InkBlog

This week, a story about a bride's decision to divorce her husband just a day after getting married because of the wedding cake prank he pulled has gone completely viral - and totally divided the internet.

“I read this article how a woman divorced her husband a day after their wedding because she told him her one rule was to not smash cake in her face since she’s claustrophobic from a car accident & guess what he did…he smashed her face into their wedding cake,” read the tweet.

On the back of this came a resurfaced column from Slate‘s Dear Prudence advice column, where a woman shared the exact same story. Men then began sharing compilation videos showing brides asking their husbands not to shove the cake in their faces and lo and behold, they still do - and people have thoughts. Whilst a lot of women feel that it's disrespecting a boundary, and that the wife in question is absolutely right to leave her husband, some are arguing it's ‘just’ a prank and isn't a serious issue.

Discussing the viral ‘cake face smash videos’ on Twitter, Deann Wiley said that it's “a chance to humiliate and/or physically assault your partner under the guise of playfulness. Common abuse tactic. Everyone around will invalidate the bride’s feelings because he was “just playing” & she should 'lighten up'.”

And I couldn't agree more; many so-called ‘pranks’ which men play on their female partners are often violent in undertone, and seeped in misogyny.

In my opinion, a lot of these situations feel motivated by simple sexist degradation. Many viral cake-smash videos look violent, with the bride trying to get away as the groom holds her down. It's about taking women down a few pegs and humiliating them on a day where they are centred and feel beautiful. It's about assaulting them in public, and then pretending it's all just a joke.

Some see these all-too-common wedding cake smashing incidents as ‘Protest Behaviours’, which Dr. Sydney Ceruto believes are “employed by individuals as an attempt to regain love and attention from their partners. These behaviours can arise from feelings of insecurity, abandonment, and a lack of self-worth. The main goal of protest behaviours is to seek validation from the partner by engaging in negative or unhealthy behaviours.” She warns that “Protest behaviours create a cycle of insecurity and resentment in the relationship, leading to a breakdown in communication and trust.”

Speaking with GLAMOUR, Valese Jones, the Founder of Sincerely Nicole Media, who went viral for her take on the stunt, says “Brides spend months, sometimes even years, planning their wedding day looks, so who would actually want that ruined with cake smashed in their face?”

“And in this case, the money going down the drain because your husband chose to behave like a “king baby”, on what should be one of the happiest days of your life. That term was coined by journalist Mel Hamlett and it’s the perfect way to describe the behaviour we see displayed by a lot of men," Valese continued.

“Men who get joy out of humiliating their wives under the guise of it being a joke tend to lack respect for women as humans. They don’t care about boundaries and I’ve often seen them diminish anything their wife to be cares about. I only assisted with weddings just to keep a steady cash flow as I was building my PR agency but, I learned so much about relationships and how patriarchy affects them,” she says. “The couples I’ve worked with that are still married are the ones who truly partnered on every decision for their wedding. The men who took interest in the ‘girl’ stuff and respected their wives’ boundaries and prioritised her comfortability, had the smoothest wedding days.”

However, she found that “almost every single couple who had a groom similar to the one in my tweet is divorced. If I had to say it was 20 of them 18 are now no longer together. If a man doesn’t respect your wishes on a day that you view as one of the most important ones in your life, that is only going to get worse on the other side of I do.”

There's one wedding that Valese will never forget, “the bride actually did not like cake at all but her husband to be’s mom made such a big deal about having the cake and she gave in. During the feeding of the cake he thought it would be funny to shove it in her mouth and did it with so much force that she ended up choking on it. I remember the photographer saying to me 'that’s not a good sign'.

"A year later I saw that couple on the news because he had taken her life, then his. I know people might think it’s insane to look at things they view as minor from such a serious lens but, the devil is always in the details.”

"Between helping with weddings and volunteering with women’s centres, I’ve learned that a lot of behaviour we chalk up to men just being men, is actually abusive and it starts in subtle ways.”

There are a lot of videos online, where we witness grooms behaving in downright misogynistic and abusive ways - like throwing cake in their brides' faces or making vows and speeches that humiliate their spouse- which are often waves off as ‘a bit of fun’. But if, even on your wedding day, your new husband cannot treat you with respect and love, then it shouldn't just raise some eyebrows but some supersized red flags. As a society, we must stop infantilising grown men and hold them accountable, not doing so has normalised a culture where they can blatantly disrespect simple boundaries and get away with it.

Boundaries are not challenges, and if someone treats them as such…annulment isn't a bad option.

For more from GLAMOUR's Contributing Editor, Chloe Laws, follow her @chloegracelaws.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7qLjApqauqp2WtKLGyKecZ5ufY8Kse8Crq6KbnJp8uLHDnaCnn12YrqyxjJ%2BYnJ1dqLqiv8c%3D