that I have chosen not to. Of our two last names, his is slightly less mellifluous, and more prone to annoying nicknames, which he's suffered since childhood. I encouraged him to take mine - we could be "Dr. and Mr. Barefoot" or "the Professors Barefoot" - but sadly, that is rarely done. More importantly, he is the only male in his generation of his family and feels strongly about passing on the name (whereas I have two brothers, and two nephews, so our last name is not about to die out). Thus, any offspring will likely be Hislastname.

In a nod to family unity, we thought it would be nice to take each other's last names as middle names, reversing what women who change their names have done for years (eg., I would become Elizabeth Middlename Hislastname Barefoot, and he would become Eric Middlename Middlename Barefoot Hislastname, creating a really excellent acronym in the process!). However, although San Francisco City Hall offers numerous options for combining and changing names while applying for the marriage license, adopting new middle names is not one of them. To do this, we will have to file for an official legal name change. Bah!

City Hall does have a pretty ceiling, though. I was so giddy that day, I was only looking up.

I feel fortunate to be surrounded with people who accept and respect my feelings about my own name - really, what is more personal that what one is called every day? And I recognize that for some (maybe even most, outside of the People's Republic of Berkeley) families, sharing the same last name is important. However, I didn't expect that people I don't even know would be unable to address me by my name, if it wasn't the same as my husband's. Thank God for the progressive and protective bubble of the Bay Area!

Have others reacted with surprise or confusion at your changed or not-changed last name? Have you found creative ways of managing the expectation that women change their names? Have you confounded others expectations, in one way or another, about what your name would be after marriage?

This Ring's the Shizzle!

Rings - plural - actually.

Four - count 'em - four! Such a statement!

Probably not what my niece had in mind, when she told me to request rings for every finger upon my engagement, but perfect for those days when you're feeling less demure debutante and more shit-kicking suffragette.

Wendy Brandes, via Fashion for Nerds.

Should I be concerned...

... that our caterer thinks that my fiance is marrying someone named "Ashley"?

That's according to the contract she sent us.

hmmm.... this may be the only downside to having the groom very involved in the planning. The vendors know his name, but not mine. He coordinates, I write the checks.

On the upside, maybe all I have to do is show up!

He's no Stunt Groom!

(I'm trying to get him to meet with florist later in the week... just trying to determine the odds of ending up with all pink carnations*. Slim, I think. But I need to get those odds down to nil.)

Maybe I can get him to go to the dress fitting for me as well... Since I'm not great with self-denial, and still very much in the throes of the dissertation, which must Must MUST be done in three weeks, I'm going to postpone the fitting. I'm may be the only bride in history who has not wanted to see her dress as soon as it arrived. The time is better spent reducing stress by working out at the gym.

In other news, we also nailed down a spot for the rehearsal dinner/ welcome party. I was devastated to learn that we couldn't have a Friday night barbeque at the hostel/ restored army barracks where some - but not all - of our guests are staying. Hostel rules preclude entertaining outside guests there, so (still lacking that beautiful large backyard, and realizing that an October evening could actually be a bit cold for a barbeque) we set out on a hunt for a casual restaurant that could hold a large group. Harder to find than you'd think. None of our favorite taquerias worked out. But lo! - there's a brewery just a mile from our house! Now we're signed, sealed and delivered for beer & 'za the night before the wedding!

*no offense meant to lovers of carnations! I know they can look very chic. They're just not my flower.

Madeline Albright and other people's choices

I had the distinct privilege of meeting the former Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, last night at an alumni shindig with my friend FiveTen (who introduced Mr. Barefoot and me).

The graduate school of international studies that FiveTen attended has been renamed in honor of Madeline Albright's father, who founded it in the 1960s. Albright's daughter, Katie, lives in San Francisco, in a lovely home near the Presidio, where she hosted alumni/ae to celebrate the renaming of the school. Her grandfather is the only person to have trained to Secretaries of State: music major Condoleezza Rice was also a student of his. Katie's daughter (Madeline Albright's granddaughter), having observed her grandmother, Rice, and now Hillary Rodham Clinton as Secretaries of State, asked what the big deal was when her grandmother was Secretary of State -- "because only women can be Secretary of State." Madeline Albright went on to say that people are now asking whether men can be Secretary of State, because, you know, it requires consensus building, and collaborations, and are men really suited to that?

FiveTen is an inveterate newspaper reader, starting each day with the SF Chronicle, NY Times, Der Speigel, and Times of India, so she had plenty of thought-provoking questions for the former Secretary. In addition to current issue of Afghanistan and Pakistan, FiveTen wondered which international leader surprised the Secretary the most. The answer: Kim Jong Il, whom leaders and diplomats all suspected was crazy at the time. Madeline Albright said that he did not seem at all crazy, but was charming and even chivilrous, concerned about her well-being if she engaged in the Korean custom of drinking shots with everyone attending a function.

Albright said Daw Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, who wore a long purple gown and a purple flower in her hair, was one of the most memorable and tough leaders she met. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been on house arrest for 13 of the past 19 years, and is now on trial after an American man swam across a lake to her house. Madeline Albright said that scenario was too strange to have happened spontaneously, and she believes that the ruling Burmese junta must have been involved in the scheme.

Her final words of advice to us, as young women in the early stages of our careers, were not to judge other women's choices, whether to pursue a career, to be full-time at home moms, or some combination of the two. She said that women put too many guilt trips on each other for not following a particular path, and that we should trust people to make the best choices they can, and respect those choices.

Believe it or not, here comes the wedding connection: her point about the guilt trips women lay on each other made me think about the judgment we can encounter about our wedding choices. Too expensive/ extravagant vs. too plain, OMG your guests won't feel welcome. Totally handmade and DIV vs. totally cookie-cutter and off the shelf. (For example, the discussion in the comments here.) It seems like you can't win in the planning process: someone will suggest that the wedding has too much of this and not enough of that.

And that got me thinking that maybe one reason that women judge and guilt-trip each other is that it's a lot easier than taking on the larger structures and paradigms that are causing us to feel constrained. Rather than taking on the Wedding Industrial Complex/ the patriarchy/ our parents/ whoever else is getting us down and limiting our options, maybe we direct our frustration at others who are equally caught in the machine, but have made different choices. Rather than fighting the powerful, we fight those who are equally powerless. I'm not saying that we are powerless in planning our weddings, but that we face a lot of very powerful cultural forces that encourage us in particular direction. Standing up to that is hard.

Our first female Secretary of State certainly knows something about standing up to powerful people and forces. Wedding planning is politics writ small.

Where are the men?

A friend - not currently a bride2B - who knows of the existence of my blog, asked last week:

Where are all the groom blogs?

Damn good question, when you think about it, since the internet tends to be dominated by men.

Often prescient, my friend was ahead of the curve again.

On Sunday, the NYT revealed the existence of a few groom blogs. It's funny, really, when there's a huge diverse blogosphere of wedding blogs written by women, that the Times chooses to focus on the few blogs written by men. An example, I think, of how an activity gets greater social-cultural recognition once men start doing it (see: grocery shopping, cooking, gardening).

My prediction: once male bloggers and marketers realize how much of the wedding planning industry has moved online, and how much more guys are getting involved in planning their weddings, there will be a gold rush. Stake out your territory now, ladies.