Proposing - Asking her parents blessing

Malthusian

Mojisola wrote: »

Which shows that the 'asking' bit is meaningless (and even deceitful).

Not at all. Imagine someone who encounters a group of dawdling tourists on a narrow bridge and asks them to move out of the way. If the tourists ignore them, you wouldn't expect them to give up and go home. They will, as respectfully as possible, shove their way past. It doesn't make it meaningless and deceitful to say "excuse me".

And you ignored the second part that you quoted. It is useful to know in advance whether the in-laws are going to oppose the marriage (in the very few cases where they do) so the couple can decide how they are going to deal with that before going public. There are other options between "pretend they don't exist" and "call the whole thing off".

When the tradition was the norm, if the father didn't give permission, that was the end of things. No proposal to the woman; no wedding.

No it wasn't. Elopement is as old as marriage itself.

I can't see the point of keeping the tradition if you're going to ignore the bits of the tradition that you don't like.

Does that mean the OP needs to offer a suitable dowry to the prospective bride's father? Otherwise he's ignoring another bit of the tradition.

I'm something of a traditionalist on this issue (certainly compared to the MSE average) but I stop short of asking the father-in-law how many camels he'll accept in exchange for his daughter's hand.

tho_2

I get the feeling this is where we need a mod to set up a mse moral dilemma or something so everyone can debate this. The Op wants to ask the father, because he feels it would make the partner and her parents happy. Good for him. He wanted advice on how.

I'm sure he doesn't want telling many times he's setting womens rights back 200 years. Which he isn't.

onlyroz

Don't be daft. She's not a pretty bauble to be bartered off to the highest bidder.

BucksLady

I'm surprised the proposed gesture has caused such a stir . Seems nice and old fashioned to me - and very polite.

Mojisola

Malthusian wrote: »

No it wasn't. Elopement is as old as marriage itself.

Only for a very small percentage of couples.

Poor_Single_lady

I don't understand the fuss either.

Maybe it's the heat getting everyone all upset.





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krlyr

If you want to let the parents know without necessarily asking their permission, why not go around and ask them if they know her ring size, or her preferred ring style, or her dream proposal location or something along those lines. You're informing them of your intent, whilst making a point that it's going to happen anyway - and I imagine many parents would love the 'secret' of knowing before the event (my brother recently proposed and my mum was thrilled when he showed her the ring he'd bought, prior to popping the question)