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In many American weddings it is still traditional for the bride's father to "give her away" to the groom, thus transferring chattel ownership.

• wahern 2y ago
  I suspect that's a reductive "just-so" story that happens to fit into some popular feminist narratives, though coming on the heels of some adjacent theories popular among men in the 18th and 19th centuries that misconstrued the legal history of coverture. It's difficult to find credible information using Google these days, but I would guess that the giving away of the bride is a custom more tied to exogamy--the practice of marrying outside one's social group (tribe, town, etc). In cultures that practice exogamy, it's typically either the young men (male exogamy) or the women (female exogamy), but not both, who would leave the group to marry. Giving away the bride seems more about relinquishing social and familial ties in the context of female exogamy. In some cultures, e.g. traditional chinese female exogamy AFAIU, the bride and her old family (or whole clan?) were strictly forbidden to communicate after marriage. If women were just chattel (or something approximating chattel--there's a hole spectrum in-between, and overusing "chattel" this way diminishes the gravity of actual chattel slavery, IMO) then we wouldn't expect to see dowries (the bride's family giving the new couple money and gifts), but only brideprices (the groom's family giving the bride's family money and gifts). Yet AFAIU dowries were more the norm in European culture, notwithstanding there were times, places, and contexts where brideprices also existed, exclusively or in combination. And nobody says the groom is "chattel" just because the bride's family is transferring assets. Interestingly, while I think female exogamy was historically much more common around the world, modern American culture seems to skew toward male exogamy, at least along some dimensions. It's never discussed in those terms[1], but you can arguably see it in statistics showing how the proximity and frequency of contact with extended family skews very heavily toward the wife's family. [1] To the extent it's discussed, it's in feminist narratives and termed "emotional labor". It's not mutually exclusive with the anthropological concept. Male/female exogamy is value neutral, and feminist discourse is just slapping a value on it, in this case a negative value.
  • hammock 2y ago
    I enjoyed your comment >Interestingly, while I think female exogamy was historically much more common around the world, modern American culture seems to skew toward male exogamy, at least along some dimensions. It's never discussed in those terms[1], but you can arguably see it in statistics showing how the proximity and frequency of contact with extended family skews very heavily toward the wife's family. Why do you believe this is so?
    • wahern 2y ago
      On reflection, I think I'm mixing some concepts up. Regardless of the sex exogamy pattern (or related patrilocal/matrilocal pattern, where I think female exogamy correlates with patrilocal residency--living with or near the husband's family) I would think women would be doing the "emotional labor" regardless, and for the stereotypical biological predisposition reasons. As for why modern culture might be skewing matrilocal, once reason might simply be because it lessens the burden of emotional labor. In patrilocal systems the woman is dropped into an alien network of relationships, yet bears the burden of managing those relationships and adhering to any divergent customs and norms. As with the Chinese female exogamy example (patrilocal is maybe a more apt term, but I was introduced to it in terms of female exogamy) where the woman was forbidden from contact with her birth clan, patrilocal cultures might tend to impose even stricter norms and taboos to keep the woman engaged in managing her husband's family's relationships, as opposed to finding comfort in her childhood relationships. As sex and gender norms are loosening in many respects (but not all, and not as much we like to think), it might be that the pressures for marriages to fallback to matrilocal patterns are overcoming the pressures for patrilocality. But we're like hundreds, if not a thousand plus years, into major upheavals in these dynamics wrt Western European marriage dynamics in particular, so.... In the literature the motivations behind these systems is more often discussed in terms of avoiding incest, managing intergenerational wealth, exchanging labor (can cut both ways in terms of exploiting men or women) and other biological and cultural needs. The interplay between these seem pretty complex, but especially as we get further away from traditional hunter-gather, pastoral, and agricultural communities these dynamics may be weakening relative to other, more individualized factors, like convenience.
• happyopossum 2y ago
  > thus transferring chattel ownership. That's reductive and insulting to the women who chose to maintain this tradition. In many cases it's a very moving and symbolic gesture, akin to a groom's dance with his mother.