However, I can see the appeal to some women of a big proposal because it makes her fiance to do something special and romantic for her (unless he really does feel forced into it), and that doesn’t always happen enough for us.

Especially since we don’t, conventionally, honor things like signing a lease together / buying a house together / relocating or changing career for the sake of the other … all significant actions that change the nature of the relationship, and those of friends/family/etc. What explains or justifies the difference?

I think it’s easy enough to explain it, and your (and the other commenter’s) remark about consideration / contracts captures it: marriage had certain functions within upper & middle class anglophone society, and it was often desirable to create the social tie long in advance of the sexual union. In addition, once you introduce any lengthy delay b/w promise and performance, but have a system where only married sex is legitimate, engaged sex presents a bit of a problem, one ameliorated by public recognition of the engagement + expensive ring, etc.

But these sociocultural explanations don’t justify the practice now; they rather taint it. I’m not precisely a follower of Ronald Dworkin on legal philosophy, but I think his view of social practice has merit: an interpretation of a tradition has to not merely fit into its history but also *justify* its continuation.

Which I think highlights what’s problematic about the cases PhDork & other commenters are talking about: here, adherence to past practice is so at odds with any sensible justification of publicly celebrating promise-to-marry that it casts the whole idea into disrepute.

(I think Tallgirls-in-heels idea of an engagement painting, by contrast, is the sort of thing that could well fit into a modified tradition…)

Finally (sorry, putting off work!), I agree with Mischief that a couple’s relationship involves others around them, and is thus sometimes a fit thing for public ceremony. BUT, there are many different sorts of valuable relationships. And social acknowledgement of some rather than others typically has less to do with easing interpersonal navigation than the dominance of certain forms of living.

Just as most people sexually go from holding hands and kissing to touching and so forth, couples go from meeting, to casually dating or hooking up or whatever, to dating exclusively, often living together, etc.

Really? Is this really how it works? All blase and whateva and shit?

Fuck. me.

I hate this system. I’ve never been down with the casual sex thing. It’s not my style. Fuck it, I’m a prude. Let’s go on a bunch of dates, let me make sure you’re not a sociopath, then maybe I’ll feel comfortable sleeping with you. If I feel I can trust you, I’ll be down for the bonin’ 24/7. But can we get to know each other before we get down? Sheesh!

Anyway…

@Tallgirl: What a lovely, powerful idea! Good for you. And if you don’t want a wedding and a ring, the hell with them. I would encourage you to do something with your family and friends to celebrate your formal change of status. You and your bf/fiance will have changed your community by changing your social status, and what could be more worth celebrating than the creation of a new family?

I definitely find that others take us less seriously because we’re eschewing the normal route. But the weirdest thing is, I sometimes feel like I take us less seriously because of it (like even though marriage is a given, I still call him my boyfriend instead of my fiance because I’m not sporting a ring…a ring that I don’t even want!) I guess I didn’t realize how ingrained in me the standard rituals are, and it kinda pisses me off at myself!

Mine was Bamidbar/Numbers 27:3, the story of the daughters of Zelophehad, who challenge a tradition that gives their inheiritance to a male relative. Moses puts the question to God whether it’s a tradition that deserves changing and God apparently agreed that it did. A great example of how God commands us to change our traditions when they cause injustice to a select group, like women. My cool feminist rabbi said that it was too good to be coincidence that I got that parsha.

@SarahMC: Yeah, that’s the part where I get the icks–the notion that a man buys something of value and offers it to the woman in order to seal the deal, and only then is it done. If a woman were to do that to a man, people would be very uncomfortable with it, which I think goes to show how entrenched the sexism of the whole “proposal” thing is.

It seems an engagement is not legitimized unless the man has bought the woman a ring and asked her to marry him. Many people do not consider a couple engaged unless that has happened.

When our daughter became bat mitzvah, her parsha was the one from Leviticus with the lying with men/abomination thing. She talked about the evil of homophobia and how to re-interpret the language. Every single person in the place paid attention.

To take an easy example of people treating you differently, when does your SO start getting invited to family parties and weddings and so forth? (I’m talking about the ones where you’re not supposed to bring a date.) Miss Manners says that when a couple is engaged, the betrothed should be invited to everything. That makes a lot of sense to me. If you’re living together, at what point can you be considered a part of the family?

I love Miss Manners. She’s hilarious and very wise, and I recommend her books highly.