Tools of Oppression in the Wedding Ceremony

Hey! I was over at The Gorebertine Community's 'blog and they are rightly indignant about something that was reported on Creative Minority Report's traddie 'blog about a courageous pastyr in Sweden.

We here at SOV2 have never allowed the father to walk a daughter down the aisle as part of a life-union ceremony. This is wrong on so many levels. First of all, the concept of a "father" is a patriarchical ploy to oppress womyn. After all, it's not like a man carried a fetus in hys body! Second, as Dym Yvonne Hallin of the People's Lutheran Church recognizes, having a "father" "give his daughter away" is so patriarchical that it makes me retch.

Now, we have made exceptions, which is when two womyn are joining their life spirits, in which case we see the "father's" participation as a symbol of love an acceptance for their valid life-choice. Or when two myn are getting joined in mutual eucharist, for the same reason. But we also want the mothyr to be there to validate as well, so even in those cases, we have both parynts involved. This is OK when either there is a mothyr and a "father" like in one of the olden days traditional marriages, or in the case of two or more mothyrs. But in cases where there are two or more fathers, then we have to draw the line and have no-one "give the bride away," since having several myn "giving away" a womyn makes it look like the womyn is a product of a corporation.

But the hegemonistic oppression of the wedding ceremony doesn't stop with the "giving away of the bride." There are more offensive customs involved:

1. Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue: This is an effort to force the Bride to be an earth-consumer. The "Old" thing represents adherence to dead traditions. The "New" thing represents conspicuous consumption. The Borrowed thing represents the theft of resources from the third world, thus mitigating the righteous indignation of the proletariat in the western industrial nations and subverting their desire to rise against their slave-lords. And the "Blue" thing is a slap in the face of all other valid colors.
2. Wedding Cake: The wedding cake, with its many tiers, is a symbol of the rigid heirarchy of the medieval church.
3. You can't see the bride before the wedding: This is an obvious symbol of the fact that the man is marrying the chick only for her looks - the "father" tries to "hide" his "daughter" so that the man will be fooled into "buying" a physically unattractive womyn. This offends me more than any other of the oppressions.
4. Honeymoon Lingerie: Come on! First of all, everyone knows that they've been "doing it" long before the "honeymoon." And then they make the bride wear some sort of lingerie to demonstrate the shackles of marriage. Why don't they just go ahead and make it bondage equipment? (Not that that is inappropriate for peoples who find valid life-expression in bondage, so long as it is male-male bondage or fymale-fymale bondage or fymale-male bondage but never male-fymale bondage)

Anyway, I could go on, but I won't.