Dowry, waking up at 3:30am, and the Aryan Nation on TV.

Wednesday. Once again, awoken at 3:30am by husband. But fortunately he saved the day. When I could not get back to sleep, he rubbed my back, which didn't work, and then he suggested I move into the spare room, where the mattress is newer and more comfy, and the room is darker and more quiet. I followed his suggestion and I fell right to sleep and slept like a rock till 7am. Thank God.

Last night I thoroughly Enjoyed the Episode of Earl, especially the ketchup packets squeezed into the bottle and then put on top of the spaghetti like spaghetti sauce. Whoa. And of course the Balboa Lawn Mowers Prettiest Pretty Princess Pageant... complete with knife throwing mother-daughter performances.

Then I watched an unbelievable episode of Law and Order SVU, wow! That one certainly got you thinking. I have got to say that that Infiltrated FBI Agent turned white supremacist was a FABULOUS actress (Marcia Gay Harden who I recognized towards the end as Nancy in Mona Lisa Smile- which was a complete flipside character!), she certainly had me convinced. I hated her through and through. You can read thoroughly about the episode HERE on the NBC website. It also guest starred Cody Kasch (who is Zach Young on desperate housewives.) What an episode! The people on there were reprehensible! Racial slurs and hatred. It just made you angry hearing it.

Then of course I was so tired! I had work, then Evan and I grabbed Soup at Country Kitchen, then I had a Princeton Computer User Group meeting, and then I went home and fed the dogs and took a bubble bath and read another section of the Bitch in the House.

I found the portion I was reading very interesting. And incredibly relevent.

On the way to Macomb on Saturday, Evan and I got into a debate about a dowry. We had friends who got married recently who had a hard time believing that we had to take out a small load to cover wedding expenses, and honeymoon/vacation expenses. She incredulously asked me "didn't your parents help?" to which I replied "yes, they did, but we still had expenses that were our responsibility, and we weren't able to pay for all of them." So Evan and I were discussing how people always assume that parents pay for everything.

Then he mentioned how the tradition was that the Bride's parents pay for everything. I told him that was old fashioned and unrealistic. I explained that when the bride's parents paid for everything, it was because they were paying (essentially) the groom to take her off their hands, like passing her off onto someone else who would take care of her and pay for her for the rest of her life. I told him that this is no longer necessary now that most women work full time, and make similar and sometimes even more wages than the husband. Plus these are not arranged marraiges. Evan didn't marry me because my parents threw in 3 goats, a cow, and 5 chickens, you know? Then Evan breaks out with the bride's parents pay for it out of RESPECT for the groom and his family, and that they throw a party in accordance with the way they want their daughter to be treated the rest of her life. And of course, all of this is REALLY beginning to piss me off, so instead of arguing as I am regularly inclined to do, I just plain ignore it and shut my mouth, looking out the car window to keep from freaking out over an argument about DOWRY.

Well, it was incredibly interesting because in the book, one of the women discusses the silliness of a dowry, and how outdated the thought is that you have to pay the groom off to take the bride off her parent's hands, etc etc. Everything I said was right there in print. I had to resist the temptation to point that out to Evan to prove to him that the idea is old fashioned and that my parents did not have to PAY for our wedding and honeymoon and reception.