Name Game

[Judy]

As I was driving home from the gym this weekend, I heard part of an interesting feature on CBC radio (Canadian National radio station). The discussion was the new wave of women deciding to take on their husbands' names after marriage and the various reasons for doing so.

So, did you take your husband's name? Why or why not?

Personally, taking my husband's name had nothing to do with "traditional" reasons but rather what my maiden name meant to me. The way I see it, a name represents what and who you are. I have not had contact with my father for many years and often asked my mother if I could adopt her family name. For one reason or another it never happened. So, when my wedding came around I decided to change my name and forever be done with a last name that had no meaning for me.

I love my married name and do not miss my maiden name. Now, I feel my name represents a strong lineage that I am proud to be a part of.

What about you?

[Emily HW]

I hyphenated. I feel the same: your name represents who you are and where you came from. I am still very close to my sisters, and I'm just not ready to cut that bond yet.

[Erin C]

I was actually thrilled with the prospect of taking on my husband's name, for similar reasons. I dropped the maiden name and felt like my new family was founded, at a safe distance from the unstable one.

Also, my husband changed his name to a hyphenated one with his first wife and he did not want to go through all of that again. I was happy to spare him all of the paperwork - those forms never have a space for men's "maiden" names.

- Erin C.

[Amy J.]

I did not take my husband's last name when we got married. However, after 10 years of marriage I went to the social security office with my marriage license and had my last name changed to his.
I have really changed a lot in 10 years. The name issue is no longer valid to me. When I was married I was 23 and I still felt very connected to the family that raised me. I felt that taking my husband's name was too much of a dramatic shift for me. I also am a feminist, and at the time I had a narrow view of what being a feminist meant to me.
As time went on I realized that the name issue isn't really an issue-at least to me. I am much more concerned about issues that are relevant to women on an everyday basis. Equal pay for equal work, quality child-care, maternity leave, family planning, etc. Taking your husband's name at marriage is not something that will change in this country, and even if it is a reminder of a patriarchal society, we can move past that without spending energy and resources on figuring out how to make the merging of last names at marriage equal. As women, I think it is much more productive to find creative ways to counteract a patriarchal society, and I really felt that having kept my maiden name at 23 was not representative of who I was at 33.
I am relieved to finally share the same last name as my husband and three children.
I'm stll dealing with the paperwork though :)

[Patty]

I couldn't agree with you more Amy!.... when you say " I am much more concerned about issues that are relevant to women on an everyday basis. Equal pay for equal work, quality child-care, maternity leave, family planning, etc.."

[Molly]

I wanted to take my husband's name for emotional reasons. I love him, I want his name. Other women of course should do what they feel comfortable with; for me, I just wanted the name because I like the tradition. Nothing more complicated than that. Also, I kept my maiden name as my middle name, so in essence I have both but not by using a hyphen.

[Mitchie]

Hi Judy,

I am new to Feminist Housewives and thought I would share my opinion. First of all, I completely understand your reason for wanting to take your husbands name and respect your opionion... I kept my last name mainly because it's part of my life history and me. I felt that if I lost it, I would loose part of myself. My heart is committed to my marriage and the wonderful best friend I married. I really didn't want to change it, but my husband was a little hurt that I didn't want to take on his last name. At least hyphenate. So, after a year and a half of marriage I finally hyphenated it and now everyone is happy! I still sign my name with my maiden name (not on legal docs.).... shush.. ha, ha. I am who I am. :-)

[Aphie]

I'm not married. I don't know if I ever will be. It's not something I feel is especially important to me. I used to want it for "stability" before I had children. But now that I'm pregnant I find myself more comfortable with identifying that desire as my own relationship insecurities, projected onto 'but what about the children'?
Marriage doesn't stop parents from going their separate ways. Or from staying together even if they're both miserable.

That said, my partner and I talk about the possibility of getting married at some point in the future. I don't know what we'd do about surnames if it came down to it.
We've pretty much decided that when Splodge is born s/he can have hir daddy's surname - my reasoning was that anyone who knew us would be in no doubt as to just who the mother was, but the father was a whole 'nother proposition, since babies don't come with a daddy-signature on their feet or bums, the way cabbage patch kids used to.
I also liked the getting away from the tradition of "bastard" children having their unwed mother's surnames as a sign of degradation. But it makes me sad to think about not having the same name as my children, especially as they get older and more independent. I like the symbolism of a family unit having the same last name.

[Marta Jespersen]

Aphie,
I appreciate where you're coming from. My mother actually wanted me to keep my maiden name but, I chose for traditional reasons to take my husbands name. My first born has my maiden name as his surname because he's the product of a teenage relationship and I didn't feel that it would be fair for either my son or his biological father to give him my husband's surname. My husband and I were together when Michal was born even though he's not his biological father; Shane (husband) was there at Michal's birth and even cut the umbilical chord. I wanted to leave it up to my son to choose his surname when he is old enough to decide. If he decides to keep my maiden name I'll be happy with that choice, if he wants to take on his step-dads name I'll be thrilled and if he wants to take on his fathers name I'll be happy with that too. It is a choice that he'll make when he's ready to! I don't feel that it signifies that he's a bastard son rather it shows that he has a right to choose and be independant when he's ready to be. As for my other son he has my husbands name because he's my husbands child and if he wants to change it when he's older to something else we'll support that decision too.

As for why I took my husband's name, it has always been my intention to do so. Ever since I was a little girl I knew that that was going to be my choice. Every crush I had I put his last name in place of my maiden name and it never sounded right until I found my hubby. Having been raised rather traditionally I can't really understand why you wouldn't want to be married but, hey that's just simple ignorance which can be corrected with learning and asking questions.

[Aphie]

I'm not sure if I can completely answer the marriage question for you Marta, since I'm not 100% sure in myself, but I'll try! :)
I think it's more that I have no burning desire to be married, rather than that I actively don't want to, if that makes sense?


I was a a drunken, teenage "oops".
I was brought up traditionally too - raised in the Catholic church by my mother. But I was unusual even then amongst my Catholic friends, because after only a few years of marriage my parents separated and eventually divorced when I was four or five years old, and started an acrimonious court battle over custody of my brother and I.

My maternal grandmother's been married three times and has four children of her own. Two of her marriages were to alcoholics who gave her bills and damages and jail bond to pay. Her third marriage is very happy. And my mother's current marriage to my stepfather seems it will go on forever, as does my father's marriage to my stepmother. So I know they CAN work. And that they don't always.

I used to think of marriage as a kind of surety for children; a husband won't leave me with his children because of legal entanglements whereas a boyfriend might. From the way he treats his friends, people who dislike him and ex-partners, I know my current partner wouldn't leave me and his children and refuse to have anything to do with them, use them as pawns in power-plays or mistreat me. No matter how much we personally disliked each other. He won't hear an ill-word spoken against a woman he slept with years ago and is more than polite if we run into her on the street. I trust he'd do at least that for the mother of his child.

Since I'm no longer Christian, it isn't religiously important to me that I marry. If it was to my partner, I'd probably do it, but he too doesn't particularly care. We've discussed the possibility, to make various family members happy, but whereas he proposes just popping down to the registration office so the various grandparents can breathe a sigh of relief at the license, I still can't comprehend bothering to do it without the big celebration and dressing up!

[Judy]

I have often heard of couples deciding all female children would have the mother's last name and male children would take on the father's last name. That could be an option for your family.

The whole "bastard" child/last name issue is so sad. I wish we lived in a society were it just didn't matter.

[Cathy]

Ok, well, my husband took my last name when we got married. The reasons were complicated. But first here are the answers to the questions you're asking:
1) Yes
2) No they're not
3) Yes they do

The questions:
1) Yes I have brothers
2) No, they're not gay nor are they priests (we grew up Roman Catholic)
3) Yes they do have children (and some are boys)

More questions? Here are more answers:
1) Yes
2) Very much so
3) One

Answers: 1) Yes his father did mind.
2) How much? Very much so.
3) Did he have brothers? Yes. One.

(Why these questions matter is worth discussion another day.)

Now, before anyone says I'm being snarky, I'm not. I've just been asked these many times in many iterations. Why they matter is beyond my ken, but apparently they must as the questions are somewhat universal.

So how? Well, we got engaged. We wanted a joint name that showed us as a family unit (and it's OK with us what anyone else chooses. This was how we chose). I disliked his (sounded like female body parts, sorta). His mother and father were divorced. His sisters were married with different last names. His brother unmarried. Somehow I would have become the last standing female member of the family with the last name. A name I didn't care for with family I didn't really consider my own.

My family name I loved. He loved it too. We made a choice and have never really looked back. (Of course we considered choosing another name out of thin air. I like Kennedy. He like Einstein.) The only time it really comes up is when people meet my father and I introduce him as Mr. XXX (my last name and my husband's now). I look just like my father. Quizzical looks go around. Synapses begin firing. Questions arrive with these answers:
1) Not that we know of.
2) No.
3) Yes.
4) Nope. Not any more.

1) Were you two brother and sister?
2) Did you happen to have the same last name?
3) Did your husband take your last name?
4) Do you ever think it's odd?

And as a side note: If I took his I'd just have to march into the DMV and pronounce myself hitched. For him to do the same, he had to file with the courts.

We've been hitched about 15 years now. And it's still going strong.

[Emily]

I took my husbands name when I got married. For me it was about creating a family unit. I am still me and my name does not change who I am. I wanted to make a signal to the world that we were together. I think it signaled me maturing into a women.

I know that arguments why should the women give it up and not the man.I am not defined by a label there are many parts. I was just happy that we have the same name now. Marriage is something that is very important to me and to shout it to the world with a new name make me happy.

This is the joy that feminism has made in the world I did not have to do this I chose to do this. My husbands asked me why because he knows that I was the last in my maiden family line name and he did not ask me to. It made him realise that women have choice and are stronger than he realised.