I’m no feminist, and I’m of mixed minds about the concept of marriage in general, but if I did get married I would have no problem taking my wife’s last name (assuming it was an euphonic one). I don’t much like my last name and I don’t feel particularly attached to the culture it’s from, so I don’t have a strong reason to keep it.
I have a vague memory once that I read about a culture where when a man and woman got married, they would both keep the surname of the one who had higher social status (whether that was the man or woman). I forget what culture that was or even if I’m remembering accurately- does anyone know?
142 responses? Come on, let’s just say that there is likely to be further problems if these two people can’t work this out BEFORE getting married. Talk it over and show some respect for the other’s POVs. And appealing to the opinions of Dopers is not necessarily a constructive/helpful move.
Can’t come to a compromise? Don’t get married. Seriously. You’re simply asking for more problems.
Personally, I’ve been married three times. One wife kept her her last name, one enthusiastically took mine, the last one decided to take mine, but only after some thought and open discussion. Didn’t make a bit of difference to me in any of these cases. Real property, inheritance rights of existing children, where we would live, division of responsibilities, and other issues were the real issues we had to deal with.
BTW, “questioning my committment (sic)” suggests that he doesn’t think you’re serious, rather than simply questioning your reasons for wanting to keep your name. This is normally a very bad thing. It goes beyond the simple arguments of pro or con and on to the idea of who can dominate the other in a test of wills. Very, very bad for a marriage to start on these grounds. Very bad.
Er, what? All my points have to do with changing one’s name, either upon marriage or otherwise, based on the perceived difficulty of spelling or pronouncing that name. It seems odd to me that the argument is often made that a woman with an unusual name should change her name when she gets married. However, men with unusual names are never (or extremely rarely) encouraged to do the same. If the only issue is the unusual nature of the name, why should a woman need marriage as an excuse to change her name? It is just as easy (or just as difficult, depending on one’s perspective) to change one’s name for personal preference reasons as it is to do so upon marriage.
Pretty much no one in this thread is saying that anyone should do anything. Some women (and some men) in this thread decided on their own to change their name at least partially because they liked the other one better for whatever reason.
In fact it is not just as easy to go through a name change when it is not part of getting married. In California, you just check a box on the form that you’re filling out anyway and hand it to the clerk. If you want to change it without it being part of a marriage, it’s a pain in the ass and you have to go through a totally different procedure.
It’s not just as easy. And no one said women with difficult names should change their names, just that sometimes women with difficult names choose to. I went from a difficult German name that people struggled to pronounce or spell to a really simple name. Upon my second marriage, I kept the name from my first marriage because it was a simple name.
It dates way back to when women were considered chattel, much like cows and other possessions. Then it just became tradition, which a lot of folks are now discarding.
It’s not a ‘story’ - don’t imply I’m lying. Yes maybe racism and sexism were intertwined at that junction. But what would you have done in my position? Oh wait, you can’t answer validly because you haven’t been in my position. It was the only condition of marriage I made. I haven’t made any since. She is and always has been free to do what she wants.
I did not imply you were lying. I told my story upthread. We tell our stories to give people a different perspective on an issue that they may not have seen otherwise. That is opening up our stories to other people asking themselves what they would have done in our position.
Now I can’t find a specific phrase to quote without more time than I am willing to spend searching, but I’m sure it has been mentioned at least once upthread that a reason for a woman (or a man for that matter) to change to the spouse’s surname is to avoid the problems you’d face with different last names.
The plural of anecdote isn’t data, etc. etc. - but I have been married for 35 years and have never, ever run into any difficulty because my husband and I have different last names. Moreover, we really bucked tradition and gave our son MY last name.
I have always been prepared for trouble - anytime I’m doing any extremely bureaucratic task that relates to both me and my husband, I keep a copy of our marriage certificate with me. When my son was under 18, my husband and I prepared notarized letters giving each of us the other parent’s permission to travel alone with him (actually this is a good idea regardless of the surname issue), and I kept a copy of his birth registration handy to prove his dad was really his dad.
But, for all the complicated stuff we’ve done in our lives (tons of international travel, for one thing), our differing last names have never been an issue. I did have to produce the letter showing my husband agreed to my traveling along with our son once, but that was entering Mexico from the US and had nothing to do with names.
The worst that has ever happened is that I assume there are people out there who assume our son is mine from a previous relationship and that my husband is a stepdad. But who cares if people are under that misapprehension?
So, I’m living proof that the surname-on-marriage decision can most likely be safely made without worrying about added difficulty over different last names.
My first wife was Japanese and I fail to see to see how her not taking my last name somehow turned me into a meek gaijin or not really married.
The wives of most of my friends kept their maiden names and only a few took their husbands’. It’s quite a pain in ass for a Japanese to have a foreign last name as it requires a long explanation every time it’s used.
My second marriage is to a Taiwanese lady and like ChinaGuy, we were married in Japan. There are a couple of differences, though.
My legal Chinese surname is based on my English middle name and isn’t shared with my wife. Our kids have two separate names, one in English which is valid in the US and Japan, and their Taiwanese (Chinese) names which are valid in Taiwan.
I am not arguing that you haven’t made appropriate choices for you and your son regarding names, but the bolded parts in your post sure look like difficulties to me. You seem to be prepared, but it seems disingenuous to say there are no difficulties or inconveniences.
When I went to apply for foodstamps during a recent journey through poverty the only documentation of marriage accepted was a marriage license. Having the same name or not, having a ring or not - didn’t matter, the only thing that counted was a marriage license.
So… yeah, a lot of more traditional folks have to have the same documentation. The difference is that **CarioCarol **was prepared in advance.
There were people who assumed I was my late spouse’s caretaker because who would marry someone disabled, right? People make stupid assumptions all the time.
I’m going to bet that 50 years ago spouses not sharing last names caused some bureaucratic problems and even more tongue-clucking by the busybodies. In 2017 we’re past that crap in most of non-smalltown USA. But folks repeat the conventional wisdom because their parents repeated it to them. Maybe it’s past time to quit repeating this one bit of obsolete info.
As to Orwell’s concerns …
Anyone who travels extensively, especially overseas, is well aware that they’re often dealing with officialdom far from home and across a cultural and language barrier. In that case a gram of prevention is worth a tonne of cure. With all the hoopla about child sex-trafficking and estranged parents taking children from one another, anyone who travels with kids without spouse and without paperwork is running the risk of getting stopped and questioned.
All the more so if the kids aren’t the same ethnicity as the parent. Whether that’s a Caucasian parent with an adopted, say, ethnic-Korean child or somebody with their bio-child of a mixed race marriage there’s even more opportunity for concern and confusion.
We in the travel industry are charged by law to examine every instance of people (not just children) traveling together actively looking for signs of child trafficking, slave smuggling, etc. And to report all suspicions, no matter how slight, to the local authorities. TSA, ICE, and ordinary airport police have similar orders. As does everybody working at a hospital or clinic.
If you travel commercially with your child without some documentation that he/she really is your child you’re actively seeking problems. Different surnames have zero to do with it.
Except that many of those situations are no different even if the parents and child all have the same surname.
This is not really a surname issue, as many countries require proof of the other parent’s permission when a child travels with one parent regardless of surnames. Just because they all have the same surname doesn’t mean there hasn’t been a divorce/custody issues.
On the rare occasions when I have had to prove I was my children’s mother, it had nothing to do with surnames. It had to do with proving I was their mother and I would have had to show the proof even if we had the same surname - after all, my employer-provided insurance doesn’t want to cover my nephew simply because he has the same surname as me. Most of the time, when a birth certificate is needed, it’s to prove the kid’s age/birthdate, not parentage.
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The worst that has ever happened is that I assume there are people out there who assume our son is mine from a previous relationship and that my husband is a stepdad. But who cares if people are under that misapprehension?
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She assumes there are people who have made this assumption - which means she hasn’t faced any difficulties because of it ( otherwise, she wouldn’t be assuming, she would know). So what ? People make incorrect assumptions all the time- they assume my children are adopted because they are biracial. I’ve known people who had to deal with assumptions that their kids were their grandchildren and others who had to deal with people assuming their grandchildren were their children.
What CairoCarol was originally talking about was the idea that avoiding inconveniences was a good reason for everyone to have the same surname. But when people say that, they are ignoring the inconveniences that come along with changing names. Which have nothing to do with marriage but everything to do with changing your name. Changing your name is an inconvenience no matter what the reason is ( marriage, divorce or just a legal name change)