Passing Thought

So I don't know what's wrong with my life, but I've had literally zero school work this week. I think my classes are just in weird sync this semester since last week had me running around like a chicken with my head cut off, pulling 7am-2am long days trying to get everything done. Now, I'm hating the lull.

I could talk more about it, but the point of this post is to talk about House.

I was watching an old episode online the other day and the opening scene was a bride walking down the aisle with her Dad.

Given my religious background, I haven't exactly spent a lot of time in my life thinking about walking down a traditional church aisle, so it was a moment to pause for fresh reflection.

Maybe my women's studies class (which I love, love, love) is pushing me to the edge of radical but, watching the bride, something didn't sit right.

She was with her Dad in the final moments before walking through the door, with her Dad the whole time down the aisle, and met her husband at the pulpit. She wasn't without a male presence the entire time. And further, symbolic of being passed from her fathers care to her husbands care, she wasn't without someone to "look out for her" or "be responsible for her" the whole time. Her fiance/husband is just poof, magically there at the puplit. He doesn't need to go through any metaphorical passage of changing hands of caretakers, he can take care of himself just fine, heck, he can even walk himself to the puplit just fine. But the woman....can't.

And what about what everyone always says about the day of marriage being, "the bride's day" I think its probably mostly in reference of getting micromanaging Mom's to back off, but in actuality isn't it.....THEIR day? The bride's AND the groom's? This again seems to stress a pattern of the attention being focused on the bride because she is going through some major life transition of going from her father's home to her husband's home. The man doesn't need attention because again, it's implied that he can take care of himself. Doesn't that seem just a little belittling towards the bride?

Then again, this is all coming from a girl that's always insisted that her and her prince charming are going to pick out the wedding dress and the wedding tux together so they both find things they, collectively, both like. The colors, the songs, the food, everything done together so that the day is fully representative of THEIR relationship (although, I'm aware that it will probably actually be more like dragging around my tired and bored finance who will ultimately defer to me to make the decisions, but still! Speaking ideally!). I've always staunchly refused to even THINK (ok, think very much lol) about things like what I want the wedding colors to be because I want to decide when I know who I'm marrying, when I'm at that point in life, when I can choose what seems to match US best.

I'm sure, sure, sure there are a lot of culturally comparative statements that could be made about how much more patriarichal other cultures around the world are compared to America, but....just thinking about our own culture a little bit.....