There’s been some buzz (and some headdesking) in the blogosphere re: this study, presented at the American Sociological Association’s annual meeting, showing that 70% of Americans think women should take their husband’s last names when they get married, and 50% think it should be a legal requirement. Apparently, the survey was nationally representative.
There is plenty to say about this survey itself, but I want to address some things I’ve read in the coverage of this story. I’ve read a bunch of comments, on various blogs, from women who don’t know how to deal with the pressure they’re getting from their boyfriends or fiancés, peers, and/or families.
Even women my age (27) face not only the expectation that they will take their husbands’ names, but serious pressure. I don’t know if this pressure is one of the last cries of social conservatism as it dies out, but I hope that’s the case. It’s troubling either way, and I’m sure it’s scary to deal with personally. So I thought I’d list rebuttals to some common “arguments” in favor of name-changing. There is no argument for this tradition (woman taking man’s name) that is not sexist. The protests you’ll hear after you poke holes in the reasoning is proof of that.
My first instinct is to say “run” to any woman whose guy insists that she name herself after him. But that’s probably not going to happen. So what about:
Family unity requires all family members to have the same last name.
Is this a response to the high divorce rate or something? Marital stability does not come from both parties sharing a surname. The parent-child bond is not disrupted if there is more than one surname between them. If it’s important to someone that a family be designated like a sports team, then the husband can always take the wife’s name. The couple can also choose a new name or they can both hyphenate their names.
Taking the man’s name is a sign of love / commitment / respect.
This claim is especially jarring because it is so blatantly sexist. By this “logic,” the vast majority of married men don’t love or respect and aren’t committed to their wives. Why is the onus on the woman to show alleged “respect” or “commitment” in a way that he is not expected to? But it’s not about logic at all; it’s about the belief that women respect and love men by subsuming themselves to them.
It’s just a name! Why is it that important to keep yours?
If it were just a name, men (and their families, and friends, and your family and friends…) would not have a problem with women who are unwilling to change theirs. If it were just a name, men would give up their own names and assume their wives’. If it were just a name, why bother with any of this name changing business at all? It’s not “just a name,” to those who fight patriarchy or those who parrot the party line.
Then there’s the one I’ve heard from feminists and patriarchy promoters alike:
A woman’s name is just her dad’s name, so either way she’s going to have a man’s name.
Baby girls and baby boys are typically given their fathers’ names at birth. Does the name just not stick to the girl the way it sticks to the boy? It just floats over her head, waiting to be swapped out?
If a woman’s surname belongs to her father, then a man’s name must belong to his father. In which case, not changing one’s name upon marriage is no different from a man’s not changing his name upon marriage. Women’s names are “theirs” just as much as men’s are theirs. The practice of giving children their fathers’ surnames is a patriarchal one. It’s one worth challenging and changing. Using it as an excuse, or a tool to pressure women is lazy, and it’s sexist.
I’m sure there are others. People come up with some twisted reasoning in their attempts to preserve antiquated, unnecessary traditions. Fight back!
Like I said in another comment thread on this topic, you can have my last name when you pry it from my cold, dead…whatever. Fortunately for me, I live in a place–New York City–where there’s less pressure for women to change their names, especially compared to Virginia, where I grew up.
One comment about the whole “family unity” argument. My parents divorced when I was 5 and although my mother remarried when I was 7, she chose to continue using my father’s name rather than taking my stepfather’s name. She felt it was important that in the midst of all the family-blending, that she and I have the same last name. That way our new family would not have three people (my stepdad, stepsister and her) with one surname and leave me the odd girl out with another, especially as my stepfather’s last name is clearly of a different ethnicity than my own. As a child, I was glad she made that decision, even though I know she has always gotten a lot of raised eyebrows about it.
They were talking about this on the radio on my drive to work this morning. The DJ (who admitted, at least, that he was being ridiculous) thought that women in their 20s should take the man’s name, but that women in their 40s, or women who were getting married for a second time, should keep their own name. Ugh.
Most of my friends plan on taking their significant other’s name. They even act as if there isn’t another option. When I mention that they don’t have to take his name, I get eye-rolling and sighing. I’m single. I obviously can’t understand their position.
The idea that a name change should be legislated is frightening, to say the least. I wish I could say that more of the people I know don’t agree with it.
In many European countries, everyone keeps their own last names and combines part of each parent’s last names for the children’s names. Among Americans, I know a man who took his wife’s name and another couple who combined their last names to make a new one that they share. Everyone’s still doing fine, so I don’t know what the big deal is. I think this is where academia has its own bubble: people would be stunned if I changed my name and tell me that I was effectively erasing years of work from my record. I can’t believe your peers would expect that of you.
Maybe you just need to come over here and sit by me….
I read this articles linked from Feministing yesterday – with my jaw hanging toward the ground. I was married last year and never even considered taking my husband’s last name – for several reasons.
1. His last name is Smith – my last name is very unique. I will put up with spelling my last name for people and dealing with mispronunciations to preserve my uniqueness!
2. I’m a published scientist and would prefer not to dissociate myself with my professional identity (even though my mother-in-law suggested – for simplicity sake- that I change my last name, but leave it as my maiden name professionally, because what would be simpler than that??)
3. Its MY NAME – its me, its my identity. Why in the world would I want to change my name?
4. I didn’t have any argument from my husband. He realizes that his last name is completely generic and never ONCE pressured me or even suggested that I change my name.
I find this fascinating and will look forward to reading others’ comments!
Between my in-laws and my parents, there are 4 different last names (and both my in-laws and my parents have each been married for 30+ years). My mother-in-law still has her first husband’s last name and my mother never changed hers.
I occasionally wish that my husband and I had the same last name, mostly when the clerk at the rental car counter doesn’t believe that we’re married because we have different last names and give us the 2nd driver free. (My mother carries her marriage license with her when she and my dad travel internationally for precisely this reason).
@DangerMouse: Yes, I always thought that the Spanish naming convention–used throughout the Spanish-speaking world–works great. Wish we could do it here.
(For example: the writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez–his father’s surname was Garcia, his mother’s surname was Marquez. His wife’s name is Mercedes Barcha de Garcia–the “de” always comes before a woman’s married name–and their son is Rodrigo Garcia Barcha. Everyone’s family gets represented and the wife keeps her own name while adding her husband’s.)
Not everyone has their father’s last names. I have both my mother’s and my father’s last name.
Boys, how about you name your golf clubs and cars and leave human beings alone?
When we got married (going on 26 years ago), my husband-to-be wanted me to keep my name. Our names are similar-sounding, both Ashkenazi Jewish ones. I did keep my name, mostly because at that time I had a credit history and he didn’t. But over the years, I’ve adopted his name semi-legally. It just got silly with the two names sounding so similar-even the rabbi at our wedding got them confused. Hyphenating was out of the question.
That is why I said “typically,” RMJ, which is true.
Fortunately for me, I live in a place–New York City–where there’s less pressure for women to change their names,
My friend got married in NYC and had a HELL of a time “convincing” the nice folks where she was applying for the marriage license that she, in fact, wanted to keep her name. They kept trying to fill in the NEW SURNAME line for her. When she said that she was keeping her name, the woman snorted and yelled that to another worker, then turned and said “You’ll be back.”
ANYWAY. Other things I’ve heard:
- it’s nicer when you’re traveling as a family. You can check-in together
- how will his family feel if you don’t take his name?
BLECH. The thing that has surprised me is how many of my friends who DID keep their name have given their kids … their husband’s last name. Some people have said that was some kind of bargain they struck at marriage, like she can keep her name as long as the kids get his name. Patriarchy FTW!
@maisnon: Really? I’ve never heard of anything like that happening at the clerk’s office. Nearly all of my female friends here have kept their own names with no hassle.
Maisnon, I know! How is that a bargain or compromise? “Keeping” one’s surname is viewed as some victory over the man. That the man will “keep” his name is just a given – no questions asked, no pressure to drop it or modify it. Men are not sacrificing anything by “letting” their wives keep their names. What, exactly, are they giving up as part of this bargain? Oh right, their fragile “masculinity.”
Sorry ’bout all the scare quotes.
When I got my marriage license there was a line for the last name you wanted to use after your wedding and I wrote in my current last name. The clerk definitely raised an eyebrow and said, “Are you sure you meant to do that?” I said yes, and that was that.
maisnon, the whole keeping your name but giving your children the father’s name has always been a bit off-putting for me too. That said, my husband is a 4th and informed me after we’d been dating for about a month that his first son was going to be the 5th and that, no, this was not open for negotiation. (It’s a deep sentimental attachment to his name–the southern part of the family named a son after a famous northern relative as a gesture of reconciliation after the Civil War.)
I guess I was always planning to keep my name because my mother did, but us kids all had my dad’s name, so I assumed my kids would have their dad’s name too? Just a different kind of tradition.
@BeckySharper For sures. I do wonder if some of the attitude she got at the clerk’s office was bc of race. (She’s Indian, as am I.) i.e. some assumption that being more “traditional”, women don’t keep their names, or some such.
@FashionablyEvil: Yeah, I’m fine with my kids having their dad’s last name if we’re married. They have to have someone’s last name, and while I’d rather they have both–like I mentioned above in the thread about the Spanish naming model–I find hypenated names cumbersome and affected. They they can have mine as a middle name and if they want to use all three, fine.
I totally get where you are all coming from, but I have to say in protest that not every instance where a woman takes her husband’s name is evidence of caving into the patriarchy. Clearly I am completely in the minority here, but I decided to take my husband’s name, over his initial protests (he was raised by a very strong mother who taught him early on how to be a feminist). It actually boils down to me wanting to establish an identity separate from my family, one with my husband and the life we’ve chosen together. I love my family and all, but my father is a prominent member of our community who is well known around these parts and we have a fairly unique last name. I used to not be able to really go anywhere or do much of anything without people asking if I was his daughter. So when the opportunity presented itself to take my husband’s uber-generic name (it’s not Smith, but it’s still in the top 10 most common US surnames list), I grabbed it.
Husband really questioned my sanity for a bit when I told him that, although once I explained my reasons, he offered to get creative with the whoel business. So for while we tried coming up with a new hybrid name, or even taking a completely new name altogether, but couldn’t really settle on anything (it’s especially hard when you’ve got uber-generic name already waiting in the wings). So in the end, I think I just got lazy and took the traditional route as the path of least resistance. And I repeat, it was completely my choice, one in which my husband not only had no say, but frankly fought for a bit.
Just a little reminder that it isn’t always fair to judge other people’s choices without knowing the full context.
My mom never changed her name. “Family unity” was never in question growing up. (My parents have been happily married for almost 35 years.) My surname (my dad’s, fwiw) isn’t particularly aesthetically pleasing, I haven’t built a career on it, but I felt NO inclination to change it when I got married. It’s my name. There’s nothing difficult about “keeping” it.
I’m a bit (ha) judgmental on this issue. Maybe I’d be less so if women who chose to change their names would just admit that they’re submitting to a patriarchal tradition. Like, yeah, it’s sexist bullshit, but it made sense for me for xyz reasons. Hey, I compromise all the time, I get it. I’ll probably fold on giving future children their father’s last name instead of mine. But I’m not going to make up excuses for it.
I am so with you, Spark. It’s a survival strategy.
I agree, too, Spark. I choose my battles with the Patriarchy. I’ll fight tooth and nail to keep my own name, but I can live with my children having their father’s name.
My first instinct is to say “run” to any woman whose guy insists that she name herself after him.
Although some men can be educated on this issue. My SO at first was slightly offended, but when I asked him to think about what changing the name meant, both from a historical perspective and from a social expectation of a woman’s place in marriage perspective, he got it. It is one of the things I love about him…when he’s wrong he’s happy that someone points it out to him.
Our working arrangement is that we each legal kept our names but we don’t really correct people when they call us Ms. Hislastname or Mr. Mylastname. Both of which happen pretty frequently.
SarahMC, I’m glad you brought up:
“A woman’s name is just her dad’s name, so either way she’s going to have a man’s name.”
Someone on another thread somewhere said that if you really didn’t want to have the chattel association with the name change, then you better go through history to find your maternal side’s original name. Yeah. Right. I’ll get right on that.
To those that say, “But his family will get offended!” So? Fuck them, it’s your wedding, your life and your marriage!
A friend of mine got married and changed her name to his but kept her last name as her middle. So, and I quote, she “wouldn’t drop off the face of the earth”. Think about that. If you were worried about dropping off the face of the earth KEEP YOUR NAME, WOMAN. Shit. How hard is it.
Spark: Maybe I’d be less so if women who chose to change their names would just admit that they’re submitting to a patriarchal tradition.
It would be refreshing to hear a woman say “I changed my name to appease his family and because it’s traditional and I didn’t want to seem too independent and feminist, because that’s ugly and threatening.” Or something to that effect.
Instead, it’s shit like: “my name was boring anyway” “my name is too interesting” “my name is too ethnic” “it’s my father’s name anyway” “Names aren’t important. But remember to call me Sue, not Suzy” “I want to distance myself from my dysfunctional/abusive family” – (but it only became important to do that after I was married). “I’ve always hated my last name” – (so of course it makes sense to wait until marriage to change something you really, really loathe)” “It will be confusing for the children” – (How will they ever possibly understand why their mother and father have two different names? Since these hypothetical children will remain toddlers all their lives, the concept of two different surnames will forever be beyond their scope of understanding.)
Very few men have names that are too boring, too ethnic, too common, too hard to spell or pronounce, bad relationships with their bio fathers, or great relationships with their in-laws. It sounds impossible, but it’s true. It’s just some crazy statistical oddity.
Every time a woman decides to change her name upon marriage it’s an individual choice. Decided in a cultural vacuum. And by some wild statistical occurrence, it’s a choice that’s made mainly by women.
But names are meaningless anyone, so what does it matter? No one ever gets upset when someone repeatedly mispronounces their first or last name, young men don’t make a big deal out of stopping the use of diminutives like “Danny” or “Jimmy” when the get older and want something less cutesy, women named Elizabeth never voice a preference for “Beth” or “Liz” or “Elizabeth”, and immigrants to the U.S. have never Americanized their name to disguise their ethnic identity and avoid prejudice.
So what’s the big deal, girls? Give up your name. It’s your dad’s anyway, not yours. Only men have real, actual, unchangeable birth names that belong to them.
And if you really love a man, and don’t want to metaphorically castrate him, show your love by kowtowing to a tradition that clearly shows the world that he’s the head of the household. You don’t want the other boys to make fun of him, do you?
A legal requirement to change your name would be just one more reason – in the long list of very compelling reasons – not to get married. My partner and I are not married, my stepdaughter has his last name, our daughter has a hyphenated last name, and we seem to be a pretty cohesive group in spite of all the name chaos.
@Rachel: Agreed. Make name changing mandatory and I will not be getting married.
Men are forced to change their names (for a number) when they go to prison….Women are forced to change their names (for their husband’s) when they go to prison
and yeah, I kept my name, despite pressure (from my MOM! arrrrg)
and I do feel secretly contemptuous of my friends and relations that don’t
@rodriguez: Do you think of marriage as a prison?
@BeckySharper hehe no marriage is not a prison for me, I married the best guy in the world
It’s an illustration obvs. For my gran, yeah it was
Everything dgct said, 100 times over!
Does anyone have experience with having different last names from siblings? I’d like to name the kids Sparklet1 mylastname hislastname and Sparklet2 hislastname mylastname. I’ve been told that’s tacky and confusing and destructive to family unity (that thing again). Bog forbid they’re mistaken for step-siblings.
Kristen, some guys can definitely be reasoned with. What I mean by “insist” is “…after being educated.”
I think the family unity argument is pure bullshit
I went to my son’s parent-teacher conference. Teacher: little Rod is so well adjusted considering…
Me: Considering what?
Teacher: Considering your divorce
Me: I’m not divorced from little Rod’s dad
@Spark: That’s not tacky or destructive to family unity. Family unity is about SO MUCH more than names.
But would definitely be confusing to a lot of people and cause bureaucratic headaches, since it will probably be intepreted as the children having different fathers. I have a friend who did this–daughters got mother’s name, son got father’s name–and that was definitely her experience. I think she often regretted doing it simply because she and her kids had to spend so much time and energy explaining it.
@dgct: I presume you’re joking. I hope you’re joking. In the unfortunate case that you’re not, I’ll just say this: the person who owns the word owns the power. Names are words and words create reality. So yeah, this can be a very big deal.
Having said that, to the rest of the posters who seem attached to reality, I’ll just say that this is an issue only to the extent that the individual perceives it to be. For me it was not important; to others, it’s very important. I respect those who fall into the latter category. As for me, I know that at least one of my family names was changed at Ellis Island, so the whole thing doesn’t amount to much. But the wearer of the name should have the ultimate power to decide what that name is.
Spark, I think that probably would cause a headache, because of the opposite hyphens.
If I married and had kids with the boyf I’d like to give all the kids mylastname hislastname. I realize most people would probably just drop mylastname from the equation, but it’s only one syllable and his is three so it flows nicely that way.
I find the suggestion to name boy kids after him and girl kids after her dubious. What if all the kids are one sex? And how convenient that the woman’s last name is given to the girls – who are much more likely to face pressure to drop their surnames if/when they get married. I also just don’t like treating all the boys one way and all the girls another.
I considered giving my kids my last name as a middle name, but I didn’t because it would clash with Spanish language naming traditions that BeckySharper mentioned above.
Since then I have come to regret that choice. They both have throw-away middle names no one uses. Why shouldn’t their name reflect a piece of me? And why shouldn’t I be the one to take on tradition?
and I am with mischiefmanager here: he person who owns the word owns the power. Names are words and words create reality
Yesterday I blew off correcting someone who called me by my husband’s name, FamousBeer.
Yeah it was small thing, but yeah, I missed a chance to change the world in a small way
@Rodriguez: It sucks that most American bureaucratic/social situations can’t handle the Hispanic tradition–many of my Latino friends finally dropped their mother’s names after years of frustration explaining that their legal family name was actually the second, and not the third name.
Also, I kind of hope you told that teacher to go fuck herself.
Extreme sarcasm, mischiefmanager.
Actually, I wouldn’t hyphenate, but give our surnames as middle and last names (reversed for each kid). I don’t remember bureaucratic headaches stemming from my mom having a different last name (I’ll have to ask her), so I don’t see why it would be more bureaucratically troublesome for siblings, or for just one child having a different name.
All the women I know offline who are married have changed their names. Most of them are on facebook as Firstname Hername Hisname, so I can still figure out who they are if I haven’t heard from them in years, but they use his name on a day to day basis.
The except to this is my cousin, who kept her own name when she got married. She and her husband have a son and a daughter, and they gave the son his father’s last name and the girl her mother’s last name. They each have the other parent’s name as a middle name. It’s not perfect, but I like that as a compromise.
The title of this post reminds me of my very sincere childhood belief that marriage was an exchange wherein a woman received a shiny ring, and in return the man got to be the one to use his name for the whole family. I told my parents of this belief and they laughed and said “that’s about the size of it.” Their funny-to-adults answer left me confused for quite some time.
I’m very glad my boyfriend has been not only open to the idea of, but actually pushed me toward keeping my own name. I have decided to take his name–and just as I think women who choose to keep their name shouldn’t have to defend their decision, I shouldn’t have to defend mine–but it’s important to me that he respects that it is MY choice, and that he doesn’t see it as an affront to him or his manhood if I chose not to take his name. Because if that were the case, I wouldn’t be marrying him.
No.
I will not take it in a train.
I will not take it in the rain.
I like the last name that I am.
I will keep it, it’s who I am.
P.S. I also believe in pre-nups.
The “it’s just a name” argument pisses me off so much! My name is NOT just a name; it’s a symbolic representation of me. I think that people who downplay the significance are being obtuse, in our history the power to name things has always meant the power to control them, since like the Adam and stuff. So, if we allow a man the power to insist (or coerce or cajole)a woman into changing the symbolic representation of herself into something that includes a hattip him, how can that be anything but wrong.
My husband and I had several lengthy discussions about name changing – not about my changing my name, but about him changing HIS name. I told him that I wanted my family to have a single last name, but that I didn’t want to change my name. I also told him that I recognized the hypocrisy of that statement, so would concede that we each keep our own names, provided any children we had would take my last name.
I’m due with our first child in about 3 weeks, and it will have my last name. It was our compromise. He’s gotten a ration of shit from his “friends” about this, but has joyfully remained steadfast.
That being said – I am AMAZED at the number of women I know, who married in their 30′s, who took their husband’s name. I respect the decision, I’m just surprised by it. But then, a lot surprises me.
Spark, for what it’s worth I can think of several times when it would have been a relief for teachers not to know that I was my sister’s little sibling. I’m not saying there won’t be weird bureaucratic issues, but there will be positives too.
My sister and I don’t have the same name as our parents and it never caused even one moment’s confusion. The change your name for your children argument just pisses me off.
I really never considered changing my name, and my husband never considered me changing it, either. He assumed I would keep mine. Contrast that with my BFF’s husband, who initially told her that her keeping her last name AS A MIDDLE NAME was not acceptable to him. He finally “relented” and that’s what she did. Wow.
I was disappointed when my sister changed her name, largely because her husband just didn’t understand why she wouldn’t do it. She caved. Because it’s none of my business, I didn’t say anything to her. But I think it’s lame. He’s a nice guy but very trapped in traditional gender roles.
Eh, I don’t think it will be too difficult then, Spark.
I’m totally not giving up my last name–I got an early invite to Gmail, and my Gmail handle is maureen.[lastname]. I’m totally not giving that up.
I like the Spanish tradition of surnames, but I’d choose to have “matrilineal” and “patrilinal” surnames, so you’d share one last name with your maternal grandmother and one last name with your paternal grandfather.