this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2026
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Asking a dad for permission to marry a woman is fucking disgusting and needs to go away. Women aren't property. Children aren't property. Fucking toxic shit.
Also boomer-ass "wife bad."
It’s more like “can I be in your family” now a days. If my wife’s dad said no, I would’ve still married her. But knowing that I’m accepted into their family is nice.
If that's the question, why is it always the father they ask?
It's not. I asked their mother. But asked isn't even really the right word. I discussed proposing to their child with them first out of empathy, courtesy, respect, just plain demonstrating the ability to have real life adult conversations. I think using the idiom of "Asking for permission" really has some pedants in this thread in a twist.
That's a nice personal anecdote. But your personal experience has no bearing on the general pervasive attitude that been dragged on from the days when women were in fact legally the property of their fathers and then husbands.
Of course this attitude has changed and evolved over time, but it's still an attitude born from a place of extreme sexism and misogyny. And the amount of men who will ask a fathers permission or expect to be asked for permission for their daughter still comes from a place of still treating women as something to be possessive over due to their gender, is way to damned high.
Your personal experience doesn't change the existence of the pervasive attitude of women being possessions.
A marriage is between two people and their families. It's always personal and anecdotal. Fighting the patriarchy and gender stereotypes doesn't always happen on grand civic scales, it happens in many many boring everyday personal anecdotal interactions.
Most likely patriarchal society bs. I asked both parents.
Good for you. But whenever I hear about asking for the "parent's" permission, 99 times out of 100 it's the father they're asking.
Amongst my kin it's usually less the dad in particular and moreso that the dad is the embassador for the rest of the men of the family. Basically doing a check before the proper introductions, the women folks have their own rituals.
Good for you and whatever culture you come from. But your personal anecdote is more or less irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
If you want anything other than personal anecdotes then you might have better luck doing a study than asking people in a forum. Most people just have their personal anecdotes and personal speculation.
California Scots, so whatd be recognized as Redneck to most people. The whole Scots thing is probably the defining factor here since telling our women kin no is liable to get you an ass beating or poisoned, assuming they don't just ignore you.
Or like from dude to guy talking to make sure we don't bother eachother. As you saw in the example, he had a bike coming and he would have disturbed that.
He didn't ask because he knew a bike was coming. That was just serendipity.
This attitude of asking a father permission stems from the archaic attitude that women are the property of their fathers and then their husbands.
You're taking it way too literal. Some women think it's romantic when you ask their father for permission to marry them. If she wants you to do this, she'll likely tell you. The same way you'd discuss whether she wants her father to walk her down the aisle. These practices aren't necessarily bad or toxic.
If you are in a healthy committed relationship you talk about these sorts of things, there's no right or wrong. On the other hand, I do agree with you that it would be really weird and creepy to ask a father permission to marry his daughter behind her back.
My partner was going to marry me no matter what their dad said, but it meant a lot to them to get his approval. I was going into the military and he was a retired high ranking lieutenant.
8 years later their dad still loves the shit out of me.
I'm not military, but isn't "high ranking lieutenant" an oxymoron? I thought lieutenants were the very beginning rank for officers.
My bad. I shouldn't type while sick.
Lieutenant colonel is what I meant.
And if he had said no, you would've found out why this is stupid.
I personally disagree. Long time ago, I was dating someone and one day it just happened... Like that was the point I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. But I did a quick 'ask her father for permission' but in my head... And doing that was when I fully came to grasp with just how much a loser I was and how little I had to offer anyone. That moment, was the moment my life shifted. I got my drinking under control, went to college, made better friends, I was serious about my future.
While I didn't talk to her father, I knew exactly what he'd say. I knew exactly how he felt about me. Him being always honest with me and me finally being honest with me was the best thing that's ever happened to me.
I've never viewed it as a property thing, at least not in America. And I didn't anyone does. To me it's always been more of a 'are you worthy, do I trust you'.
Marriage itself is a chattel trade. It’s delulu to think you can enter into the institution without normalising patriarchy.
Or y'know, some people just want a break on taxes
My partner is permemantly disabled, so getting married grants them protection financially if anything happens to me. I could totally make a will and say "All my stuff goes to spouse", but if my family (not that they ever would) wanted to intervene because we weren't married, they could.
Now? Because we're married my partner gets anything and everything if something happens to me. The house, the cars, the dogs, my inheritance, everything.
Not disagreeing but, um, I did need healthcare. So.
I must confess I don’t see how the two things could be linked.
Some healthcare in America, you can only add onto the plan married spouses. Sometimes even Common Law isn't enough to get a spouse on your plan. So some people need to actually have the piece of paper that says Marriage Certificate in order for their spouse to get healthcare.
I'm assuming there's a shithole country somewhere where you need expensive private insurance to have healthcare and perhaps it also covers spoUSes?
It's 2026, the net beneficiary of marriage is whichever half earns less. Assuming shared finances. Which due to the gender pay gap tends to actually be the woman, but could also be the man.
Divorces aren't terribly difficult to get in any sane parts of the world and there's really not much power you get over the other party that they don't also get over you. Plus if you're a woman, developed countries tend to have things like women's safety centers to get away from abusive spouses (wish they also had them for men in my country, but luckily that ordeal is mostly over for me). Also two women can get married, which of them then owns the other one? If it's chattel.