Wedding Ceremonies: Feminist Critiques

The following suggestions for resources offering feminist critiques of
traditional wedding ceremonies appeared on WMST-L in September 2002.
For additional WMST-L files now available on the Web, see the
WMST-L File Collection. 

An undergraduate student would like to do a feminist critique of traditional
wedding ceremonies for her honor's thesis.  She'd like to explore the idea
of "princess brides" and "fairytale weddings"--investigating major symbols
used in traditional weddings.

I'm hoping list memebers can help by suggesting references.  Thanks for your
help.

Please respond off-list at email address below (unless there is wide-spread
interest).

Carolyn DiPalma
Assistant Professor
Department of Women's Studies, FAO 153
University of South Florida
Tampa, FL  33620
phone: 813-974-0979  fax:813-974-0336
email: cdipalma  @  chuma1.cas.usf.edu
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"What else is going on when there is a change in what counts as a good
question, an interesting mode of inquiry, way of teaching and learning, and
the infrastructure needed for pursuing these emerging forms of knowledge
making?  Who resists these changes; how do they resist?"
                                                                  Sharon
Traweek, "Faultlines"
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Hi Carolyn~ I thought others might be interested, so I post on the List.

Young Wives' Tales: New Adventures in Love and Partnership by Jill Corral
(Editor), Lisa Miya-Jervis (Editor), Bell Hooks

The Conscious Bride: Women Unveil Their True Feelings About Getting Hitched
by Sheryl Nissinen

perhaps not a feminist critique, but for the lit review?

What No One Tells the Bride: Surviving the Wedding, Sex After the Honeymoon,
Second Thoughts, Wedding Cake Freezer Burn, Becoming Your Mother, scream
by Marg Stark

Bridezilla: True Tales from Etiquette Hell
by Noe Spaemme, Jeanne Hamilton


Janni Aragon
Department of Political Science
University of California Riverside
www.janniaragon.com
jaragon  @  cox.net

"I often think that being a feminist minority scholar is what one is
reincarnated into for being a male chauvinist in a previous life." Shirley
Lim, _Among the White
Moon Faces_

See also White Weddings Chrys Ingraham and Her Comes the Bride Jaclyn Geller

There was also a fabulous session at the NWSA last June with Maria Bevacqua
and others about this issue from various feminist perspectives.  She might
contact Maria (Minnesota State University Mankato) for more information.

Michelle Moravec, Ph.D.
Director, Women's Center
William Paterson University
300 Pompton Road, SC 214
Wayne, NJ 07470
973 720 2946
ww2.wpunj.edu/womenscenter

A wonderful feminist analysis of weddings is White Weddings by Chrys
Ingraham (Routledge).

-Denise Copelton,

-------
Denise A. Copelton
Assistant Professor of Sociology
East Stroudsburg University of PA
200 Prospect Street
E. Stroudsburg, PA 18301

Carolyn DiPalma wrote:
>An undergraduate student would like to do a feminist critique of
>traditional wedding ceremonies for her honor's thesis.  She'd like to
>explore the ideaof "princess brides" and "fairytale  weddings"--
>investigating major symbols used in traditional weddings.

she might enjoy http://www.indiebride.com  there's a lot of interesting
info on the site as well as a lot of sources she may find useful.

kristin :)

___________________________________
                 kristin lee arola
                       phd student
rhetoric & technical communication
          michigan tech university
    http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~klarola

The website unmarried.org run by the organization Aternatives to
Marriage Project offers a lot of useful information and resources.

For an historical perspective on the role of marriage generally see
Nancy Cott's Public Vows.

Priscilla Yamin

The description of Beth's wedding and early marriage in Small
Changes by Marge Piercy is a nice starting place for considering the
way we think of courtship and marriage.

Marilyn Grotzky
Auraria Library
Denver, CO 80214

One more for the critique of marriage list: Jaclyn Geller, *Here Comes
the Bride* 2001, which is very readable but biting.
Jessica

--
Jessica Berman
Associate Professor, English and Women's Studies
The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
1000 Hilltop Circle
Baltimore, MD 21250
410-455-2054
410-455 1030 (fax)
jberman  @  umbc.edu

The documentary, "Girls in White Satin" offers a humorous and moving
account of two young lesbians' wedding plans and interactions with family
that offers a wonderful counterpoint to the experience of traditional
heterosexual weddings.  I'm not who is currently distributing it, but it
was a production of students at the USC School of Cinema-TV, so they may
know how it can be acquired.

Claire Kaplan

Claire N. Kaplan
Coordinator, UVA Sexual Assault Education Office
Doctoral Candidate, Curry School of Education
UVA Women's Center  *  P.O. Box 800588 *  Charlottesville VA  *  22908-0588
434-982-2774 (V/TTY)    434-982-2901 (Fax)
ckaplan  @  virginia.edu
http://sexualassault.virginia.edu

There is a great dissertation (that I think should be
published) called American Weddings: Gender,
Consumption, and the Business of Brides by Vicki Jo
Howard.  More research on the consumer/economic issues
regarding "traditional" weddings has been done by Tina
Lowrey and Cele Otnes (three articles), while Susanne
Friese has looked at the way the wedding dress
produces meaning for the bride in her transition from
girlfriend to fiance to wife.  Friese's chapter is
called, "The Wedding Dress: From Use Value to Sacred
Object" in the book Through the Wardrobe: Women's
Relationships with Their Clothes.  These citations are
primarily about the dress (for a project I'm working
on regarding the consumption of the white wedding
dress), but also contain information regarding
princess brides and fairytale weddings.

Please post a list of recommendations.  Thanks!

Patricia Arend
Sociology
Boston College

Thank you to all listmembers who suggested references for a student's
project:
a feminist critique of traditional wedding ceremonies for her honor's
thesis.  She wants to explore the idea of "princess brides" and "fairytale
weddings"--investigating major symbols
used in traditional weddings.

Below is the long list of responses compiled from the many I received. Thank
you!  I have forwarded these to the student.

Lillith magazine had an issue about a year or two ago on this topic, from
a Jewish perspective.

_White Weddings: Romancing
Heterosexuality in Popular Culture_  by Chrys Ingraham  (New York :
Routledge, 1999)(suggested many times)

Young Wives' Tales: New Adventures in Love and Partnership by Jill Corral
(Editor), Lisa Miya-Jervis (Editor), Bell Hooks

The Conscious Bride: Women Unveil Their True Feelings About Getting Hitched
by Sheryl Nissinen

What No One Tells the Bride: Surviving the Wedding, Sex After the Honeymoon,
Second Thoughts, Wedding Cake Freezer Burn, Becoming Your Mother, scream
by Marg Stark

Bridezilla: True Tales from Etiquette Hell
by Noe Spaemme, Jeanne Hamilton

Here Comes the Bride Jaclyn Geller (suggested many times)

There was also a fabulous session at the NWSA last June with Maria Bevacqua
and others about this issue from various feminist perspectives.  She might
contact Maria (Minnesota State University Mankato) for more information.

Robert Hodge and Gunther Kress have a good analysis of
the symbols of the wedding ceremony in their book Social Semiotics.  This is
a good introduction to how to do semiotic analysis of many kinds of social
institutions and so is quite useful.  I can't remember exactly where the
analysis of the wedding is,but it's pretty early on.

Naomi Wolf,"Brideland" in To be  real:  Telling the truth and changing the
face of feminism, edited by Rebecca Walker, 1995, New York:  Anchor Books.

American Christian wedding rituals and patriarchy.
Annotated Title:   paper examines many rituals popular in Christian
                   American weddings, especially those that are a throwback
to overt
                   patriarchy
Author:            Draper, Nicole S
Source:            Women & Language, v 25, n 1, 2002, p.43(1)
Publication Date:  March 2002

Justice, Gender, and the Family / Susan Moller Okin.
New York : Basic Books, c1989.

Promises to keep : decline and renewal of marriage in America / edited by
David Popenoe, Jean Bethke Elshtain, and David Blankenhorn. Lanham, Md. :
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, c1996. TAMPA/St Pete/SAR circulating  HQ536
.P76 1996

Polikoff, Nancy. "We Will Get What We Ask For: Why Legalizing Gay and
Lesbian Marriage Will Not 'Dismantle the Legal Structure of Gender in Every
Marriage'," 79 Virginia Law Review 1535 (1993).

Benfer, Amy. "I do, Kind of" Aug. 15, 2001, Salon
http://archive.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/08/15/i_do/index.html

Sweeney, Jennifer Foote. "None of your Beeswax." Aug. 15, 2001, Salon
http://archive.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/08/15/fem_credentials/index.html

I do, I don't: A Walk Down the Aisle: Notes on a Modern Wedding & Here
Comes the Bride: Women, Weddings, and the Marriage Mystique. Review of two
books about the concept and institution of marriage; the
differing approaches of the two writers to marriage ceremonies are
dissected, analyzed, compared and contrasted
Author: Benson, Susan Porter Source: Women's Review of Books , v 19, n 3,
(2001), p.6(3)

Benson, Susan Porter
Kate Cohen. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001

Jaclyn Geller. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2001,

www.indiebride.com (suggested many times)

The website unmarried.org run by the organization Aternatives to
Marriage Project offers a lot of useful information and resources.

For an historical perspective on the role of marriage generally see
Nancy Cott's Public Vows.

The description of Beth's wedding and early marriage in Small Changes by
Marge Piercy is a nice starting place for considering the way we think of
courtship and marriage.

Best, Amy L. 2000. Prom Night: Youth, Schools and Popular Culture. New York:

Routledge.

Flanagan, Caitlin. 2001. "The Wedding Merchants." The Atlantic Monthly 287:
112-118.

Post, Dianne. 1997. "Why Marriage Should be Abolished." Women's Rights Law
Reporter 18(3): 283-313.

The documentary, "Girls in White Satin" offers a humorous and moving
account of two young lesbians' wedding plans and interactions with family
that offers a wonderful counterpoint to the experience of traditional
heterosexual weddings.  I'm not who is currently distributing it, but it
was a production of students at the USC School of Cinema-TV, so they may
know how it can be acquired.

There is a great dissertation (that I think should be
published) called American Weddings: Gender,
Consumption, and the Business of Brides by Vicki Jo
Howard.  More research on the consumer/economic issues
regarding "traditional" weddings has been done by Tina
Lowrey and Cele Otnes (three articles), while Susanne
Friese has looked at the way the wedding dress
produces meaning for the bride in her transition from
girlfriend to fiance to wife.  Friese's chapter is
called, "The Wedding Dress: From Use Value to Sacred
Object" in the book Through the Wardrobe: Women's
Relationships with Their Clothes.  These citations are
primarily about the dress (for a project I'm working
on regarding the consumption of the white wedding
dress), but also contain information regarding
princess brides and fairytale weddings.

Thanks again!

Carolyn DiPalma
Assistant Professor
Department of Women's Studies, FAO 153
University of South Florida
Tampa, FL  33620
phone: 813-974-0979  fax:813-974-0336
email: cdipalma  @  chuma1.cas.usf.edu
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