Women Proposing Marriage

[Joe_5859]

Right, and if he knew she’d like to be the center of attention (of thousands of people!) But I’ve often encountered the “surprise public proposal” as the male version of how to save a failing relationship. After all, what girl doesn’t want to get married? And if she is asked in front of all these people…she HAS to say yes!

Not a great strategy.

I think my wife would have said “No” if I had tried something like that even though she did want to marry me.

Mine was in a public place, but without an audience. Well, actually, there was a lady who was passing by while in the middle of it and she actually stopped to ask if I was proposing before I had actually got to that part. I ignored her and she went away eventually.

 

[HerCrazierHalf]

Well… if all women were like me, we don’t figure it out so fast, it actually takes a lot of mental energy to figure it out. We need to know the man is planning on proposing to know if it is worth it to spend all that time figuring it out. Reverse psychology type of thing

Wait, y’all don’t figure this out I the first 6 months?

 

[DarkLight]

Again…it depends on how sure you are of the answer. This might have been great if the guy was pretty sure of the answer. Though I think my wife would have been a bit embarrassed at a big public proposal. Ours was in a public place but with not many people around.

I have to say, I’d probably find a public proposal a bit romantic - perhaps especially with family around. But I was always thinking of a “proposal” like that as more ceremony than question.

 

[Anglewannabe]

Wait, y’all don’t figure this out I the first 6 months?

Well… we start talking about it on the first date since we know it will take years to make up our minds. And we want you to propose before you look too old

 

[Lucretius]

Division of labor doesn’t necessarily contradict that the husband is the “Captain.” The king is still the king, still the leader and authority, even if the merchant has more money than him, the shoemaker makes far better shoes, the knight a stronger warrior, and the peasant better at cultivating the earth.

In many other societies, men were leaders despite not being “providers” (see my examples below).

Where in the bible does it ascribe the above qualities to each gender?

The Scripture teaches that husbands are the leaders of their marriages and families, and that women should follow his lead. The lifestyle of man as sole provider seems to stem in large part from the urban industrial revolution: because men were able to obtain more wealth and weren’t growing their own food, wives didn’t have to work, and could focus more on homemaking and childrearing.

In pastoral societies, women are the providers (they milk the cows) as well as the homemakers, while the men protect and govern the tribe. In agricultural societies, both men and women are providers (everyone works on the farm, especially in subsistent agriculture).

In all these cases, men are still the head of the family (also the protectors), despite not necessarily being the providers.

I think this is really a bad move as it pits the woman on the spot.

I always understood that proposals should be formal and public ceremonies of something that was at least implicitly accepted by the couple. In other words, the surprise is in how and when the proposal takes place, not that it is taking place.

And of course, you definitely should take into consideration how your fiance’s personality would react when figuring out how and when you want to propose.

Christi pax.

 

[MissRose73]

I don’t think it’s immoral nor is it new.

After all, Queen Victoria proposed to Prince Albert.

She had to do so as she was already Queen. If they married prior to her accession, then he could have done so. The same rule would have applied if Queen Elizabeth II married Phillip after she took the throne in 1952.

 

[MissRose73]

I remember a similar proverb from “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” movie too.

 

[Sarcelle]

Can’t say I blame these men.

If the menfolk truly believed “wimmins” belonged in the kitchen, they should also know that’s where the sharp knives and the fire and the rolling pin and the cast iron pans are located and under her control. With an arsenal at her fingertips, the men are wise to not raise their voice.

 

[pensmama87]

One thing I’ve learned as a household manager/SAHM/homemaker is that you have to have a darn good idea of pretty much everything that is happening in the house and outside the house with anyone who lives there. My husband doesn’t and can’t know a lot of it, at least not to the same degree I do, because he’s gone 9-10 hours/day, five days per week. He has to be able to trust me to take care of our home and our children. It’s a big task with a lot of moving parts. I think men who joke about it being easy have never really done it - certainly never more than 2-3 hours at a time.

We do have a pretty traditional setup in our home, and he is the head of our family. But if he’s, say, the CEO of our home, then I’m the President - not the receptionist.

 

[alphawoman]

A proposal is really just a formality. By the time most couples are ready for marriage, both parties’ heads are in the marriage game, and many conversations and interactions have led up to that point.

I imagine the type of women who would like to propose also happen to be with men who think that’s peachy, and vice-versa. It all works out.

 

[Xantippe]

**A proposal is really just a formality. **By the time most couples are ready for marriage, both parties’ heads are in the marriage game, and many conversations and interactions have led up to that point.

I imagine the type of women who would like to propose also happen to be with men who think that’s peachy, and vice-versa. It all works out.

There is that.

 

[kozlosap]

I’m not sure I’d say that a woman proposing to her man “violates” the Gospel teachings, but I do think that the husband proposing to the wife seems more fitting and symbolic, based on the principles of proper gender relations outlined by Christ and the Apostles.

St. Paul clearly tells wives to obey their husbands as the Church obeys Christ.

Christi pax.

St. Paul also advocated that women never teach any male and should not be allowed to speak in services. Maybe using modern standards when it comes to social traditions is really the best idea here.

 

[Lucretius]

St. Paul also advocated that women never teach any male and should not be allowed to speak in services. Maybe using modern standards when it comes to social traditions is really the best idea here.

Do you think you know better than the Apostle merely because you live in a latter time than him?

When did modern musings become “better” than the views of an Apostle?

This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?

Christi pax.

 

[LightBound]

I’m not sure I’d say that a woman proposing to her man “violates” the Gospel teachings, but I do think that the husband proposing to the wife seems more fitting and symbolic, based on the principles of proper gender relations outlined by Christ and the Apostles.

St. Paul clearly tells wives to obey their husbands as the Church obeys Christ.

Christi pax.

How does this play out for you in daily life with your wife? It would be nice to see how this obedience actually works on a daily basis in your marriage. Would you mind sharing some examples that you’ve personally had with your wife being obedient to you?

 

[twf]

Do you think you know better than the Apostle merely because you live in a latter time than him?

When did modern musings become “better” than the views of an Apostle?

This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?

Christi pax.

Yet the Church has the power of binding and loosing… it was first entrusted to the apostles and now to their successors the pope and bishops. While the priesthood is reserved to men, women do now both teach and speak.
Perhaps the Church’s authority to alter such disciplines for the modern era is the hard teaching?

 

[runningdude]

There is no requirement for who “proposes”. Marriage must be carefully discerned, and discussed prior to the formal proposal.

My only advise would be to make sure that your preference is understood, so your fiance-to-be does not secretly plan some elaborate set up that you preempt!

 

[chevalier]

Sarcelle:

It is like the father of the bride giving away his daughter. This is not a practice that the Church says is required for a valid Catholic wedding ceremony, yet there are quite a few here who think it is.

In fact, that practice poses difficulties not even to Catholics but also to Protestants. The King of Sweden (Lutheran) was not happy about being asked to hand his daughter, and a compromise formula was worked out.

I have read about really public proposals, like in the middle of a baseball game or in a musical concert.

I think this is really a bad move as it pits the woman on the spot. If I remember right, the very public proposal had the couple up on the big screen. The woman did not expect it from the look on her face. She turned him down.

I agree.

I go further, though. Even as somewhat of a conservative, I’m not a fan of putting women to those high-pressure questions, especially not in any way that makes it even harder for the woman to refuse — and disappoint. To disappoint others is, and to cause them embarrassment may be, a bigger factor with a woman than with a man, given our psychic differences, at least going back to the upbringing but perhaps a little more hard-coded. And that’s totally unfair. As a professional communicator with negotiation training I can certainly tell traditional proposals are not just about asking a question — a lot of making it harder to refuse is involved. The same goes for asking out on dates, except its even worse — for example school girls in some countries might be expected not to be fussy and also not to discriminate on racial or other grounds, so you could see a girl accepting an invitation from a guy she didn’t like just because she didn’t want to become a suspected racial bigot (happened to my former girlfriend).

Personally, the more I know about those tactics from a sort of academic point of view (identification, classification, analysis etc.), the more inclined I am to strip them away and leave it at a naked question that might well look non-committal in comparison. On the other hand, I don’t think I’d go as far as replacing the ‘will you’ with ‘do you want to’, though I might well add a comment. In any case, a man obviously ought to aspire to more than situationally compelled acquiescence that would barely make a valid marriage (and in some cases it could meet the internal/external compulsion test for invalidity).

There is no requirement for who “proposes”. Marriage must be carefully discerned, and discussed prior to the formal proposal.

Yes, I agree. Though from that perspective it would be fair to make the ‘ceremony’ (formal commitment to pursuing marriage together in the future) more mutual, rather a psychic monument to male agency. It just doesn’t feel fair to put the woman in a passive role after she had played an active role in all the preceding arrangements.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

St. Paul clearly tells wives to obey their husbands as the Church obeys Christ.

A good husband doesn’t order his wife around in this day and age, and expect her to obey him. Mine sure doesn’t.

Never saw my good Catholic father treat my mother in that way either.

Christi pax to you too.

 

[chevalier]

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Onto the topical question though:

There’s nothing direct in morality against the woman ‘popping the question’, though obviously we’d rather not see her go down on the knee* and offer a diamond ring. (* I have a number of strong reservations about this gesture in general.)

Strictly speaking, no formal proposal is necessary anyway, as long as mutual consent is expressed at the wedding ceremony.

This said, whil I have no reservations about women being active, showing initiative etc. (in fact, that’s quite welcome, bar distasteful situations such as several women taking it to a cat fight to compete for a passive man’s attention), but this is all one thing, and women taking over leadership and headship of the family would be another. There’s nothing wrong with a female head of family, but I don’t think that should be, in a visible and formal way, a married woman whose husband is home, present at her side.

 

[Lucretius]

A good husband doesn’t order his wife around in this day and age, and expect her to obey him. Mine sure doesn’t.

St. Paul says otherwise. Remember, he gives theological reasons for this command, and doesn’t merely assert it as conventional, nor do any Church Fathers or Doctors treat the command as such.

Feminism, however, is rather conventional, and look at what it has done to the family! The evidence isn’t looking good for it…that should cause us to become skeptical the modern ways on marriage, yes?

Christi pax.