Anarchist's Wedding Guide.

The wedding party, the ring, little things like the placement of large numbers of ceremonial people around the altar where the joinery is executed -- all symbols: remnants of forgotten cultural baggage -- much of it quite unpleasant. The ring -- wasn't it originally on the bride's ankle? All those people -- weren't they really guards?? Marriage by capture, marriage by treaty, marriage by arrangement, marriage by purchase: it's all there, silent, deadly, in the modern wedding.

This may be just another bureaucratic ruse for getting a $4 dollar fee out of us, but I see no reason to grant the State the privilege of permission in this matter. After all, if I allow them the right to say "yes" to my choice of partners, am I not also granting them the power (at least theoretically) to say "no?"

I don't remember when I agreed to changing my name on marriage. I wasn't asked. I signed nothing to that effect, I'm sure of it. It wasn't in the ceremony. But it happened anyway. And the horrible part is I liked my "maiden" name. It was a nice name, I liked the sound of it and it connected me to a large group of people much friendlier to me than my in-laws.
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