It's not a clothes post I'm afraid (I've given myself permission for some not to be - but my most recent challenge post is here) - but it is a follow up from the (surprisingly popular) post I did a couple of weeks ago about why I changed my name when I got married. If you want to you can read it here.
I feel like I'm talking a lot about weddings at the moment. This is because two of my best friends are getting wed next month, and a good number of other friends are engaged. We've had lots of chats about frocks, the right balance between looking like yourself and your photogenic best and (inevitably) I've banged on about how lovely my wedding was. There are loads of things I feel strongly about in terms of the pressures put on brides to transform into a generic fantasy princess (whose fantasy? WHOSE?) that I'm sure I'll post about at some point but today I'm going to talk about wedding certificates and why in their current format they are more than a little sexist.
I really enjoyed my wedding day - I'm lucky in that I was the first of my friendship group to get married and so I didn't carry the weight of comparison that many people have when planning their weddings. I hadn't seen a single friend worry about table decorations, wedding favours, bridal make up or invite design - so consequently I didn't either. Where I thought it would be fun to make an effort (handmade boxes of bulbs as wedding invites for example) I did, and where I didn't give a shit (bridal make up, save the dates, Pimms on the patio) we just didn't bother.
As a result there was very little ritual to our wedding but loads of love, almost everything I value about the day looking back was a loving contribution from someone important to us, the flowers, the cake and the photography were all done by people we loved. The ivy and roses on the windowsills a last minute addition from some friend's midnight trip to a local park with some secateurs when our budget couldn't quite stretch. The evening buffet was made the morning of the wedding by my parents, sisters, brother -in-laws, nieces and nephews on trestle tables outside the caravans and tents they were staying in.
It was simple, disorganised, chaotic and perfect. It was genuinely an amazingly happy day. But there was one little incident that nearly derailed the whole thing for me, and that was about our marriage certificate.
Matt's dad contributed one of the few traditional elements to the wedding; he hired a beautiful old car. I remember being a bit 'whatever' about this when he suggested it. I don't massively care about cars, but he loves them and this was something he wanted to do for us so I said yes. And I'm very glad I did - it was lovely to drive across in our open top car to the venue. To climb a fence in my wedding dress to get to the campsite loos cos I was busting, to drop the f-bomb and have my Dad say (I swear the only time he's ever been shocked by my swearing) "Elizabeth - in your wedding dress!” Brilliant.
That little bit of time in the car with my Dad before the ceremony; the moment of calm was great. I don't know if other fathers and daughters have deep and meaningfuls on the way to the ceremony. We didn't - not really our style - frankly we'd have appreciated some Garth Brooks to loudly sing along to, but actually that quiet drive was exactly what I needed.
And so when I got to the venue I was ready to get bloody wed!
But instead I found myself in an argument with the registrar about the wedding certificate. She'd started to fill it out with Matt, and when he'd given her my father’s name for the certificate, she'd queried why it didn't match my birth certificate, and then held off to talk to me.
Did you know that legally you're supposed have to have your father’s name on your marriage certificate? As in whoever is named on your birth certificate. You can't have your mothers.
It doesn't matter what your personal circumstances are. How little your father did, or how much your mother. It is the law.
I know I'm not the only person to have felt this like a knife in the gut. The legal element of my marriage, the document I had to sign couldn't have the person who had raised me's details on it - but it could include the name of someone with no part in my life.
Now I understand why it couldn't include my stepfather's name, I think it's silly and old fashioned, but technically he didn't adopt me. Yes he opened my 11 plus results, bought me tampons, kept me fed and emotionally stable when Mum was in hospital with cancer, yes he picked me up after countless nights out, banned me from going out 'dressed like that' and taught me to cook lasagne. But legally he isn't my father - so I get it, it's a legal document - it's dumb but I'm basically ok with it.
I'm not ok with having to have my biological fathers name on the certificate rather than my mother's. That's old fashioned, it's sexist and it's completely pointless.
All the reasons for recording a marriage, to track bloodlines and histories, to determine inheritances, in this day and age are served as well my mother's name as by my father's.
Now you can (and I did) choose not to have your father's name on the certificate. My options were this - his details or a line though a box. His history or nothing.
 |
| Just lines through a box where my mum's name should be |
My husband's entry speaks of history and a connection to his family, in mine I appear as a foundling. Anyone looking at that document, the legal expression of our love and commitment could assume I came from nowhere, was unloved and uncared for. And that couldn't be further from the truth. My mother raised me, raised all us girls, and my step brothers and sisters too. And she's invisible in my paperwork after she's done the job of giving birth to me.
So I stood there in my wedding dress. A dress that I had bought ex display, that my mother had painstakingly taken apart, cleaned, put back together and re sewn 100's of beads onto. being given a choice beween someone I loathed's name on my marriage certificate or no-ones. Trying to bargain with a registrar who couldn't change anything even if she wanted to to get my mum's name, or my stepdads on that document.
Eleven years after my wedding I am still incensed by this. I'm really glad I didn't know about this before my wedding day, as if it hadn't been for all those people I loved, who'd worked so hard to make our day perfect waiting to watch us get married I don't think I would have been able to bring myself to do it. I know that in reality I rarely look at my wedding certificate. It is largely a symbolic document, but it's a symbolic document in which the woman who raised me doesn't warrant a mention. Where there is no legal avenue we can follow to get her acknowledged as my primary care giver. Where somehow everything she's done is considered insignificant.
Giving birth, teaching me to read, to bake and to sew, the toys and dresses she made me, the conversations, the long walks as I tried to figure out who I was and who I wanted to be, the financial sacrifices, all of it. And she doesn't even get her name in a box that would otherwise have a line through it.
It didn't ruin my day - there was too much love in the room for that. But it did (and does) make me angry every time I think about it.
It's not good enough really is it?
Normally this blog is about living with less. I started it to raise awareness about families of disabled children living in poverty. You can find out about my challenge here and donate to make a difference here
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