“We have these tapes in our heads about how the wedding itself should be conducted, and what you should ask for. It’s very common for people to think, when I’m married I will be like my mother or grandmother or like the fantasies I had when I was 10.”
That’s a quote from Stephanie Coontz, author of A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s, who was interviewed in a Boston Globe story about wedding registries—specifically about how and why so many brides register for pricey gifts that will probably clog up shelf space or never even come out of its cardboard packaging for years.
Too often, couples register for fine china, crockpots, blenders, and kitchen appliances of all shapes and sizes because they believe that the institution of marriage will transform them into Martha Stewarts eager to host fancy dinner parties. Or they register for these goods simply because they feel that’s what they’re supposed to do. But when gifts wind up unused, that’s a bad deal for giver and recipient alike.
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