{"id":14,"date":"2008-11-05T23:15:23","date_gmt":"2008-11-06T03:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/?p=14"},"modified":"2010-03-09T20:25:35","modified_gmt":"2010-03-09T20:25:35","slug":"love-and-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/love-and-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"Love and Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am a romantic at heart. When watching television; tv shows, movies, soap operas\u2026 my one guilty pleasure is swooning over romantic marriage proposals. From the carefully planned dinners with the ring in a piece of ice cream, to the spontaneous proposals in the spur of the moment, with nothing but a piece of string to put around a finger\u2026 they all appealed to my romantic heart. And I have to admit\u2026 Dutch men have a lot to learn about romance. True\u2026 men everywhere have a lot to learn about romance and some Dutch men ARE romantic souls\u2026 but let me tell you how usually people get married in the village I came from.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It all starts easy enough. Boy meets girl, boy likes girl and vice versa, boy and girl start to date. So far so good.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Now, we get to the habit where all adolescent girls no longer get birthday presents they would actually like and enjoy\u2026 No, from the age of thirteen (especially if the girl dates a boy) the girl starts receiving convenient gifts she could use in her future house hold. From this age she will be collecting her \u2018uitzet\u2019 and I\u2019m sorry\u2026 but I couldn\u2019t find a proper English translation.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Towels, all kinds of cleaning cloths, glasses, mugs, silver wear, china, food processors, sowing machines, blenders, pots and pans\u2026 anything you can imagine using at home\u2026 those are the gifts you\u2019ll start to receive.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So, girl is creating a nice collection for IN the house, while the boy studies, finds a job and saves money to be able to BUY a house. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The expression: \u201cHij heeft het nestje al, nu alleen nog het vogeltje\u201d (he\u2019s got the nest, now all he needs is the bird\u201d is often heard where I come from. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And of course, the girl studies, finds a job and saves money to be able to buy the furniture for in the house. Of course, the money stays put in a savings account until she\u2019s actually required to buy furniture. Often this happens after the engagement and the house is \u2018prepared\u2019 to be lived in. Tiles for kitchen, living room and bath room are chosen, wall paper designs are chosen and finally the shopping spree for furniture begins. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Where I come from, the boy makes sure the house is ready for live in and pays for that\u2026 while the girl takes care of almost everything else that belongs in the house. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Now, before we get to that moment\u2026 there is of course a need for a proposal. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Fortunately, these days women aren\u2019t so easy to catch with a standard proposal or sometimes even \u2013 I kid you not- NO proposal at all!<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

What often used to happen is\u2026 when boy paid for the house or already had a house\u2026 and he had been seeing the girl for at least a couple of years\u2026 usually a term like: Well, when should be pick out the rings? <\/span>Or\u2026 Isn\u2019t it time to get married or something?\u2026 is all the girl gets and be content with. So, boy and girl go to the jeweller, pick a couple of golden rings and continue the business of informing the family, picking the date, shopping for the wedding dress, planning the reception\u2026 etcetera, etcetera.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Like I said, those times are luckily fading and men seem to realize that women need to be romanced every now and again\u2026 ESPECIALLY at such a crucial cross roads as the marriage proposal. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I just saw the movie Stepmom, I swoon and I sigh\u2026 and I pray that Dutch men will learn something about the oh so hated \u2018chick flicks\u2019! <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am a romantic at heart. When watching television; tv shows, movies, soap operas\u2026 my one guilty pleasure is swooning over romantic marriage proposals. From the carefully planned dinners with the ring in a piece of ice cream, to the spontaneous proposals in the spur of the moment, with nothing but a piece of string…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3590],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-dutch-language"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}