Just Married

"Men control our media and boardrooms," highlights Fawcett's Director, Katherine Rake. It's myopic to suggest that white weddings are solely to blame. But the link between the two is not tenuous. A man expecting to erase a woman's surname and impose his own is just the tip of a glass shard. When a man knows he can have a woman "given away" to him, have all the ceremony's speeches made by men whilst women remain silent, and have his bride wear white to signify virginity and purity, can he really be blamed for viewing a woman in patriarchal terms, if she readily submits to them?

Men too – like myself – should be feminists. It's equally important we reject all conventions that degrade our future wives. Those who insist white weddings represent innocent symbolism are the same hypocritical commentators who wagged fingers when Prince Harry donned a swastika to a fancy dress party. Sometimes symbols are more damaging than people are prepared to accept.

Guardian: Why white weddings are so passé by Gary Nunn, July 20, 2008

Picture: Just Marriage, 1999, Miwako Iga