Punks and Marriage

[scales]

mariages don't work the divorce rate is over fifty percent that should tell you something but yeah a lot of people do it because of the benefits

 

[DFA]

Okay,
picture this, here is a great marriage ceremony
represented in the opinions of me myself and I



No fuckin family, no friends, (unless your kinky like that) no contracts, no goddamn legality at all.

Just you and the other person,
As deep in the woods or desert as you can possibly get, no sign of civilization.
Drop some strong acid, drink some booze, perform some dark golden dawn or pagan inspired ritual, summon
some deity that represents both of you, maybe throw some menstrual blood (very powerful
substance for ceremonial purposes) in there, and then have awesome, long, drawn out, all-consuming sex.


That would be the only way I would get married to someone, because that would be awesome.
At least if you end up hating each other (which you probably will) you can look back on
when you got married on acid in the woods and think "damn that was crazy...."

 

[RockerBilly]

So many people confused about what is the right way. I say rather than speculating about pagan inspired rituals and doing acid, give a damn, -do the actual research about where you come from. You are only the current chapter in a very long book. For me, I look back to the way my ancestors did things (before the Anglo-Saxons destroyed most of their culture). The Picts and Celts would take part in a ceremony called hand-fasting, and although it seems kinda hippy-ish and ridiculous, to me it sounds pretty rad and makes a lot more sense. Christians robbed us of our way of life and I think we should take it back. This is the wikipedia article about hand-fasting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handfasting

 

[XMNnmx]

I have no intent of getting married or producing offspring. I just don't...feel it.

 

[BrittanyTheBananarchist]

..jhbdj

 

[BrittanyTheBananarchist]

last year i did the high line and got down to key west FL. figured id be there for a min and i ended up meeting my now husband. we got married after 3 days of knowing each other but we felt it was right and decided to go for it.(not legally but a promise and rings we found at a little shop on the street.) so that all began on Nov 26th 2011. ever since then me and him have been together all the time we traveled up and down the Florida coast squatted all over hitched walked spanged did everything together. bought a truck lived in it and went up to PA where hes originally from. once we got up there i found out i was 3 months pregnant. o shit. we decided we are gonna keep it so that meant it was time to start getting our shit together jobs place to live ect. big change for two people that were on the road. so we got jobs were living in a shed and doing alright til we got laid off. at that point we were about 9 months married and me getting even closer to my due date. with all the pressure of having this kid (which i never thought would happen) and no income shit has been getting a lot harder on our relationship. due to the fact that because now i am currently 7 months pregnant and nobody will hire me cause of that all the stress of work has been put on him. we just packed up and went to new jersey to help out with the hurricane clean up. i hate the fact that hes out there busting his ass for the both of us and i cant really do much to help out cuz im so far along. this month will be our 1 year anniversary and it has been a struggle to keep both our heads up. but even though its been hard dealing with settling down and not bein on the streets and raging i know that i love him and everything comes when its needed. hes my best friend my partner in life and the best road dog i could have ever asked for. one that do anything to make me happy and i love him for that. it hasnt been easy but im sure things will work out. heres to our son soon to arrive on feburary 23rd 2013!

 

[BrittanyTheBananarchist]

it's only a business contract. if i was with someone for years and years and there was an opp for me to maybe get health insurance or something else out of marrying them, then yes. But otherwise, I'd stay unwed at all costs.

I was "married" at one point and it didn't last very long. I loved him enough to do it. but that wasn't how he saw it apparently. we weren't legally married. luckily! cuz it woulda been hell to get that shit fixed after he ruined my life enough already.


so, i say, don't sign a contract until you've been together for at least 10 years, have kids, or need health care.

i totally agree i got tired of ppl lookin down on me and my husband because it wasn't legal so i just started telling them it was. let me tell you it feels more like a marriage with a promise than it would with a piece of paper. fuck em im happy thats my husband and ill be damned if anyone says its not cuz its not legal.

 

[iamalouse]

I was engaged for almost 4 years. When I refer to that time now I'll say something like "when I was married" or something like that, because we were basically that. Not even three weeks after we started I moved in not even a week after that he asked me to marry him while I was high as hell on a ten strip of lsd. Not the best time to answer a heavy question like that but I was in love. We never planned a wedding because he had lost his ID and wasn't able to get a new one without jumping through tons of legal hoops. At one point, like 2 1/2 years into our relationship he bought me a diamond ring and gave it to me as an engagement ring ON MY BIRTHDAY. I was pissed. I remember going to a show that night without him, wearing the ring, and being disgusted by it. I still wore it for the next year and half until we broke up. It was complicated; mostly I was like "Shit! I've been monogamous for four years and I just turned 21!". It took me that long to figure out that I needed to go explore the world before settling down. Our relationship ended badly about 5 months after my birthday. The level of passion we had in the beginning, the fact that my partner was unwilling to be non-monogamous and the fact that he was a crazy irresponsible fuck got me over it. THANK GOODNESS we never got married legally. I would STILL be dealing with that shit!


As far as marriage in the future goes: I am pretty sure (it's been discussed) that I'm gonna marry my platonic life mate/lady. I haven't had a relationship as legit as this one before, the only thing is we don't have sex. Filling that void has proven complicated. I'm a hopeless romantic, so I'd like to spend my life with someone I am romantically involved with, it just seems unlikely any time soon.

Legal marriage... could be useful. But I wouldn't do it for love. Love doesn't need a contract.

 

[iamalouse]

Uhmm, to sum up that first paragraph I'd just say my "marriage" was a fucking mess.

 

[urchin]

I'm against it as well, which caused a bit of an issue with my last girlfriend. We're still cool and love each other but marriage isn't my thing. My mom and stepdad got divorced, as did all of my friends but two, and my brother and his wife are on the verge as well.

The funny thing: My sister is getting married tomorrow and the rehearsal is today. I don't give them five years. They already have four kids between them and my sister is only 27.

 

[Tumbleweed]

it's only a business contract. if i was with someone for years and years and there was an opp for me to maybe get health insurance or something else out of marrying them, then yes. But otherwise, I'd stay unwed at all costs.

I was "married" at one point and it didn't last very long. I loved him enough to do it. but that wasn't how he saw it apparently. we weren't legally married. luckily! cuz it woulda been hell to get that shit fixed after he ruined my life enough already.


so, i say, don't sign a contract until you've been together for at least 10 years, have kids, or need health care.

From personal experience I can attest to the value of Mouse' advice. My ten year anniversary was a couple of months ago and my wife and I agreed to separate today. We can't dissolve our relationship easily because we have 2 kids, a mortgage and and a strong desire for healthy co-parenting for another 18 years (at least). If I had waited ten years before proposing (I waited two years) we would be in a much different situation, namely, we wouldn't need to involve the state in sorting out our affairs.
I should add that (from a Punk Rock! perspective) I loved being married before we had kids. Marriage can be a great way of proclaiming your allegience to each other before all other allegiences, which is very romantic. But life is change and marriage locks you into a fixed course. I want to raise my wonderful kids with my wife, I just don't want her to be my wife any longer.

 

[duderino]

I'm not trying to piss anyone off with this, but recently, a few of my punk rock friends have been getting married, and every time I hear about it, I think of the song blissful myth by Rudimentary Peni. It just seems to me that marriage is something pushed on people by society, and we as punks should be thinking critically about social norms without jumping into them because "that's what people do." Most weddings are expensive, and even if you go to a courthouse, all you are doing is getting government approval of your relationship, which seems unnecessary to me. For all you married punks out there, what was your reasoning for getting hitched? Thoughts on my shitty opinions?

 

[Multifaceted]

I think marriage has a different meaning depending on who you ask. Reasons for marriage are not always as clear-cut as, "we love each other."

When you get married your auto insurance rates go down, and when you get married you have the legal capability of making decisions regarding your partner's life if they should end up in the hospital on life support, etc. Marriage has many benefits- if it were simply about a piece of paper you pay a shitload to get undone no one would do it.

 

[roguetrader]

I agree that people are under intense presure from society to conform but also I do think humans have a natural tendency to pair off, frequently for long periods of time.... I'm an old punk who didn't believe in marriage but i got with someone at 18 and here I am 26 years later with the same girl who I still love, adore and most definitely wanna be with... we're not officially married in law but might as well be - if we did get hitched it'd be some alternative version which wouldn't be remotely like a white wedding... I think punk and anarchist theory goes too far in attacking every single institution of society, not everything we experience in life is an evil plan of the capitalist elite ! as far as the question of marriage goes what would you prefer if you could choose : a string of short term fuck buddies or to spend life with your soul mate ?​

 

[duderino]

Marriage has many benefits- if it were simply about a piece of paper you pay a shitload to get undone no one would do it.

Admittedly, I'm pretty ignorant of the benefits of marriage, so maybe I should stop being a cynical shithead and just be happy for my friends. I think some people would still get married if it was just a piece of paper though just because society pushes it so hard.

far as the question of marriage goes what would you prefer if you could choose : a string of short term fuck buddies or to spend life with your soul mate ?

I'm a weirdo loner, so I would choose neither. I guess that's why I don't understand these things.

 

[swellard]

haha, well, my best friend's parents got married at a skate park (i'm pretty sure they did it for free, too). they were both punks, and they stayed punks forever. unfortunately the daddy is dead now, but he was one gnarly sucker.

 

[duderino]

Crap I just realized there's already a thread with about this with the exact same title. I tried searching and didn't see it when I made this thread. My bad.

 

[EphemeralStick]

@duderino Ha, no worries; it happens to the best of it. I can do a neat trick and merge the old thread with the new one, that way the conversation can keep rollin' on. Keep in mind the original started in 2008 so a lot of the users in the beginning won't be around to respond if you tag them. Either way I digress.

I myself am single now but it is my hope to get married one day. However, I feel it might hold a different meaning to me then it would most hetero normative couples in that activists having been fighting for my right to marry the person I love for decades now. Do I believe in the traditional ceremony based sacrament of marriage? No, absolutely not. But I do believe in honoring those who fought before my time to bring visibility LGBT community and my getting married feels like it would do just that.

A middle finger to traditional marriage and bigots everywhere, plus a way of honoring the love I have for my partner? Sounds pretty punk to me.

 

[duderino]

@EphemeralStick right on.

 

[syrinyx]

Married the fuck out of @black . Had two week's notice and the ceremony was maybe ten minutes long at the bridge where we first got together. We wrote our vows and a close friend made me a bouquet out of herbs and flowers from my garden. My wedding dress was $20 and is pictured right there to the left in my avatar lol. Afterwards we spent an hour or so with the friends and family that could make it and then drove off to a coastal town two hours away for a two day honey moon before he had to be back at work. That day and the couple after were the happiest I have ever had and maybe always will be-- or at least, that's what I'd say if he didn't continue to bring me to tears every single day because he fills me with such immense joy. We plan in the future to have our ideal spiritual ceremony for just ourselves and our gods in some beautiful forest clearing some day not too far from now.

I used to feel like marriage was unnecessary and outdated and meaningless. When I met my spouse I realized that if/when we decided to get married what it would actually mean to me is the commitment to make it NOT meaningless. The two of us grew up with picture perfect examples of the shittiest a marriage can get. Us deciding to get married was the promise to always defy those examples. It was the statement of courage and trust in one another to never become the monsters that made marriage seem worthless to us. It isn't worthless just because millions of people that shouldn't have gotten married do anyway. I understand that if you've had it or seen it go terribly wrong it may seem that way, and it's a fuckin shame.

Aside from the joy of committing myself to my soul mate with our friends and family there to see and all the philosophical love type things, it's also important for us to be tied legally because I have various and sundry health problems and I need to know that if I'm hospitalized no one can deny my darling access to me.

I'm sort of rambling now, but what I'm trying to say here is that if you marry the right person the concept of marriage becomes something completely different than what you could ever begin to comprehend beforehand. IMO it's childish as hell to close the idea of marriage in a little box labeled "society's expectations" and forget that it has existed in some form for a long long long long time and means vastly different things among many different societies and individuals and preconceptions and ideals and dynamics. Don't erase the complexities of love and devotion because you think it's punker to do so.