It’s a leap year, I want a wedding – but I won’t ask my boyfriend to marry me

Feminism and marriage do not go together like a horse and carriage. Today is 29 February – a leap year – and as well as it being the extra day we get to make sure our calendar year matches the solar year, it’s also the day that women can traditionally ask their partner to marry them.

But while such an archaic tradition is now universally accepted as a ridiculous idea (we are, of course, able to make declarations of marriage whenever we choose – as well as choosing not to get married at all if we don’t want to) – I can’t help but admit that I gave it some thought.

And here’s my great conflict: for I write this both as a feminist and a hopeless romantic. I have been married and divorced. And I am now in a committed relationship with my partner and our young son. Nothing about our relationship feels lacking, yet I still want to get married again – and more importantly, I don’t want to be the one to propose.

But why do I feel like this? Do I still harbour wistful romantic views built up over a lifetime of watching a disproportionately large number of rom-coms – or feeling forever changed by reading Jane Eyre when I was 13 years old? After all, no-one comes away from Charlotte Bronte’s masterpiece wanting anything more than happily ever after (we won’t mention poor Bertha, of course).

I believe in equality in everything – marriage is no exception. Indeed, I love it when female friends have talked of their proposals to their now husbands and wives, and a little part of me would love that chance to create a perfect romantic moment. But, I still want the “down on one knee, taken by surprise” moment of a proposal. I can’t help it.

Perhaps it’s because so much of everyday cohabiting life relies on happy but mundane domesticity – filled with negotiations over who’s cooking dinner, who’s doing the laundry, who’s taking our son to playgroups. It’s all shared, and we have a great equilibrium of equity. But I still want the swooping romantic moment of a proposal, followed by a weddingin front of our loved ones. I feel deeply that it would make my family feel complete.

What I find hard to reconcile within my own belief system is the fact that I know all too well that heterosexual marriage is a patriarchal construct. It developed as a way for families to form alliances, ensure bloodlines – it was little about love, and more about economics. For women, it was often a guaranteed and miserable contract into unpaid labour – including (but not limited to) cooking, cleaning, childcare and emotional labour. All of this would be regularly unappreciated – and certainly discredited as not being “real work”.

It also created a solid foundation in which men could go out and flourish in their careers, something that is traditionally celebrated by the patriarchy and capitalism, while women put all ambition to bed. Women were a commodity, passed from the ownership of their father to the ownership of their husband, who – upon marriage – became the woman’s “legal guardian”. Everything about its foundation makes me shudder.

Plus, there is obviously no need to get married – and in many ways, I still can’t quite figure out why I even want to, especially after being divorced. Across the UK, marriage rates are at their lowest ever level. According to data released by the ONS (Office for National Statistics), 2021 was the first year that more children were born to cohabiting couples than married couples (51 per cent to 49 per cent) – and I am one of those statistics.

But then on the other hand, ironically, marriage has become arguably more equal, approachable and attractive through a recent change in law regarding... divorce. Yes, that’s right: does it not make sense to say that more people might choose to get married, knowing that they don’t have to stay unhappily wed “until death us do part”? The recent Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act (2020) seismically changed the divorce laws in England and Wales, allowing joint applications for divorce and removing the abominable need to provide evidence of “unreasonable behaviour” or a period of separation. At last.

So why, then, knowing all I do about marriage – and the end of marriage – do I still find myself hoping for an out-of-the-blue drop down to one knee?

Perhaps it’s the challenge of creating a marriage that represents who I am as a feminist. I want my partner and I to create a lasting union that reflects us and our commitment to each other, to support each other in our goals and ambitions... all under the umbrella of our marriage, however we wish to define it.

But – I insist – he still needs to ask me! I’ll accept the following: serenading “Grow old with me” on board a plane (thank you Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore in The Wedding Singer); or being told I have “Bewitched (his) body and soul” (Austen always puts it perfectly).

Either way, today may be a leap year, but I won’t be proposing. I’ll just tell him I love him – as I do every single day – and keep looking forward to my happily ever after.