Warning: Tissues Required.

Wow.
So sad.. and yet bittersweet.

Having just given my oldest daughter away last summer, this one hit me right in the heart. I've watched it a half dozen times now, and still get wet-eyed.

OK, I admit this might not be the best time to voice my opinion because you are weepy.
However, I will.
I have a real aversion to that statement and all it's baggage. And I know you know better.

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A son is your son until he takes him a wife.

A daughter is your daughter the rest of your life.

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?? Looks fine to me. A Dad typically gives his daughter away. In this case he clarifies which daughter by saying it was the oldest. Where's the baggage?

The baggage comes from the old practices that underlie the common expression. Once upon a time a father in effect owned the daughter, and almost in a literal sense "gave" her to the future son-in-law. As Leslie said, that's not what Steve meant to suggest, but the connotation is still present for some, maybe a lot of people.

Wel excuuuuuuuuuuuse me! I had her listed on CraigsList for months and didn't get a single bite. So I had no choice but to give her away. Sheesh!

OK.. and in some sense it still means the same thing. I think a Father has more concern about the well being of a daughter than a son. Especially old school guys. He then cedes the responsibility to the new husband.
My, we sure can find the oddest things to b!tch about....

At the beginning of the fourth act of The Tempest, after having made his future son in law, Ferdinand, struggle and work hard to demonstrate his good will, the main character of the play, Prospero, says the following to Ferdinand: "Then, as my gift and thine own acquisition / Worthily purchased take my daughter." Those lines always lead to a lot of discussion, centered on the question of the daughter's status. Is she an object to be "given" or "purchased"? From my point of view, that's not so odd a thing to b¡tch about, at least not in the play and in the historical period in which Shakespeare is writing, anyway. And that's the "baggage" that remains floating in the air.