Personally, I would have called off my wedding if my wife had not agreed to take my name. It never came up though, she was eager to do it, she was tired of people mispelling hers.
I have a strong sense of tradition.
As far as others are concerned, whatever floats their boat.
And there I go misspelling misspell. Damn, I know better.
My wife kept her name. It confuses people. I like it! 
However, it did lead to one problem so far. When my son was born, the stupid asshole at the hospital couldn’t wrap thier tiny mind around the concept that a woman may have a different name than her husband, and subsequently, when the birth certificate was issued by the state, I was NOT ON IT! They “assumed” that we were not married, and legally (at least as far as the state was concerned) I had no real claim to my son. Within about 4 minutes of discovering this little error, I was kicking ass and taking names, right up to the Sec. of State’s office (I met him a few times and he recognized me when I got ahold of him) and had this corrected, official and priority. They had an official copy delivered to me pronto.
Enough of this off-topic raving…
Never kiss an animal who can lick it’s own butt.
On the off chance that I ever get married, I like the idea of everyone in the new family having the same family name, but really I don’t give a rat’s ass whether she changes hers or I change mine. Whichever sounds better, I guess…
Sometimes I think that people like that really do know that married couples can have different last names, but they are feigning ignorance in an effort to show their disapproval.
My husband’s old best friend from high school (and best man at our wedding) most assuredly does not approve of our naming decisions, and claims he “can’t remember” what my last name is, and that my husband’s name is now hyphenated. When my husband was in his wedding, he gave his groomsmen a gift of engraved Tiffany silver keyrings–my husband’s is engraved wrong. Any mail to us comes addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey Hislastname. He knows perfectly well what the deal is, but has to show that he doesn’t approve. It’s extremely irksome.
I think the main question here that Birdgirl has failed to answer was already mentioned by another poster (sorry, forget who) and it is this:
** Why is keeping your father’s last name any better than taking your husband’s?** At least you get to choose your husband; one could argue that, in fact, it’s more feminist to change your name to your husband’s than it is to sit by and keep the one that was handed to you at birth, without your choice in the matter.
Either way, most women’s maiden names are their father’s, so I don’t see what the big deal is with changing it to your husband’s. Or hell, why not just make up a name? That way each generation can be brand new, without any apparent relationship to any other previous generation, and we can all wave our feminist flags and say how proud we are that we have eradicated tradition from our lives.
Seriously. :rolleyes: The problem with rabid feminism, and accusations of misogyny, is that it ironically tends to deny women one of their choices…which is to do what they like, for whatever reasons they think are valid, even if that means following The Evil Traditions that make them happy. I really don’t care what other women do with their names, any more than I care whether a woman chooses to be a stay-at-home mom or go out and become a CEO.
It’s her choice, and her business.
When I was 12 years old I announced to my poor, horrified mother that I would not wear white on my wedding day. I thought it was ridiculous that women had to wear their “virginity” and men could show up in whatever color tux they pleased…humph! So I vowed to wear black…much to mom’s chagrin.
As I got older I learned that there are some grand feminist gestures worth making…and well, others are just going to seem silly. I wore a really beautiful lavender shift dress btw…not very traditional, but not black either…lol.
Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that just because the origin of a tradition is a little dodgy, it doesn’t mean that you have to embrace that meaning today. I took my husband’s name because it’s one syllable and soooo easy to spell! I love it! I’m not oppressed. I am very fortunate to live with a highly evolved male who treats me like an equal. We have a loving partnership. If and when we have kids we can pass on this wonderful, easy to spell last name to them…I think it’s great!
Oh, and Audrey Levins, thank you for saying exactly what I was feeling, but could not articulate very well!!
To you. Not to everyone. Don’t confuse your personal, idiosyncratic feelings and views with some kind of universal truth.
This is just bullshit. I’ve never ever understood this peculiar notion that the original ancient roots of a tradition somehow affect the followers of that tradition today. Dancing around the maypole isn’t dirty just because the maypole is a great big penis. If the expression “rule of thumb” actually had anything to do with wife beating, that would be no reason not to use the expression. And so on. Taking your husband’s name today has absolutely nothing to do with why that tradition was formed in the first place.
What if the tradition came from a matriarchal society in which women took the last name of their husbands to show how totally they owned him, even his name was theirs; would that make it somehow OK to take that name? Bullshit.
You’re doing a Uekte/Lekatt on us: I know what I know and nothing you can say can convince me otherwise! Lalalalalalala!
And nobody has said they don’t. You seem to have issues with this name-taking, and you should think about why this particular issue gets on your nerves so much. It really doesn’t matter, one way or the other.
For the record, if I ever marry Pricegal, we’ll ditch both our surnames and take a new one. The leading contender at the moment is Humlekott.
It sounds a lot cuter in Swedish.
I can understand why some women want to change their names for vaguely practical reasons and/or if they didn’t like their name to begin with.
What I don’t understand is how women in the 21st century can justify it because “it’s giving themselves to their husbands”, “it’s devotion”, and other such statements. Marriage in today’s post-feminist society should be a marriage of equals and I don’t understand how it can be that if one person is “giving themselves” and the other is just “taking”.
I think you’re reading an implication that isn’t necessarily there. Those women could well mean that both parties give themselves to each other; they never say their husband is taking. I don’t think they’re consciously saying “I have to show devotion to my husband, but he doesn’t have to show any to me”.
Then again, as I’ve said before, most people are idiots, so they could well mean precisely that…
If I ever marry, you better believe I’m changing my last name to my husband’s. Tradition? sure. Expression of love? ok. An guilty-free way to get rid of the last name I’ve been stuck with, and hated, my entire life? Bull’s Eye. My last name sucks. Even now people give me a hard time about it, this from supposedly mature adults older than me (30s+). Imagine school, then…if, as an adult, you still chringe when your name is said aloud during introductions, there’s psychological damage there. My brother hates it too, and wishes he could change it, but he doesn’t want to make our dad feel bad. If I get married I can “bow” to tradition and get rid of it.
Besides, what’s the big deal? I’d just be trading one man’s (dad’s) last name for another’s. I don’t see why having the last name of one man you care about is more important than having the last name of another you care about.
I’m assuming that the husbands of these women get to show their love/devotion/whatever in some way too, but if they aren’t showing that by giving up their name, they must be doing so in some other way, if that’s so, I don’t see why the women can’t do the same. The name-giving-up thing just implies that the woman gives herself and the man does stuff which I don’t like.
Obviously this doesn’t apply to women who want to change their name for other reasons, but only to those who try to justify it as an expression of “love”.
“Implies” being the operative word. That means it’s your interpretation.
My problem with this line of reasoning lies in the word “justify”. This is something pointless, irrelevant and voluntary. Why does anyone need to justify it?
Of course it’s my interpretation. I was putting this out there in the hope that someone who felt this way could tell me/show me how there’s another interpretation of “I’m changing my name to show him that I’m giving myself to him”.
No-one needs to justify this decision to me or anyone else, but I’d like to understand women who make this decision better and if they’re going to help me understand they’ve got to come up with decent justifications/reasons otherwise I won’t understand!
Fair enough, Sappho. I think you’re just setting yourself up for unnecessary distress by caring at all one way or the other, but that’s your biz.
Well, you might just as well say that you set yourself up for unnecessary distress every time you try to understand other people’s reasons for acting the way that they do.
Some decisions/people will inevitably interest you more than others, and this one interests me because I’m a woman and my education has largely been at liberal/feminist institutions. It probably doesn’t interest men anywhere near as much, which is understandable.
Possibly, but most of the time it’s useful. If I can understand why people rape or gaybash or start wars and stuff, maybe I can do something about it. This just seems… pointless.
But never mind, my comments should probably have been directed at birdgirl, who seems to have a serious problem with this.
Well, Mrs. Bricker did indeed take my last name, and sure enough, it was to express my complete and total dominion over her; my effective ownership of her and mastery of our house upon our marriage.
Heh. Um, I have to go now, and hope that that she never sees this.
I’m getting married in August, so I’ve been thinking, and reading, a lot about this issue. The usual things have all been said in this thread:
It’s a choice between her husband’s name, and her father’s name:
Her husband’s name is really just his his father’s name though, so why should he feel the need to keep it either? If the groom’s name not being really his seems absurd, doesn’t it seem equally silly to say that the name a woman has lived with for 20+ years isn’t hers?
If they hyphenate, won’t it just go on until people have 20 surnames:
Nope, because the kids and their spouses can make their own choices someday.
This will make things difficult for genealogists and historians:
Even the most committed hermit is going to leave some paper trail these days. With birth certificates, marriage licenses, phone books, credit reports, property deeds, social security numbers, tax returns, and all the other identity papers we all generate every day, genealogists and historians should have no problems tracking their 21st century ancestors.
Any woman that I married would blah blah…:
Okay, good, I’m delighted that you’re offering women such a simple litmus test to find out if a guy is worth dating or not.
My fiance and I decided to hyphenate. We both get to pass on names that we’re fond of, and we’re creating our own new family, connected to both of our original families.