I do -- kind of

"I won't" feminists go up against "I did, but I have a good excuse" feminists in a holier-than-thou battle over what it means to walk that aisle.

By Amy Benfer

Aug. 15, 2001 | Every revolution gets a little boring without rebellion and dissension in the ranks. For "feminists" -- in quotation marks because no one seems to agree who exactly gets to call herself a feminist -- marriage has become so taboo that getting hitched has come to seem like rebellion. This may be why the most traditional social institution of all has started to gain new street cred with some women who consider themselves to be feminists, a state of affairs that leaves certain other women who also call themselves feminists nearly apoplectic with rage and disbelief.

Marriage: It's so old school, it's formed (two) new schools.

Consider how Gloria Steinem, in an interview with the New York Times, defended her decision to marry David Bale (father of actor Christian) last year: "I had no desire to get married and neither did he. He often in his life did what men were not supposed to do and I spent mine doing what women aren't supposed to do. And I guess a little bit of it too was that what seemed conformist at 26 -- getting married -- seems rebellious at 66."

So there. Feminist marriage for Steinem is rebellion -- no-fault nuptials as the no-fault divorce of the new millennium.

Implicit in Steinem's defense of her marriage is the idea that one "earns" the right to marry by rejecting traditional gender roles throughout one's life. In her case, she paid for her right to marry by rejecting the institution for over 30 years in favor of being the most mediagenic feminist of her generation. Her best-known statements on matrimony include the scathing satiric essay "I Want a Wife,"(written by Judy Brady Syfers) which Steinem published in Ms. magazine in 1972, and perhaps the most famous anti-hetero-coupling maxim of the 20th century: "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" (a phrase that Esquire chose to throw back in her face in its "Dubious Achievements 2000" issue, writing, "Turns out a fish does need a bicycle").

About any excuses offered by Steinem's husband, less is known, but, in a defense of his feminist cred (which, as we will see, is an important ritual for all feminists defending their male partners), Steinem points out that he was a single father, which I suppose counts for something. Also implied is the idea that scorning marriage as an institution -- having no "desire" for it -- gives one the option to reclaim it as a personal, conscious choice. (The corollary is that the pressure to prove that one's decision is motivated purely by love, rather than social approval, actually increases the romantic basis of -- and the potential to mythologize -- feminist marriage.)

And what self-respecting feminist would argue against a woman's inalienable right to choose? "Choice" has been the one word that every feminist can agree on -- in principle. Once upon a time, when women had very few choices, it was a matter of civil rights: Steinem herself (correctly) pointed out to Dave Tianen of the Milwaukee Journal, "If I had got married when I was supposed to have in my 20s, I would have lost almost all my civil rights. I wouldn't have had my own name, my own legal residence, my own credit rating. I would have had to get a husband to sign off on a bank loan, or starting a business. It's changed profoundly."

The fact that a woman no longer leaves her civil rights at the altar takes care of part of the legal argument against marriage (though, as we will see, it does not alleviate the guilt of straight people who recognize they are participating in a legal contract that excludes gay and lesbian couples). But almost as soon as women gained the civil rights and cultural approval to make their own choices -- on motherhood, sexuality, careers, marriage -- they began fighting among one another to define what, exactly, constituted the correct choices to make. Can a woman who makes a traditional choice -- to be a stay-at-home mother, a Republican, a wife, a pro-life activist -- still call herself a feminist?

It all depends upon whether other feminists agree with one's choices. Most of the time they don't. The history of feminism is the history of women attempting to excommunicate each other from the High Priestesshood. And once one choice is made taboo by one group, another group springs up to defend one's right to indulge in feminist sin. Thus Andrea Dworkin begot the sex-positive movement; the magazine Off Our Backs begot On Our Backs, the lesbian porn magazine; the attachment parents of Mothering magazine et al. begot the child-free movement; California Sen. Dianne Feinstein begot Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift; androgyny chic begot the '90s girlie feminism of Bitch and Bust.

Next page: Why not milk the beauty myth for all it's worth and land a man in the process?