A thread which caught my attention this week was where a girl was asking for advice - her boyfriend wanted them to move in together before they got engaged, her family were very against it, and she wasn't quite sure where she stood. This is something which is very much a case of personal preference - for me, I think it's very important to live with someone before I agree to that level of commitment. We had discussed that marriage was a definite in the future, but it was good to have the chance to live with Jon first and set our own routine, and learn how we worked together. For some people, this isn't the way they want to do things, and that's fine. Moral, religious or other personal reasons may stop them from wanting to live with their partner until they are engaged, or even married. And that's totally 100% cool, different strokes for different folks, you know?
But there were a number of comments on that thread where people were emphatically warning this girl away from moving in with her boyfriend before she was married, and they used two phrases that I absolutely loathe.
"Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"
and
"playing house"
Both these phrases are so problematic for me on so many levels I'm not even sure where to start, I've been writing and re-writing this post in my head for the last couple of days, and more and more as I've thought of the topic, I've pulled this face:
Where to begin?
Firstly, do you know what one of my favourite things in the world is? It's the assumption that as a woman in a relationship I immediately become the equivalent of livestock, a commodity to be bought and sold, and simply there to fulfil one purpose, with no thought or agency of my own. And not just that, but a particular kind of livestock, that is often used as a derogatory term towards women, to demean and offend them. I love that so much. More than anything. More than chocolate.
Do you want to know a secret? I don't love it at all. Why, suddenly, just because I am not engaged, have I assumed bovine qualities? Why am I suddenly contributing nothing to this relationship other than 'milk'? I mean, yes, I do have magnificent teats, thank you for noticing, but I like to think that perhaps my long term serious boyfriend, who I am making the commitment to live with, is not simply moving in with me because of them. I like to think that it is perhaps because he finds me witty and intelligent, because I make him happy and because he feels he has found an equal partner in a relationship. Presumably these are all the qualities that would lead him to propose to me, so why are they not worth noting prior to him putting a ring on my finger? Or am I like a robot, and only suited for simple tasks until he upgrades me with new RAM (Ring And Marriage), when suddenly I become a shiny new worthwhile toy to play with, with expanded functionality?
Basically what this sounds like saying is that until he 'buys' me, I am essentially a non-human, with no intelligence worth mentioning, and to be sold off to whoever will have me, and even then I'm only useful for one thing anyway.
Oh, wait, that's basically all of history ever until women got the vote, and hell a few years after that too for good measure. Silly me.
And hey, whilst we're on the subject, if I recall correctly the buying and selling of human beings is generally considered a Very Bad Thing. It's not an issue that there are, in fact, any grey areas on. It's not good. So when we talk about 'buying the cow' - the cow, of course, being me or any woman in a relationship that does not involve some kind of ring - we are doing one of two things. We are either implying that basically a woman entering into a relationship is equivalent to some kind of slavery, and hey that's totally cool because it's only a woman and they're basically vegetables with legs and boobs anyway; OR we are implying that, since humans should not ever be bought and sold, women are therefore less than humans and only objects, or creatures akin to cattle, so it's fine, no worries there.
So, in the very first four words of that repellent soundbite, I have been reduced to a subhuman creature, that can't exist unless I am owned by someone who can make sure that I get the best cud to chew, with one sole purpose for that relationship.
And then comes the oh-so-delicately phrased implication that my boyfriend is only with me because he wants to bone me. And the only way he will want to marry me is if I don't let him bone me before marriage. Yes, that sounds like a really healthy basis for a relationship and long term personal fulfilment, a marriage built entirely on my not dancing the horizontal (or vertical, whatever your fancy) tango with him until I get legal rights to his last name.
As mentioned above, whilst sexual chemistry is of course important in a long term relationship, I would like to think, being the romantic that I am, that when my boyfriend proposes to me it will be because he loves me. Because he values my existence in all areas of life and wants to spend the future with me in a mutually fulfilling and supportive partnership. Not just because I won't touch his peen until he does. And the implication is that that is all I am good for. That I am basically a much cheaper, self-cleaning version of one of those creepy life size sex dolls. My mother would be so proud.
And obviously, you know, it's not like I could make the decision to get married or anything, being a poor helpless milk-source with the intelligence of a farm animal. Of course someone else has to decide to 'buy' me, because being as I am so simple and placid and wholly without agency and so barely counting as a human being that you could probably sell me on ebay with no ramifications, then there is absolutely no way that my living in sin with my long term committed boyfriend could be a mutual decision. There's naturally no thought of my taking a decision about how I want my own life to go, and saying whether or not I am ready for marriage on my own. Well, I'm a woman aren't I? Of course I'm ready for marriage because all women are basically just born to be married and would never make an informed, personal decision to not get married as soon as physically possible. That would be madness.
Leaving aside offensive bovine-themed analogies which belittle the very core of my relationship simply because I don't have something sparkly on my finger, let's look at the other phrase that is oh-so-dear to my heart. "Playing house".
For those of you who are new to the world of offensive relationship soundbites, what this means is that basically any kind of living together prior to marriage doesn't count. It's not real living together, it's not real building a home and planning for the future and learning how to live with another person in a committed adult relationship. It's only pretend. Because naturally of course unless you are married then you are incapable of committing to such worldly things as acquiring furniture, paying a mortgage or rent, and cooking meals. Those are the sort of things you can only do properly once you have had your union legally recognised. What's that? You mean you own your own house with your partner but you're not married? Don't be silly, you're basically playing tea parties in your back garden Wendy House. You're after all not a legitimate human being until you have made a commitment to another person in front of the law and whoever else you please.
This, naturally, means that all people who choose not to marry for personal reasons, or even all those couples around the world who aren't legally allowed to marry, well they are just lesser humans whose relationship stability and commitment don't count because you know, no-one's bought the cow, so the silly cows are stupidly playing at being in relationships and waiting for someone to take them to the milking shed and brand their hocks to say "You're mine".
What it comes down to is this: If you don't agree with living together before marriage for you, then that is fine. Fine fine fine. But don't you dare turn around and reduce the six years of relationship I had before I got engaged to being simply about sex and avoiding grown up commitment. Don't start trying to shame people who make legitimate choices not to get married, either right now or ever, just because it doesn't fit in with some snide 1950s' barnyard analogy. And don't start saying that only valid relationship is one that is legally recognised, because not everyone has that option available to them.
What's that? The comment wasn't aimed at me? By using it as a generalisation warning against cohabitation you were aiming it at everyone who has ever lived together without being married. "If you move in with him, he won't marry you because 'Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?'" You literally said that, stating that as a point of fact for every relationship ever, to discourage someone from making a decision that does not fit into your world view.
Oh yes, I am engaged now. But those phrases offend me, because they are basically saying that the first six years of my relationship didn't count. That in those six years, anything I learned about myself, my partner and how to have an adult home and commitment was just 'playing', and not at all like the things you worldly wise grown ups do. I was in a committed relationship for three times the amount of time I will have been engaged for when I get married. On our wedding day, the engagement part of our relationship will only make up a quarter of the time we've been together. But that's all that I should be counting? 25% of our relationship is all that matters?
Bullshit. That is one cow that I am not buying, and a pile of crap that you should not be selling. Give advice to people who ask for it, tell them your opinions, but make it clear that they are just that - your opinions, and remember you are not an expert on every relationship ever, so think about that next time you trot out your stock phrases from an era when women were only valued because of one thing, and think about what those phrases imply about you.
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