I am a married person, and sometimes that makes me feel icky. I love my husband, but even saying that word (“husband”) makes my skin crawl a little — though not as much as saying the word “wife.” I got married because, after nine years together, my partner and I wanted to go from being joined at the hip to being joined financially and socially. However, as members of the queer community, we faced our moments of inner conflict, and still do. Why should we support the institution of marriage when so many others can’t get married at all? Why choose marriage (i.e. an official sanction from the government and mainstream culture) instead of just committing to each other off the books? Why do we deserve the privileges that come with being married, middle-class, white, of the same religious background, and of opposite genders? I would be lying if I said I don’t sometimes wonder if we made the right decision.
However, one thing I never realized until after I got married is that marriage doesn’t just come with unspoken privileges (it certainly does). It also comes with some surprisingly insidious gender biasing. And by biasing, to be clear, I mean bullshit. In a day and age when people know better than to blatantly discriminate against women in professional situations, somehow marriage makes sexism okay. The example that drives me up a wall every time is paperwork. Whenever I file taxes, the preparer refuses, refuses to list my name before my husband’s, despite the fact that I come first alphabetically, despite the fact that I handle the finances, and despite the fact that he’s not even there in the office. No matter how many times and in how many ways I protest, I hit a brick wall. “That’s just how it’s done. Why does it matter? He makes a lot more money than you, so these are basically his taxes.”
Buying a house was a nightmare. We signed our names hundreds of times on hundreds of forms. On every single one — every single one — I was not allowed to sign first. Most of the professionals involved (insurance agents, escrow agents, etc.) were women, and all gave me the same response: it’s not a big deal, sign the form already, besides your husband earns more than you so he’s the one who matters. The one who matters? You’ve got to be kidding. You’re telling me that if I were the game designer and he were the grad student, I could put my second-class lady signature on the first line? Somehow I seriously doubt it. How do you sleep at night knowing that you just bullied another woman into shutting up, taking a backseat, and smiling?
Then there are the moments of “well-intentioned” discrimination that make me feel like, by signing a marriage contract, I’ve accidentally sold myself into the days before second-wave feminism. A woman comes by to show me carpet samples. We’re looking at colors, I’m saying “yes” or “no,” and everything is normal until I mention my husband, at which point she declares with a knowing grin, “Well, we better not do anything without approval from the man of the house.” A contractor comes in to give an estimate on one of two days each week that I work from home. When he figures out that I’m married, he insists on doing the follow-up on a day I’m not available. Though I’ve told him multiple times that I’m a student and a teacher, he says, “You’re a housewife, right? Your schedule must be pretty open.” I’m a wife, and I’m standing in a house, but that doesn’t make me a housewife. I seriously have to say that?
Dear mainstreamers, I feel bad enough about signing up for marriage privilege, so could we cut the marriage sexism? Yes, my romantic relationship with a man is approved by the state of California. Yes, I’m still an equally valid, feminist subject. I’m not trying to evade paying taxes; I’m not trying to stop paying my mortgage. (Maybe I should be.) I’m simply asking that you let me be a “good” little member of the system by paying with my own damn name on the bill, my own damn name on the check, my own damn name on the return address label. You want us to get married, I know you do, and that makes me feel icky enough. If I’m going to stand here and play nice, the least you could do is cut out treating me like a second-class citizen.
Ugh. My partner I got married last summer. We’re a male-female couple, and in our 40s. When we got the marriage certificate, we noticed that she could have easily change her name on the forms, but I couldn’t have. That was a weird assumption, we felt, in California.
We’ve been spared most of the impacts you mentioned but since we want to buy a house we now know what we face, thank you for that.
We chose not to wear rings and not to change our names. For both these choices we often receive much puzzlement and worried comments, particularly her. We also chose to do a prenup, and were happy to do it, it was an empowering process of discussing how we want to build our financial future. But she, who basically has more savings than I and earns close to what I do, faces many negative comments about how terrible it was she was forced to do a prenup.
Part of the problem we face, both working for a major tech company, is that as middle aged professionals, we look like the nice older couple next door, obscuring much of our more, um, non-traditional backgrounds. While we’re out at work and to everyone we know, people usually forget or think it isn’t real because we seem relatively nonthreatening.
Anyway, thanks for your post.