I'm so glad younger people are largely abandoning the "wife bad" garbage. Maybe it's not so bad to, you know, openly enjoy being with someone you love without having to make a joke about it.
It's so bizarre. My models for a successful marriage growing up were my grandparents, and they adored each other. Comfortable enough to tease each other, but I couldn't imagine them ever doing something like using a wedding or an anniversary to make these kinds of weird "Wife bad" jokes.
When I married my wife almost 15 years ago my mother-in-law gave me a shirt that said game over with a happy bride stick figure and a very sad groom figure so I took that shirt and I wrote a :-) over the guy's :-( and I wore that shit under my tuxedo and as soon as the wedding was over I opened my jacket and walked around with that shirt proudly for the rest of the night. Yeah game over, I won.
How does an aromantic even get to the point of being pressured into a marriage (at least in a society without arranged marriage)? Why are they dating in the first place? Am I misunderstanding how that works?
Mainly social expectations and lack of awareness of aromanticism. I know in the US that's common in the deep south (where I'm from), but I'm sure you'll find it anywhere that's socially conservative.
Could be family pressure. Could be internalized hetreonormativity making them feel like they 'should' do this. Could be they haven't really realized, come to terms with, or accepted their own identity.
I mean, think of a 'stereotypical' aromantic guy. He's interested in women, and sleeps around a lot, but despite not getting feelings, might 'settle down' with one partner because its 'normal, respectable', even if it's not something that makes him happy. Probably won't make the wife happy either, but that's it's own issue, why she might marry a guy that 'doesn't do romance'.
The prefix Allo just means other, so when you have a pair of things the other one will normally become Allo-thing. Because we don't make words the culturally accepted default position until there is something to contrast it with, most instances of Allo will describe the culturally accepted default.