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Sologamy (Marrying Oneself; Self-Marriage)

Min Bannister

Possessed dog
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Sep 5, 2003
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Apparently more and more people are getting married to themselves. Yes cake, flowers, guests, everything.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42415394


They are spending thousands of pounds on it. Some of them are already married.

In the UK, Sophie Tanner married herself in 2015. "For me, it was an important ceremony that demonstrates my commitment to self-compassion, " she told the BBC.

"The wedding was the best day of my life, complete with vintage gown, teary dad giving me away, and dancing bridesmaids."

But not everyone welcomes the sologamy trend. Some call it narcissistic and others criticise it as a pointless submission to a patriarchal institution.

Karen Nimmo, a clinical psychologist in New Zealand, says: "Self-dislike is at the root of so many psychological issues, so where marrying yourself is about healing from past trauma or relationship issues it can be helpful.

"But it's important to make sure your other relationships are healthy. If you rely too much on yourself and constantly put your own needs ahead of everyone else you may be slipping into narcissistic territory - and that's an unhealthy and lonely place to be."
]

Seems terribly sad to me. I would be horrified if someone invited me to a self wedding. I can't believe their families and friends go along with it.
 
Thanks, MB - you've provided me a new word for Xmas ...

'Sologamy' struck me as less precisely descriptive than, say, 'autogamy'. However, it turns out 'autogamy' is already on record as meaning 'self-fertilization'. I suppose we'll have to keep the terms separate - at least until such time as a functional sologamous hermaphrodite forces a deeper review.

I can see how such a ceremonial exercise might contribute to a process of self-healing or state of self-affirmation. Within the limits of this context I don't think it's necessarily narcissistic (at least not in any pathological sense).

By the same token, I have a hard time construing the hoopla and expense of a staged self-wedding before an audience as anything but an intrinsically narcissistic spectacle. It is, after all, solely for show and imparts no legal effect(s) whatsoever.

There are two things that definitely trigger cynicism regarding this trend:

(a) The irony, if not outright hypocrisy, of seeking an alternative to the conventional social construct of marriage by conducting a marriage ceremony. This does nothing toward affording me confidence the person involved is thinking coherently.

(b) The fact your cited article appears in the Business section and focuses on people who are making money facilitating sologamous marriage ceremonies. This makes me think that faint scent I'm detecting really is eau de hucksterism.
 
I can see how such a ceremonial exercise might contribute to a process of self-healing or state of self-affirmation
surely not ! seems to me more likely a sign of a problem not effectively dealt with
 
Thanks, MB - you've provided me a new word for Xmas ...

'Sologamy' struck me as less precisely descriptive than, say, 'autogamy'. However, it turns out 'autogamy' is already on record as meaning 'self-fertilization'. I suppose we'll have to keep the terms separate - at least until such time as a functional sologamous hermaphrodite forces a deeper review.

I can see how such a ceremonial exercise might contribute to a process of self-healing or state of self-affirmation. Within the limits of this context I don't think it's necessarily narcissistic (at least not in any pathological sense).

By the same token, I have a hard time construing the hoopla and expense of a staged self-wedding before an audience as anything but an intrinsically narcissistic spectacle. It is, after all, solely for show and imparts no legal effect(s) whatsoever.

There are two things that definitely trigger cynicism regarding this trend:

(a) The irony, if not outright hypocrisy, of seeking an alternative to the conventional social construct of marriage by conducting a marriage ceremony. This does nothing toward affording me confidence the person involved is thinking coherently.

(b) The fact your cited article appears in the Business section and focuses on people who are making money facilitating sologamous marriage ceremonies. This makes me think that faint scent I'm detecting really is eau de hucksterism.

It think it could be in part that the 'marriage' narrative that parts of out society drum into us from an early age need to be vented. If you spend you whole life being bombarded with narrative about happy endings, dream weddings and handsome princes, in films, stories, and other media, then it's possible to see how you can end up with a situation where the the desire and drive to have the wedding and it accompanying dress and accoutrements becomes the object in an of itself, plus in a solo wedding there's no chance you'll marry a twat.

(I don't doubt there are people who will happily take the money at the same time, but they already rook couples already so...)

So, it might be these women are basically freeing themselves from the narrative. so a banishing ceremony or ritual is a nice way of putting it, but it's banishing the nagging feeling that one life isn't complete until the ritual is carried through.

A fun study would be to see how, if they do later marry, just how pragmatic the weddings then are. My guess is 'quite pragmatic', short service, very few friends, conspicuous lack of 'meringue' dresses etc.
 
Thanks, MB -
You're welcome. I wish all Christmas presents were that easy to find. ;)
i calculate the probability is the same
I make it 0% but perhaps I am missing something!

The example also linked to in my post is just one example but I suspect it is indicative. I find it quite excruciating.

My marriage isn’t legally recognised in the UK, but, for me, it was an important ceremony that demonstrates my commitment to self-compassion.
Really, why should that be important to anyone but herself?
Organising the wedding was easy. There was only me to please!
Umm, your guests maybe? She does say they enjoyed it but then most people enjoy a party. I would be surprised if the emotion she projected on to them was really present but it seems likely they have been enabling this sort of stuff all along. Otherwise how did it even happen? As I already said, I feel sure none of my friends would ever do such a thing. But it may be feasible or even normal among people who are already like that to start with.
And the next morning I woke up – a married woman.
No, you really didn't.

If the above isn't narcissistic, I really don't know what is!
 
If the above isn't narcissistic, I really don't know what is!
Like I suggested, it could be the fulfilment of an expectation that has been drilled into her, her whole life and she's free of it now. Not everyone can just shrug of their upbringing's imprint with a 'meh'.
 
Like I suggested, it could be the fulfilment of an expectation that has been drilled into her, her whole life and she's free of it now. Not everyone can just shrug of their upbringing's imprint with a 'meh'.
Yes but then that's where narcissistic tendencies come from. It is worth reading the rest of the thread I think (it is only three pages). Very few people are claiming it is anything but the result of upbringing.

I very much doubt she is free of that now.
 
And the next morning I woke up – a married woman.

e0k8gdm0dl501.gif
 
Yes but then that's where narcissistic tendencies come from. It is worth reading the rest of the thread I think (it is only three pages). Very few people are claiming it is anything but the result of upbringing.
Yep, have/did. My point is that this specific behaviour is not narcissism per se, but a response to a narrative and expectation, which may appear narcissistic, but is just a broken clockwork toy running down, even though it's missing one of its parts.

I very much doubt she is free of that now.
Possibly not but it's a start maybe.
 
i nearly got married this year, had the stag do and everything, things unravelled over the summer, tore apart in texas in august ... in hindsight the whole affair had the cachet of a late 80s rom-com, not one of my best ideas ... but who knew i couldve carried on and just married myself ! that definitely wouldnt have made a fourth-rate b-movie

at some point youre bound to fall out with yourself, cheat, wind up in a acrimonious divorce, lose the house, job, hound and descend into alcoholism (fake, as im still not drinking for charity) ... goddam you cant even trust yourself these days
 
Yep, have/did. My point is that this specific behaviour is not narcissism per se, but a response to a narrative and expectation, which may appear narcissistic, but is just a broken clockwork toy running down, even though it's missing one of its parts.
That may be the underlying thing which has led them to perform this particular ceremony but I respectfully disagree that it isn't narcissistic. :hoff:
 
...at some point youre bound to fall out with yourself, cheat, wind up in a acrimonious divorce, lose the house, job, hound and descend into alcoholism (fake, as im still not drinking for charity) ... goddam you cant even trust yourself these days

I wonder if you get to shout at yourself for never doing the washing up, while your doing the washing up?

And what about mother-in-law jokes - what happens to them?

My mother-in-law...no, seriously, listen. My mother-in-law; I'm not saying she's fat...

Because...erm...she doesn't exist.
 
Judge to self married person.(SMP).

'Why do you want a divorce ?'

SMP

' My other half refused to consummate the marriage. In fact told me to go F*** myself''

Judge.

'But wasn't that the whole point of the marriage ?'


INT21
 
dunno ... vulnerable people, low self esteem, bad direction, looking for a step up, wind up marrying themselves as part of a ten point plan ...
 
This is interesting. My first reaction was along the lines of, "What a lot of self-absorbed twaddle," but maybe it's not so simple.

My first wedding was very traditional in the church where my bride had occasionally worshipped. She wore white. We did all the standard stuff for the time, with distant relations, a big meal, a cake, speeches, and a knees up. At the time, I felt the wedding itself was not particularly meaningful, but was just an event we had to go through in order to become married. It was mainly a case of being seen to comply with all the conventions, and a chance for her parents to put on a show. The marriage faltered and died a few years later.

I then had a long term relationship with a divorced woman who had married on a Caribbean island, with no friends or guests, and with the only witnesses being 2 people they had met at breakfast that morning in the hotel. Her marriage had lasted less than the time they had been together unmarried, and ended with affairs and acrimony.

My second wedding was a civil ceremony in a back room of a pub licensed for such events. We chose whom to invite, and it was mainly friends and close family. My wife had been widowed, and her first wedding had been "the full works" and she did not wish to repeat that experience.

We did none of the flummery with bridal cars and the like. It was just a short but solemn ceremony in front of our friends and close family, followed by a pig roast, ceilidh dancing outside the pub, and with my Morris dance team performing. It was our chosen ceremony, and the fact that we were exchanging vows in front of people who mattered to us, rather than an assortment of distant relations, or a couple of strangers, added meaning to the vows: we were exchanging them in front of people who would hold us to them. Our marriage is solid and in the inevitable ups and downs, separation is not even an option to consider for either of us.

I have found that in those periods of my life when I have been married, I have often been treated differently from when I was single.

My wife says it is even more the case for her: a married woman with a ring on her finger is regarded by the women in the village as respectable, and not (as much of) a threat to other peoples' marriages. (When she was a young widow, she found she was treated with suspicion by other wives who seemed to assume she was after their husbands.)

So I learn from this that:
  1. A ceremony and exchange of vows in front of friends and close family can be meaningful in a way that a "big show wedding" may not be.
  2. Married people are still noticeably treated differently from single people — even by people who have never met, and will never meet, your spouse.
  3. Even though there is nothing wrong with cohabiting, it is often accorded less respect by society, regardless of how long you've been together, and how committed you are to the relationship.
Applying these ideas to the bizarre case of sologamy, it may be that:

1) The ceremony and exchange of vows somehow authenticates your single status in front of your friends and close family. Instead of seeing you as a lonely singleton "who will find someone some day, don't worry," they may start to see you as someone who has actively chosen and committed to a happy and confident single state.

2 & 3) The option to refer to yourself as "married" and to wear a ring, may give you social cachet and respectability, even though most people you meet will accept your married status without ever being interested in the name or other details of your spouse.

Either that, or it's a lot of self-absorbed twaddle.
 
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Either that, or it's a lot of self-absorbed twaddle.
After growing up in a strange family, I had no interest in ever being married, and even less so when my cousin had a circus wedding with 12 bridesmaids (??!!), I was engaged half a dozen times and broke them all off.
When I met the future Mr. R, we simply went to the mayor of a nearby town, who is also our Senator, and he married us in 5 minutes.
It was lovely.
 
Either that, or it's a lot of self-absorbed twaddle.
Hm...it does seem peculiarly self-absorbed, I know we've got more narcisstic as a society, but even so 'look at me I'm single?' It feels like the acceptable face of incel.

There does seem to be a lot of behaviours about that while apparently disparate, are all intended to celebrate an individual’s 'specialness' and push it at the world around them.

Sologamy may all be perfectly fine and sensible of course, but it looks self indulgent and feels slightly off to me. :hoff:
 
Hm...it does seem peculiarly self-absorbed, I know we've got more narcisstic as a society, but even so 'look at me I'm single?' It feels like the acceptable face of incel.

There does seem to be a lot of behaviours about that while apparently disparate, are all intended to celebrate an individual’s 'specialness' and push it at the world around them.

Sologamy may all be perfectly fine and sensible of course, but it looks self indulgent and feels slightly off to me. :hoff:

Perhaps these folk are better off marrying themselves, thereby saving the rest of the population from having them inflicted upon them and breeding.
 
Perhaps these folk are better off marrying themselves, thereby saving the rest of the population from having them inflicted upon them and breeding.
It may be about breeding.

The whole ‘incel’ thing could be considered a reaction to a world that is basically saying ‘not good enough to mate’ and I wonder if sologamy is a less aggressive reaction to the same kinda thing; like the masculine and feminine faces of the same phenomenon.

It might be, given the trends in self absorption and the various desperate attempts to make the world into what it ought to be, rather than what it is, that sologamy represents a kind of existential crisis; “Why can’t I have what I want? If I can’t, I’ll reject it all and have a big public show” kind of thing.

Imagine being raised to believe regular masculinity is ‘toxic’ and then to discover that the ‘right kind of man’ is for practical purposes, fictional and worse, whoever you chose as your partner, compromises will be involved at every level.

(This is true of any relationship – there are either compromises or a dominant and supplicant)

Similarly, men raised on the overt fantasy sexualisation of women, espeically those without a strong male role model, find that the mating game does not support their hypothesis, and again unwilling or unable to understand that there’s a level of compromise and responsibility required, withdraw into an existential position; ‘incel’.

Probably a situation made worse by social media – another thing that in a small normal social interaction community, the majority of would-be incels or sologamists would rapidly find themselves without any kind of social support and come to understand compromise.

Now they can pop onto Farcebook and wail about being an ‘incel’ and one million wailing brats will give me a thumbs up...yeah...it’s not me, it’s them...
 
Similarly, men raised on the overt fantasy sexualisation of women, espeically those without a strong male role model, find that the mating game does not support their hypothesis, and again unwilling or unable to understand that there’s a level of compromise and responsibility required, withdraw into an existential position; ‘incel’.

My unwilling exposure to the incels of this world has taught me that they are rarely the awful, undateable, hideous basement-dwelling troll that social media likes to portray. Instead, they seem to be young men brought up on a diet of expectation and porn. They believe that women should be beautiful, pliant, agreeable, and performing sex dolls. When this proves not to be the case, they are forced to face the fact that social media, TV and the porn industry has lied to them, which causes a form of cognitive dissonance.
 
My unwilling exposure to the incels of this world has taught me that they are rarely the awful, undateable, hideous basement-dwelling troll that social media likes to portray. Instead, they seem to be young men brought up on a diet of expectation and porn. They believe that women should be beautiful, pliant, agreeable, and performing sex dolls. When this proves not to be the case, they are forced to face the fact that social media, TV and the porn industry has lied to them, which causes a form of cognitive dissonance.
You stated that far more elequently than I did :) :hoff:
 
Thank goodness society no longer expects women to be over-the-top cooks, keeping an immaculate house, be top of the line interior decorators, have gourmet snacks all lined up in the fridge, dazzling clean laundry at all times, work a full time job, all while resembling Marilyn Monroe.
I don't know where the women of days gone by found all that energy!
 
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