In this day and age, why on earth do wives still take their husband's last name?

In My Humble Opinion
161

hedra, that was indeed lovely and all, but what does all the stuff about devoting your life (temporarily) to your kids have to do with the question at hand?

I agree about the fact that family has jack-all to do with names. My paternal grandfather was widowed twice and married a woman who was on her third marriage also. He died and a few years later she remarried, a man who was on his third marriage. Our family has always been a mixture of steps, halfs, steps once removed, and anything else you can think of. None of that has ever mattered, though. They’re just Grandma and Bob and my aunts and uncles and cousins. Hardly a one of us has the same last name, butwe’re family, with all the love and devotion for one another the word implies.

That’s why I never understood the whole hoo-ha about changing your name for a sense of family unity. It’s just never made sense to me, either on an intellectual or a visceral level. If you don’t have the spiritual and emotional ties that make true family unity, your marriage is hosed no matter what your name is. Likewise, it you have the spiritual and emotional ties, why does it matter that you have the same name? You’re still a unified family.

I realize that a lot of people have a very different visceral reaction, and I respect that. It’s their name and no one’s business but their’s. If they choose to change their names, I will make an effort to remember and to always use the new ones, and I will never comment on the choice one way or another.

As far as giving things up when you marry and create a family, I’m not real sure I buy that. Not with the truly important stuff, anyway. It’s not about giving things up, it’s more about working together to accommodate what’s important to each other. It’s not about asking permission to come out and play, it’s about saying, “I’d rather not go, but you have a good time and we’ll be together later.” Likewise, it’s not about saying “I don’t like having dogs in the house, get her out of here,” it’s about trying to keep the dog from being too big a pest and keeping the hair cleaned up as well as you can.

My husband would never ask me to give up anything that was truly important to me, nor would I ask him to do so. We each have priorities that aren’t so important to the other, and we work to make sure that neither of us feel pressured to give up those priorities. It’s damn hard work sometimes, but it’s worth it, to us at least, to be able to say “Hey babe, I’m going to (fill in concert, dog park, fundraiser, friend the other doesn’t want to spend time with). See you later.”

162

CCL,

The kids commentary was 1) in reference to the concept of ‘family’ - looking at it from one direction is not the same as looking at it from the other. It wasn’t directed at the OP, but at the comments following on from the OP. and also, 2) in reference to the concept of women ‘losing their identity’ as a negative process - look from the outside, and devoting your life to your kids is exactly the same, symptomatically, as devoting yourself to your partner, and as losing your self in the process of over-devotion. I was illustrating the point.

Apparently I over-illustrated, and made it harder to register the point in question. I didn’t have time to do three edits, so you get what came out my fingertips after the second edit.

As for ‘giving up’ stuff, again, that is a matter of from which direction do you see it? I was speaking from the perspective of someone who has not been there. I didn’t think it would make intuitive sense to anyone outside marriage to just say “the things you see as being ‘lost/gone/given up’ in those other women are not gone, you just think they are”… They most assuredly appear to be gone. So does that make it seem like we’re lying to ourselves when we say they are not? Too hard to grasp the difference from the other side, so I wrote it from that perspective. In addition, I used quotation marks fairly extensively to imply that the ‘loss’ isn’t an actual loss. Sorry that was lost. :sigh:

Also regarding giving things up - if you haven’t, that’s great. Nice to have such an easy life. Most people I know have at least changed priorities with marriage, and the issue of names is just one of them. Personally, my priorities have changed, so things that were once important have different value. And things that still have value are still there. But the trappings, again, differ. Before, I didn’t check about going out (because it wasn’t relevant to his plans), and time was far more available. Now, my time has fewer available slots, and more things to fill. I go out with friends, but must plan for babysitting and other schedules, and before kids, had to at least let him know that he wasn’t going to be spending that particular evening with me.

I haven’t lost myself, anywhere. Who I am is different, though. Growth, I think we call it. :wink: You’re lucky if you didn’t have so far to go that marriage changed your patterns substantially, but I did. So, frankly, do many women who marry young, and some who marry at greater maturity. Some of them aren’t losing their identity so much as forming a new one, sometimes more abruptly than they otherwise would have. It happens to have a spousal relationship in the format, in this case. Name change may or may not be applied.

My best friend, whose marriage I viewed with dismay at the time, had the same changes of priority, that resulted in changes of behavior that appeared to imply a loss of self, because she wasn’t spending so much time with me, doing things I knew she enjoyed… or used to enjoy more than time with her husband. She protested that he didn’t object to us going out, and yet, she always checked schedules with him, and seemed to more often decide not to go, with regrets at times (more regrets that she couldn’t have it both ways, than regrets over any changes in priorities). I perceived this as a loss of self on her part. I no longer view it as such.

Do I give things up, submerge and sacrifice? Damn straight I do. But I do so for things that I have given higher value. The vast majority of the time, the things I ‘give up’ are really low priorities for me at that time, in that situation, regardless of whether they were once high priorities for me. But not always. Life isn’t always that tidy, at least not for me. It was a sacrifice to reduce my writing time in order for my husband to complete his degree. It was also the higher value to have him pursue his dream and passion, and become an architect. I gave up a lot for that, but not for good-and-ever (I still wrote, just not as often nor as long). And I gained a lot more, much of it having to do with his growth and development, and our partnership’s development. Just as I gave up a lot when I pursued my own Master’s degree, because the outcome was something of value. He, too, sacrificed things he’d rather do, have, etc., for the sake of my degree, and does so for the sake of my writing. Still, overall, for most daily life, anything that appears to have been ‘lost’ was no longer as important as it had been in the past. Things are let go, not with a fight, but without a backwards glance.

Bringing this back to the OP…

The concept of ‘women giving up her name’ as an indicator of a loss of self, identity, etc., and a subjugation to the patterns of a patriarchal system seemed a lot more relevant before I was actually in a position to choose for myself. Much of what I thought was a reflection of ingrained cultural patterns have far more concrete foundations, and if cultural habit has a role, still, who cares? As long as women feel free to assess the value and implications for themselves, and do not feel overburdened by the choice, then we’re free. I see from other posts that some women do indeed get pressured to change their name, and that, IMHO, is sucky, and should be fought. But just because someone changes her name, does not mean she is necessarily responding to overt or covert pressures to do so. On that, I think, we are agreed.

Again, the question in the OP has been answered. This is IMHO, and IMHOs have abounded about why women have and continue to change or not change their names, regardless of cultural imperatives. Quite reasonable ones, too. But that’s IMHO.

163

Oh, and BTW, my friend still went dancing with me, because it was important to her, and her husband respected that. Heck, he learned to dance, so he could join her when he felt like it. It was exactly what you are talking about with your marriage - some things she just said ‘see you later’ and he said ‘have fun’… and some things just were not that important to her anymore.

164

Go hedra!

Oh, and genie, that’s one of my all time favorite quotes. I LOVE Rebecca West.

165

No, not personally maybe, but you certainly did attack women like me at large by saying that we are too stupid to know our own minds and that we’re just a bunch of brainwashed ninnies with no more sense of personal freedom than a woman who must cover from head to foot or be imprisoned.

And the question you asked in the OP was NOT “Why did women start taking their husbands names,” it was “Why do women STILL do it in this enlightened age?” To call the answers that you got “lame” and say “let’s dig a little deeper as to why this is tradition” is to backwater and change the original intent (as we understood it) of the OP.

Get it through your head!! Some of us out there really, really, REALLY wanted to take our husbands’ names and not because we are oppressed or brainwashed or just plain “retarded.” And I really don’t know why you give a damn as long as I’m happy! It was my choice–isn’t that what enlightenment is all about? The fact is, you don’t like it, so you think that none of the rest of us should have the choice to do it. Well, all I can say about that is–TOUGH TITTY!!!

166

Damn there’s a lot of stuff here, and I don’t have time to read any of it, probably until tomorrow! But I want y’all to know I will take the time to read it ASAP, and then respond, if need be.