Since my philosophy is,

Better dead, than wed...


Meeting parents for consent to marry,
is pretty much pointless.

WHEW...that's real scary; relocated to this small rural town {pop. 1,500 for my elderly mother} and the going trend now is to knock up a young girl {don't marry her}, leave her after a year and find another easy squeeze and repeat the same pattern --- this coming kindergarten class will have 5 little children from the same DNA-Daddy and he's not married to any of those GIRLS and isn't paying child support on any of them! WTH --- SMH, not my generation {granted} but those little ones are growing up in the same town - same area not knowing their DNA siblings
The DNA links in the small rural areas are in dire need of some 'DISTANCE'...if you get my drift!

when my son came and told me he wanted to marry his high school sweetheart..his father and I were right in middle of a rough patch..right before divorce. I asked him if he had spoken to his father already and to his girlfriend's mother and he said he had and looked a little crestfallen like someone had pissed in his cheerios so to speak.

His girlfriend came from a divorced family. Her mother was on her third marriage and when he said he wanted to marry her daughter and they would both move an hour away to go to college she told them to stay in small town, shack up together and he could go to work in the factory.

My (then ) husband told him that marriage is a lot of work and that he was not ready to take on the responsibility of it, he was not ready to provide for a wife and family and that we had gotten married while still in college and just look where that led us..right to hiring an attorney and dividing up the house.

I asked my son why do you want to marry her now hon, you are both still young and he told me
" ma I love her, she is a good girl, she loves me and I want her to go with me when I move to college but I have too much respect for her to just ask her to live with me. I want her to be my wife"


so I informed the other parents that these two are going to be married

yes it is very important that mommy dearest
gets along with my girlfriends mother....

... the three of them must prepare everything....oui

..

My philosophy is only marry for true love. This is why I've never married. True love is uncommon.

*yawns*

Traditions are subjective to cultures.

show yourself woman..!!!..
. I want to see Who I am dealing with..
.. I want to see who this person is I like so much..mmmm

tradition is different from culture to culture, I don't know of a time in American culture where the parents had to meet

I do know of the custom of asking the fathers permission, but with women marrying older and older, that seems a bit out of touch, although romantic and certainly not 'disprespectful' at all. When brides married young and were truly leaving their parents to be joined with another,, it made perfect sense for this passing of responsibility from parent to spouse,, but now women have been supporting themselves and out of the parental home for years before being married



it does seem like the smart thing for the potential spouses to meet each others families before marrying to make sure its a family that they can marry into happily,,,



but parents meeting parents is really only necessary at the rehearsal dinner,, in my opinion

I'm pretty sure that ideals are fine - as guidelines, or maybe as a map to a desired destination. Like any long trip though, some of the best experiences occur when you slip the beaten path and veer here or there to see and live possibilities. Instead of depriving experience by insisting on perfection, which we all know doesn't exist, why not risk?

As a tradition, the ideal of 'one true love', 'happily everafter', and others of that ilk are wonderful in the abstract but to insist on the ideal as the only option seems to invite disappointment.

Lots of traditional thinking has been overturned, often by those who accepted risk.

Nutz, Estelle. Try before you die. Even brief moments of joy and the possibility of discovering the ideal by accident is better than keeping a stiff upper lip, alone.

The thing is, there are wonderful possibilities for relating to others that await discovery. But if one enters into that knowing that 'I'm going to have to prove something in order to satisfy her vision of the ideal. I'm not going to be trusted nor even given the benefit of the doubt. Slaying imaginary dragons is gonna be a drag.' it doesn't seem to be a stretch that the grass might be greener elsewhere.

Would YOU be comfortable with someone saying, 'I might love you if you can sufficiently convince me that you're worth it?'

Teamwork, Estelle. Takes two to tango.

Sure...but here in America our 'traditions' certainly have changed over the years; lots of things aren't done 'officially' like they were even back in my grandmothers era!

Italian/German families: Of course after the Wedding Ceremony at the Church the Bride and Groom would ride thru their old neighborhood so that all the well wishing neighbors could come out and extend a gift of candies or money to the happy couple.

And then it became more of a 'chase the wedded couple' through town honking horns and screaming at them as they flew through the stop signs and stop lights all the way back to the banquet hall. I don't know if they even do that anymore since many police departments frowned on those 'running those red lights & stop signs'!

And 'T-Ping' the newly weds home while they were gone on their honeymoons; do people still do that anymore?

Sure, but Estelle targets the US in her "philosophy"....not TURKEY where she claims to be living and breathing and all worried about living with her bf.

I live with housemates actually, I share my room with my daughter.

just curious, what would you do if the parents don't consent?

to answer the original question, it all depends on who you ask.

many people feel we live in a modern world. they are adults and responsible for themselves.

my family still holds to some old fashioned traditions. my mom says if she's a hundred and I'm fifty that doesn't make her any less my mom nor me any less her daughter. so I introduced zippy to her but not in the sense of asking permission.
he and my brother haven't yet met, but that will come whenever it does.

zippy took me to meet his family with his sister as the matriarch of the family. there was some getting to know me kind of questioning, but every one was very welcoming.

Not much of a housemate if he doesn't pay any rent, like you said in another thread recently though?

If the parents don't consent then you might check your 'love'. If it's ok then go ahead and get married. Personally my parents would consent to whomever I choose to marry since this tradition is gone.

That housemate is moving out. He needs to go.

at my age it is unlikely that our parents would still be alive. I am too old to have anyone's parents making any decisions for me

but as for my own kids, if someone's parents wanted to discuss our children, my response would be a polite and respectful, they are adults now and make their own decisions.

I don't think the right guy would approve of my parents is the problem.

is he making a life with you or with your parents?

is he a good match with you? do you fit each other's ideals?

is he going to treat your daughter well?