Wacky. I mean, I'm not a traditionalist about what happens to one's name when a union is formed -- I didn't take my husband's name -- but really, why? You gonna dress in identical clothes, too?
Why skip straight to both taking a third name? Why can't the husband take the wife's name? Why can't that be the social norm for a few years, so that men "know what it's like"?
I had some friends in high school whose last name (they were brother and sister) was a combination of their parents' last names. Their parents, however, kept their pre-marital names.
The father was the only person I've ever seen chew someone out simply for using the term "maiden name."
Apparently, the "correct" term is "given name." Also acceptable: "birth name."
That is what I meant. Also, this practice would be less offensive if the people practicing it weren't so relentlessly silly, and didn't take such idiotic names. I wouldn't want to know a couple that gave itself the family name "Providence".
"Well, yeah, you could marry me and then you'd be a Skullsplitter."
"I am not having people refer to our kids as the little Skullsplitter children."
"Aw, c'mon. The kid could go to school and he could announce his name as Thorvald Skullsplitter."
"That's terrible!"
"That's a proud Viking name."
"I'm Irish."
"Which means you have serious amounts of Norge in you, what with that 9th century conquest of Ireland and such. That being a contributor to your blondeness."
"Whatever. I am not giving a child the last name of Skullsplitter."
"He'd be a tough little son-of-a-bitch."
"Are you calling me a bitch?"
"Only in the most complimentary way possible."
"{stares}"
"Come on. Skullsplitter! Erin Skullsplitter! How much cooler than that can you get?"
"NO."
"{sigh}"
[silence]
"Well, fine, then, what about Bloodaxe?"
"NO!"
"C'mon, there's nothing wrong with a kid named Erik Bloodaxe. He'd be total rock star material even."
I know some people who did this, actually, and they were lovely people and their last name wasn't silly. They were earnest, kind folks and she got through her dissertation in record time (and it was a good one) because she was completely free of neurosis.
Having said that. I think it's ridiculous. Why do married couples have to have the same last name? Silly. (But let us note it is no sillier, and less offensive, than the norm where the woman changes her name.)
Anyway, all that name changing really screws up the archives. Stick with what you've got, people. Future researchers will thank you.
B, hugs and kisses to your doc for finally getting the dosage just right. That's what last names are for, people: to tell us from whence you came. This is insanity.
ogged, I'll claim that outpouring of affection for myself, thank you. I haven't seen my doc in weeks, because she's on vacation again, so I've been experimenting with dosage on my own.
Anyway, all that name changing really screws up the archives. Stick with what you've got, people. Future researchers will thank you.
I agree, but what about last names for offspring? One couple I know decided when they got married to keep their own names but that regarding children girls would take her last name and boys his.
They only ended up having two boys so there were no siblings with different names (not that that would be some big dogs-and-cats-living-together disaster anyway), but for some reason the arrangement seemed reductive and unsatisfying to me.
As is my wont, I made a tortured argument that since Y chromosomes contains less genetic material than X chromosomes, they should name girls after him and boys after her, to reflect the quantity of each parents' genetic material in a particular offspring. They weren't convinced.
But anyway, what's a sound policy for what last name offspring should have?
I know a couple whose kids have their respective names hyphenated, and who kept their original names.
If that became common practice, and people standardized on an order for the names (they did mother's first, which sounds much better than the opposite would have), you'd be able to read off someone's ancestry with ease just from their name.
Yeah, I see the appeal of having the same name (or both parents having the same name as the kids, which means something's got to give, because hyphenating is super annoying). I think a big part of the problem is that people make stupid choices ("solaris") and, more basically, that people make choices in the first place.
Not to get all historical about it, but much of the reason behind the practice of making the last name follow the father's/husband's name was so that people would have an easier time transferring title to property (at a time when women generally couldn't own it, except possibly as widows) and the state would have an easier time keeping track of it.
This practice is too cutesy and precious to be tolerated, and, as Ogged says, ignores the whole point of having a name. But it is responding to a real problem (at least for couples who plan to have children). Neither my wife nor I ever considered the possibility that she would take my name. But, now that kids are likely to be in the semi-immediate future, there is the question of what to do with their names, a question that wouldn't be coming up if we shared some wacky, joint name. In our case, it's a particularly difficult nut to crack because my surname is really cool and ethnic, whereas hers is neither of those things, and also I am likely to be such a bad and emotionally distant father that *any* connection the kids can have to me will be a help.
The Russian system is weird. First name is your own, but there are only like 7 for each sex (at least traditionally, there are more now). The middle name is a patronymic. Different endings for males and females (so for alexei you get alexeevna (F) and for boris you get borisovich (M) ). There are more than one ending for the patronyms, and that's beyond my comprehension. Then, the last names also have different endings for males and females. So you could have Kruschev (M) and Kruscheva (F).
Hmm. Maybe the suggestions on Matt Y's blog was Russian with a twist: using the mother's maiden name for the middle name. But isn't that the American tradition anyway? I have no idea what I'm saying.
Actually, it was just the wife. The husband, while caring about the subject, didn't care enough to want to argue with his wife's zeal for her naming scheme. She was one of those people who has a strong opinion about absolutely everything, no matter how trivial, and will go to the mat every time to defend it (e.g. creamy peanut butter is absolutely better than crunchy peanut butter. Full stop. Anyone who thinks otherwise is either stupid or crazy) I argued for the XX v. XY naming set-up primarily just to annoy her.
you'd be able to read off someone's ancestry with ease just from their name.
With ease, but after a few generationsit would take a very long time .
And if it were written on one of those "Hello, My Name Is . . ." stickers, the required smallness of the writing in order to fit the whole damn name in that space would make reading it not so easy.
Am I the only one who interprets first-name + last-name as "name of individual" + "name of family group to which that individual belongs"?
I've always thought of marriage as forming a new family group, so it only makes sense that the group have the same identifier. Especially when children are involved, it's nice for the children to have the same name as both parents. It cuts down on confusion and helps children identify as part of a family. Isn't there some cognitive dissonance involved when children have a different last name from their mother?
The patriarchy of using the husband's name bothers me, hyphens and such just put off the problem until the second generation, and making up a new name seems silly, so I certainly don't believe there's a best way to do this. It just sems to me that family unity is a pretty good reason for sharing a last name.
"That's what last names are for, people: to tell us from whence you came."
Yes. I wouldn't call it "insanity," though. I'm searching for the right term...help me out here: I'm looking for something that evokes both the earnest good intentions and the basic narcissism of this practice...
Hey, did you all read Bothofus immediately as "both of us?" I just got it. I was trying to decide between "bot-ho-foos" and "bith-o-fus" when, suddenly...
Well, pseudonymous kid has his father's last name (and a version of my first name for his middle) on the grounds that part of the reason for paternal last names is that they are, in a way, a man's way of affirming his fatherhood. Pseudonymous kid came out of me: there's no doubt who his mama is. But his papa, well, he has to take it on faith. So I view the paternal surname as a sign that a man is acknowledging his paternity.
Of course, you could make the exact opposite argument: since paternity is usually taken only on faith, it makes more logical sense to give the kid the mom's surname. People have said that to me when I've explained my reasoning on that thing. Or there's the option of taking turns: your last name on this one, mine on that one (which Mr. B. proposes, and which I think makes even more of a record-keeping nightmare). Or the Mexican custom (is it Spanish too? Does it extend throughout Latin America? I'm not sure) of having the parents keep their last names and then hand down to the kid both names (not hyphenated): papa's name first, then mama's name. So, by Western standards, the kid has its mother's last name. But in actual practice, the last name is the one most often dropped, and when it's time to have kids, it's the paternal surnames (that is, the penultimate surname) that gets passed on. I think.
Or there's the way that European aristocracy did it for centuries: the kid gets the mom's last name as a middle name, and the dad's as a surname. The line still ends up being patriarchal two generations in, but the continuity is easier to trace.
Especially when children are involved, it's nice for the children to have the same name as both parents. It cuts down on confusion and helps children identify as part of a family. Isn't there some cognitive dissonance involved when children have a different last name from their mother?
Why is it confusing? Only because we assume that nuclear families should share a last name. I don't think pseudonymous kid has any problem identifying himself as part of our family, or identifying me as his mama.
And anyway, there's a ton of cognitive dissonance involved in little girls growing up imaginging themselves changing last names for every boy they develop a crush on.
Bitch, I think it's not just Mexican. At least, Gabriel García Márquez's last name/family name/what have you is "García Márquez", not just "Márquez", though I don't know if it's precisely how you've described it.
In Spanish culture, I believe that it would be something like Pablo Miguel Neruda de Mercado. So that would be Neruda of Mercado. So of the mother I guess? So if I had a kid, it would Tweedlesonny McTweedle of Tweedlegirly.
bphd, I'm certainly not arguing for the traditional version of "taking his name". But names are for identifying people, and it makes things much easier if a family all have the same name, if only to cut down on the extra explanations involved.
"I'm X Y, Z's mother" vs. "I'm X Y"(who has the same last name as Z and therfore requires no explanation)
"I'm going over to the Xs place" vs. "I'm going over to X and Y's place"
I was perfectly willing to take my wife's name for this reason, but we settled on mine mainly for aesthetic reasons.
Let's just go to clan names, the clan name will depend upon who's marrying into who's clan. (With a dowery paid by the side that receives the new clansmember.) Solves the problem, and it's fun. Kinda like the British Royal Family, no?
I don't see how history is aided by keeping only the names of fathers. Either way, some link to history is broken with every generation unless you go with exponetially increasing hypheneation. That's why I favor using a name to identify the present family unit rather than to identify who one's paternal grandfather was. This is not to put down anyone's choices; I just think arguments from history or "where you come from" are pretty weak.
AB (f) marries CD (m). They have a girl child, ED.
ED marries FG. They have a child, HG.
Now, if you're tracing ancestry, you know that HG is FG's child, or you assume it, because of the surname. Then you find a record of the marriage to determine who the mother was. Then you know that ED is CD's daughter, again b/c of the surname, and you find the marriage certificate that shows CD marrying AB, so now you know ED's mother. It's a little involved, but you want to find out marriages and like that anyway, when you're doing geneaology (which I can't spell).
But if you're doing biography, alone or as part of the genealogical search, then you can *much* more easily trace everything that HG and ED did in their lifetimes, because their names don't keep changing.
Whereas with the present family unit, AB can, if necessary, simply say "yes, I am ED's mother."
That's a good argument against making up a new name, but says nothing about whether AB should change her name at marriage, and it seems to me that the same amount of information is transferred if CD changes his name to CB at marriage instead.
I agree that continuity is a good thing, but I also think family unity is a good thing, and I think we agree that patriarchy is not a good thing. I'm also not sure why genealogy should be more important than the daily life and family cohesion of living people. I don't think there are easy ways to resolve this.
No, I'm not going to agree, because I completely refuse the premise that common surnames have anything to do with family unity.
But hey, this is obviously an issue that's in transition, and people make decisions accordingly, and eventually my side will, of course, win, but in the meantime I do not publicly admit that I object to women changing their names on marriage. Much.
My ex and I briefly considered forming a "new" name out of parts of our surnames. We could have become the "Hamsters". It seemed like a good idea at the time, but we were, admittedly, chemically enhanced...
I kind of like the "clan" thing - 'I'm Asha McCleod of the Clan McCleod' - especially if said whilst waving a sword - has a certain ring to it. 'Asha Garcia y Llorca del Rey de Psmith' is just too long for most forms.
Absolutely worst faux pas committed by me ever: In the discussions leading up to my nuptuals the issue of last name came up. I hit the softball that is "do you, husband to be, want me to take your name" out of the park. I thought I was home free. And I only say that as if these discussions are fraught with tension and peril because, even with the aid of the Internet, wedding planning sets us all on edge. Which matters for the next part, when my one and only raised the question of whether I would consider taking her name.
I said, "no way." and laughed at the thought of it.
Which, of course is my right, but it wasn't the best way to answer the question.
I really think that this should just be left up to everyone. Shit, what's in a name? To some people it is important. Some people hate their name. Some people don't care. But bphd (which sounds really weird to say phonetically), why do you object when women change their names? Shouldn't that be their own choice? We can take this to email if you want, I'm just curious.
I object to it on the grounds that the "feminism is all about women having the right to make individual choices" meme (which is what's behind the argument that it should be left to everyone) overlooks the political significance of women changing their names, one, and conveniently ignores the fact that it just so happens that it's virtually always the women who just happen to make that choice.
Until men start doing it in more or less equal numbers, it ain't a choice. It's a compromise, one women make becaue they don't want to rock the boat, and one that their husband are all too happy to have them make.
Otherwise the men would be changing their names. But, as Benton admits (and for the record, that would have been my response too, so I have no beef with him for it), there's no way y'all are gonna start doing that.
makes sense. nothing you've said doesn't make sense (how's that for double negatives?). so you object to it on a societal level, but what about on an individual level?
I know you are someone who believes that the words we choose to use matter and are important parts of our identity. For me, and many others, the family unit we have chosen to form by getting married is a very important part of our identities, and expressing that by sharing a common label is an empowering use of language. It's a way of expressing that the family one has chosen is more important than who one's father or grandfather may have been. To say that doesn't have anything to do with family unity seems strange to me.
(Of course I am not arguing that a common name is necessary to family cohesion.)
I guess this is a matter of how one parses names. I have always thought of myself as Ben, and my last name is just a symbol of my clan, not an identifier of me as an individual. I can see how changing one's last name can be seen as a submission of identity, but I think to assume that women(or men) who chose to change their names at marriage are being submissive is to misunderstand what those people see their names as representing.
I honestly considered taking my wife's name, because I thought the message it would send to people would be good for the reasons you stated. Unfortunately it really didn't scan well.
I think the part bphd objects to is that it is expected that the woman changes her name, and that it is not a two-way street with men having to make that choice as well.
Well, on an individual level, my innately bourgeois tendencies kick in, and, as I said, I don't publicly object to it. I would certainly never think of hassling someone about it in person (even though I realize I've come close to doing that here, to BigBen, and I did try to keep it abstract and hope he isn't *too* put out). Well, except that if it were, like, my sister or close friend I might say, "really?" in a kind of disappointed voice. Luckily my sister didn't change her name either.
Though all my married sisters-in-law did (I hold out hope for the youngest), and secretly I find it appalling.
I think there's no way I'm going to start doing that. IBut I do think that there is some chance that the culture is going to turn on this issue and it will do so in a way that leads to more compromise in the future.
Think of it this way, I for one am very aware of the issue in ways that I wasn't when I stuck my giant foot in my mouth and this will affect the boy's socialization in some way. As will his mother, who will treat this differently than my mother did with me. Reality television not withstanding, there's some chance this will change over time and that it may even become fashionable. How is Madonna naming her little ones? Etc.
The steady drip doesn't make things right or provide an appropriate reckoning. But I think it gives you a shot at winning before the giant boulder strikes, wiping out all life.
Ben, I understand what you're saying. I respect that it matters to you. My point--on the abstract, not the personal level--w/r/t the idea that a shared surname expresses family unity is that this is a social construct, one that has historically been used to justify women changing their names (once upon a time, women--especially women of a certain class--did not, or not consistently) in conjunction with a model of the nuclear family that sees the man as its "head" and the woman as the "helpmeet."
I realize this is in flux. But even as we're getting sick of the sexist model of family, certain of its ideological effects--like the idea that a family should share a last name--continue to linger.
FWIW, I'll also say that I have a problem with marriage, full stop. And yet, I am married. We're all products of our history and our culture. I don't hold individuals responsible for the ways they make their peace with that.
Unless, of course, they are my sisters-in-law, but then, I have my reasons there.
Oops, note 68 is a direct response to BPHD's question of why am I what I yam in 63. The commenting is coming too quick for me to keep up. In more ways than one.
It's a way of expressing that the family one has chosen is more important than who one's father or grandfather may have been.
That's interesting. When I was engaged, I didn't want my fiancee to take my name when we got married, and she had no desire to take it. But it was (and is) very important to me that if I have any sons, they have my name, precisely because I feel a real responsibility to carry on the family name, and, culture being what it is, my sons would be the ones to continue that.
Strictly speaking, tweedle, I think it's only player hating if you're not a player, and b, being married, is--so I don't think she can be (in this instance) a hater.
She can, however, as I understand it, be plain old "hatin' on" societal norms.
Surely you can see how those who gave it long and hard thought and came up with a different answer from yours, and who can back it up with all sorts of good reasons, might be a little "put out" at hearing that you're appalled. (I'm not, really, but I think you might want to reevaluate your assumptions on this.)
It does bother me that some people automatically assume that a woman who changes her name is giving in to patriarchy, and I fail to see how it is any more feminist to keep the name of one's father rather than taking the name of one's chosen family.
I agree that marriage as traditionally defined has its problems, and that right now people are redefining it in many new ways, some of which may superficially resemble the old ones. I think judgement should be reserved until you know the details.
Oh, I don't know that I hate all social norms. I just hate it when people accept things without examining them, and a lot of social norms, when examined, turn out to be kind of stupid.
My problem with marriage, in a word, is that I have an open one. I think, on the one hand, that especially where children are involved, it makes a lot of sense for society to create an institution that holds both parents responsible for raising them. On the other hand, well, it's kind of silly to expect that one size will fit all, and I'm sick of the argument that that's how people are "supposed" to live when it's so freakin' obvious that, in fact, we are at best serially or occasionally monogamous.
I think committment is a great thing. And I see that society has an interest in formalizing and making that committment public. And I see why people would want to have a commitment of that nature honored in a spiritual kind of sense (for those who like church weddings). The down side is that when marriages break up, we get all freaked out over what to do with the kids, how to split up the property, whether or not to change our names back, etc. etc., and in part that's because the idea that marriage is how it's supposed to be is so all-pervasive that, as a society, we haven't really thought through what to do when it turns out that things don't turn out like they're "supposed" to.
Oh, and on the keeping daddy's name thing: that's a compromise, freely admitted. It's the name I was given at birth. Therefore, it is and has always been my name. Is it sexist that I got my dad's name and not my mom's? Surely. Do I spend time worrying about that? No.
One of the reasons I love your blog is the way you rip into idiots who make assumptions like "she's married but has a boyfriend--there must be some problems with the marriage". I'm arguing that you are making similar assumptions about women who change their names. Names, like marriage, mean different things to different people, and your being appalled in this case seems similar to people assuming that monogamy is the only way to go.
BPHD (shoudl we change it to Biffed? Perhaps not...) re this comment number 75: I think I understand what you are saying in that paragraph 3 stands well enough on its own. But that first sentence in the second paragraph is confusing and worrying. Do you not want an open marriage, yet have one?
As for the meta point, my sibling still hasn't gotten over the break up of my parents marriage, which occurred in the dim recesses of Reagan's first term. TO the extent that I hold abhorrent memories of the crap that built up in the Ford and Carter years, my own opinion was that it didn't end soon enough. Either way, it makes your point.
Bill Bennett, I think would differ and there are some stats that indicate that the institution does society measurable good. But I didn't get married for society (although I shudder to think that at some level I and all the rest of you got married as a result of society).
I'm largely with McTweedle on this - let them pick whatever they want. I'm keeping my name, and I am certainly fine if Future Wife wants to keep hers. I'm OK with the kids having her name, but I think we should flip for it.
More to the point, I'm distinctly uncomfortable with the idea that I might have to play misery poker with my Future Wife about a family name (if we were to go that way). I can certainly imagine that there are people out there whose names indicate they are from a distinctly disfavored group (are there any US Hussein's out there?). If we are dicking around on stuff like that - well, I foresee too many battles down the road for it to be worth it.
the problem would remain if there weren't marriages. unless kids were raised in a kibbutz-like collective, there would still be the question of who gets to raise whom, who gets to keep what while the commitment was going on, stuff like that. it's only partly a what's the fucking word... function of marriage.
By the way, we're being extremely heteronormative in this entire discussion. What about gay couples? What are they supposed to do?
See? The best and simplest path is just for everyone to keep their name.
BigBen, I disagree (of course). I'm not making assumptions about women who change their names. I'm not judging them as saps or tools of the patriarchy, at least not on any meaningfully personal level. What I am saying is, be honest. The tradition is patriarchal. We choose what to do within the existing system, which is still patriarchal. People choose to go along with some things, and not others. That's cool. All I'm saying is, don't pretend that that choice is completely neutral and has no relation to patriarchy.
It's not like people get married in a vacuum: of *course* the decisions we make w/r/t marriage must, in some inevitable way, grapple with the patriarchal norm. Hell, the whole fucking institution is patriarchal. The fact that I wear high heels occasionally is patriarchal. My preference that it be my husband who goes out in the rain to bring the car round is patriarchal (and selfish, and then patriarchal again if part of the reason is that I'm wearing a fancy outfit).
Isn't it narrowminded to say that the feminist way of thought is the only way? Without bringing up The Lottery here, at what point does it become ok for Tweedle Dummy to say that my mom took my dads name, and i've grown up with that and so did my bride, so why should anyone get pissed if we don't think about the societal impact when we do the same thing?
tweedled: Ah! (God, I can so go on about this topic, but really, I have given it Much Deep Thought. You all just rue the day you met me, don't you?) But see, that's partly b/c we now think of the nuclear family as the norm. In an extended family, it's someewhat less of a problem, at least as far as kids go. So, like, in theory you could have a situation where divorced spouse becomes, more or less, like favored uncle or aunt and is just, you know, around a lot. Both parents are still involved, and the kid is, yes, raised in a more or less collective manner, because grandma, grandpa, auntie, and uncle are all also involved in the raising. So it lessens the extremity of the tension between mom vs. dad. Hell, both extended families could do it, and the kid could benefit from a big ol' bunch of warm relations.
Plenty of kids spend, say, summers at grandma's. When PK was little, his aunt and uncle were over at our house every day (when he was born, his aunt--the sil I like--was actually living with us; when she moved out, she moved a few blocks down the street). I got to have a lot of freedom because there was usually someone else around if I wanted to go out or whatever. In theory, if Mr. B. and I had divorced, he'd just have moved down the street (presumably, however, not to his sister's place--I still have a social prohibition against incest) but remained within the large, loose social network.
In contrast, now, when we live without extended family, we never go anywhere because we don't have a regular babysitter (nor money to hire one), so if we split up things would be much, much more traumatic for everyone.
So why is changing one's name any more worthy of derision than getting married at all, or wearing high heels, ar keeping one's father's name, or what have you?
Obviously every decision is made in the context of culture and tradition. I just don't see why this one in particular merits being "appalled".
You know, I thought of mentioning gay marriages, but thought it would be a distraction. I think one spouse taking the other's name is a good way to state to the world that they are forming a family, regardles of the genders involved. In the case of gay marriage, the message sent is even more powerful.
Oh, well, if you want to just say, I'm going to follow tradition because it's traditional, then we wouldn't even have this conversation, right? But the conversation is clearly taking place within a feminist framework in which, it is presumed, a conscious decision has to be made about surnames on marriage.
There isn't "one" version of feminism, by the way. So it would be not narrominded, but meaningless, to say that "the" feminist way is the only way. Except that we're all agreeing to be feminist here and think about surname choices, as opposed to just automatically assuming them.
Nah B. We lurve you. I just like to argue. Like politics, I won't change anyone's mind, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to think about what you say. And I hope you don't just dimiss what I say. Even if I'm only low-20's (that's iq, not age) and not married. yet.
#91: Yes, I think in the end it still boils down to feminism. It's not as if we've reached a point where men change their names as often as women do, or even one where women keep their names as often as not.
I think it's not as bad in the United States, where you have a choice of taking the last name of your partner or not. I am from Ukraine, where (as in most Slavic countries) the female is not only expected to take her husband's surname, but hers is "femininized." This usually means that it ends with an -a (e.g. Ivanov vs. Ivanova).
Furthermore, our middle names are patronymic (based on the name of our fathers). So if the father is Alexander, the daughter's middle name is Alexandrovna.
In other words, a child has nothing of her mother (except genes).
ok, now I have to be patriarchal and go work out for tweedlegirl (and myself). im getting fat. working too hard and getting fat. and today, i struggled to open the bag of total for breakfast. so, definitely need to exercise.
93, part the first: is that because, whatever private reasons a woman might have for not taking her husband's name, merely the fact that she doesn't do so is a feminist act, or because there are no reasons that aren't explicitly feminist reasons available to a woman for not taking her husband's name?
You haven't been derisive, but others have. This seems to me like the stay-at-home-parent controversy where all sorts of factors go into the decision of whether someone stays home and who it should be. Your being appalled at women changing their names without access to their individual decision making seems analogous to those people who put down stay-at-home-moms without knowing their individual circumstances.
As for being against cultural and legal factors that perpetuate patriachal norms, I'm with you. It's the judgement of individuals that bothers me.
#97: I'm not a philosopher, so I don't know that I see the distinction, but I would say both. I can't think of any non-feminist reasons not to change names: the fact that it's an option at all is because of feminism, so even if you have other reasons (e.g., my sister didn't change her name on either her first or second marriage because her daughter was born before either, and she didn't want her daughter to have a different last name than she did), the fact that you have the choice is feminist. Which means that I think it is also, whether or not one intends it as such, inevitably a feminist act not to do it. Unless you can come up with a case in which it isn't.
#98: I'd say the same thing w/r/t the working vs. at-home moms argument: the fact that it is something women, and for the most part exclusively women, have to "choose" means that it isn't a real choice. Increasingly men are seeing themselves as faced with that choice, so maybe we're on our way. Certainly I think men are farther along on this one than they are on the question of changing their names.
No, no one here. And I realize I'm being hypersensitive about this becasue of abuse I've received elsewhere.
Bphd,
I agree about societal trends in general, but there are couples like my wife and I who gave a lot of thought to all the alternatives and made our decision carefully, and our choices are valid even if most in society are making the same choice for the wrong reasons.
101: the difference I was thinking of is: if my reason for not changing my name (say I'm female) is that my sister didn't, then, while the fact that the choice is available to me is something that I owe to feminism, and my taking that choice may advance feminism in some way, I wouldn't characterize the reason for taking the choice itself as feminist--"my sister did it so I will too" doesn't strike me as terribly feminist (assuming that the reasons I'm imitating my sister are relatively simple and not themselves tied up with more explicitly feminist issues, and further assuming that I'm not just being ignorant in not being so struck). So one might say in this case that while it's still a feminist action, and the conditions of the action's being carried out or even available to me in the first place are dependent on feminism, I didn't do it for a feminist reason, which is what I thought tweedledopey was asking about in 91.
Ben W., I am completely lost. You're not changing your name just in order to imitate your sister, right? How could that be completely independent of feminist variables? First of all, it's a sister. Second of all, it's in order to keep the same name as someone in your birth family. Third of all, it's a choice. Fourth of all, it's a choice where you're choosing nominal alliance to a sister over nominal alliance to a husband. You're trying to tell me there's a way to understand that as not-feminist?
Then your husband is a feminist, even if you aren't.
So, for instance, Mr. B. always said he wouldn't marry a woman who would change her name. Luckily, he wasn't forced to find out if that was true or not.
If you are only appalled at the structure of society that causes most to make the same decision, then I've got no argument with you. If you are saying that taking one's husbands name is a bad choice, I still think you're being unreasonably judgemental.
Ok. I didn't say "bad." I said appalling. To me. On the grounds that I've laid out. Which aren't so much about judgmentalism for its own sake as they are about some very deeply-held principles which I think I've articulated very clearly. I mean, I'm sorry that you're offended, but they're not directed at you personally, and I wish you wouldn't take them that way.
First of all, it's a sister. Second of all, it's in order to keep the same name as someone in your birth family. Third of all, it's a choice. Fourth of all, it's a choice where you're choosing nominal alliance to a sister over nominal alliance to a husband.
The second and fourth of these are not necessarily true, and the third is independent of the reason I have for making the choice. After making the choice I have the same name as someone in my birth family, and that person is my sister, but that doesn't mean I did it on order to keep that name, or that I even concieved of the name change as a matter of nominal alliances—of course I'm also choosing a nominal alliance to a father over one to a husband (in the general case, anyway). And I admit, I don't see how being influenced to choose behavior X because a sister also chose it is feminist.
It's hard not to take them personally, but I understand that's not your intention and don't believe any apology to be necessary. But the deeply-held principles you have laid out, as you have admitted, are equally applicable to high heels, or marriage itself. So I ask again, what sets this apart as particularly appalling?
I apologize for going on like this, but I'm having trouble understanding your reasoning.
I defy you to find an actual woman who opts not to change her name for non-feminist reasons.
Well, your 101 seems to imply that I wouldn't be able to even if this weren't a theoretical discussion:
I can't think of any non-feminist reasons not to change names: the fact that it's an option at all is because of feminism, so even if you have other reasons (e.g., my sister didn't change her name on either her first or second marriage because her daughter was born before either, and she didn't want her daughter to have a different last name than she did), the fact that you have the choice is feminist. Which means that I think it is also, whether or not one intends it as such, inevitably a feminist act not to do it. Unless you can come up with a case in which it isn't.
(re-reading, for some reason I thought the parenthetical was not a true example drawn from life, but an example of a reason one might have for not changing one's name: I'm not changing it because my sister... Having realized this earlier might have led me to be less confusing. Anyway, if you think the example given in that parenthetical really is an "other reason", then you can sub it wholesale into my last-but-one comment, and have it serve as a non-feminist reason to perform an action which is itself feminist—though I suspect you would characterize not wanting to change one's name for the sake of a daughter (or, for that matter, son) as a feminist reason (something that would then confuse me, since you seem to give it as an example of a non-feminist reason, but if I go further I'll be triple-guessing you, so I'll stop here. I'm tired anyway.).)
Then your husband is a feminist, even if you aren't.
That may be true, and it makes his decision to say, "don't change your name" or even "I forbid you to change your name" a feminist one (albeit in a kind of twisted way).
But that still doesn't make the decision to obey him a decision made for feminist reasons. There are two decisions here; only the first is clearly feminist.
Admittedly, this definitely is dancing-on-a-pin territory now.
Tell you what, if I marry someone who keeps her name for non-feminist reasons, you'll be the first blogger I'll tell.
#116: I think the distinctions you're drawing are meaningless. I'm keeping my name because my sister did. How is that different from saying I'm keeping my name in order to keep the same name as my family of origin? My sister *is* my family of origin. Moreover, there is no way on god's green earth that a woman choosing a tie to her sister over a tie to her husband isn't, on some level, feminist. The only way I can even understand what you are saying is to remove all signifiers of gender and history from words like "sister," which makes the question completely meaningless.
#117: Well, it appalls me more because it's someone's *name*. It's permanent. I can change my shoes from day to day, but--and I realize no one intends this, but it does happen--if the marriage ends, or one partner dies (which god forbid), the name change thing just gets ridiculously complicated. It's also a public labelling of compliance with a patriarchal institution: whatever one's private reasons for making that choice are, virtually everyone you meet is not going to know that, and unless you go around explaining it (which is surely more work than explaining that no, you are not divorced even though your name is different from your kid's), then you fade into the larger cultural landscape, which in this instance is patriarchal.
Of course, wearing heels and looking femmey can do the same thing. But names are identity in a way that clothing is not.
Plus, in all seriousness, there's the academic who is just horrified at how difficult it can be to trace women because once they get married, they just become invisible. "Mrs. John Smith." Who is that? Which of John Smith's three wives? Who the hell knows? AHHHHH!!!!
OK, those are good reasons. I think they can be easily outweighed by other factors, but I accept that there can be reasonable disagreement on this. One can see it as a public labelling of compliance with a patriarchal institution, but one can also view it as a public affirmation of family.
Given that all of the options for surname choice are flawed, I think people should be given the benefit of the doubt on this issue.
I don't expect to convince you, but it's been an interesting conversation. Thanks for being patient with me.
I changed my name when I married. I know all the reasons given for not doing so, and I did it any way.
To quote my therapist, "There's a technical term for parents like yours. We call them monsters."
Neither my husband nor his family expected me to change my name. My husband, in fact, expressed no little surprise when I announced my decision.
What I did not expect, when I made my decision, was the remarkable sense of relief I felt the first time I held a piece of legal identification that no longer carried the same last name as my parents. That name belongs over there, with those people my therapist so aptly described.
Saoba, I know how you feel. Not because of marriage, though, but because of a bureaucratic mistake. The US government assumed my mom misspelled her last name on her Green Card application (the extra "a" at the end), but my records were looked at separately.
In effect, I ended up having a different last name from my parents, officially. How refreshing!
Coming in really late on this thread but my wife, for unfortunate Czech legal reasons, had to take my surname plus the -ova suffix.
Which leaves here encumbered with the less than euphonic surname "McGrattanova" -- there are all these Czech women walking around called "Smithova" and "Jonesova" as well.
The Czech state takes this shit really seriously so there's no way around it. Here in the UK she could use any name she liked but it's pretty difficult explaining to your employer why your passport and all your legal documents contain a different name from the one you actually use.
My little brother, to take up the example of kids names, has a made up surname. My mum, who still uses my Dad's surname, didn't want to use that name since there's no connection between them (my brother and my father), didn't want to use her maiden name (which she hasn't used since she was 18), and didn't want to use his biological fathers name etc. so she just made one up.
He, my brother, really likes it. He has his own name, no-one else has it. The name sounds cool. What's not to like...
We combined our names into a compound, unhyphenated pair when we married in 1979. I was the Hayden; she was the Nielsen; together we're the Nielsen Haydens.
Being tiny young people, we had no idea what a lifetime of annoyance we were wishing on ourselves. 26 years later, we're not giving up on it at this stage, but we don't recommend the practice to anyone else, as we explain here.
Or there's the option of taking turns: your last name on this one, mine on that one (which Mr. B. proposes, and which I think makes even more of a record-keeping nightmare)
I knew a couple who flipped a coin to decide each kid's last name. The father lost each toss, and with the last kid he traded away lifetime control of their finances to have one kid with his last name. I didn't know him, but I worked with the mother who was funny as hell. She was so good at her job, every time you walked by her office she had her feet on the desk reading a novel because everything was done. That wouldn't have lasted many places.
B, are you saying that you think the distinction between the decision to do X, which will have the further consequence Y, and the decision to do X in order to achieve Y is meaningless, or that the distinction in the context of the example given is meaningless? Because (as I somewhat incoherently tried to say in 119) I only chose that example because of a rather drastic misreading of one of your comments.
ben, you make my head hurt. Ok. I think what I am saying is that, in terms of actual *effect*, the distinction is meaningless. I'm a big believer that motive counts a lot, but in terms of this particular issue, I just shrug it off as a purely academic distinction; the more so as feminism is, by definition, concerned with history and cultural context, rather than with pure abstractions. E.g., a sister is not the same as a brother.
I changed my name both times, which has some sort-of bizarre results (the name I graduate from college under, the name I published under, the name I graduated from nursing school under...)
It really made the husbands happy, and it wasn't that much trouble. Although when people ask me how to pronounce my name, now I have to reply, "I can't, really, because I'm not French."
I work in an infertility clinic and almost all of our patients are using their maiden name or hyphenating. Meanwhile most of the mothers at my kids' schools seem to use their husbands' names. I would guess that not changing her name, like infertility, is associated with getting married later in life?
I realize that this discussion is pretty much over, but I had more things to say about this, so I posted them on my (otherwise almost entirely post-free) blog.
Hmm. I feel like I *should* support this as some sort of subversion of the principles of patriarchal succession. But it's just so darn cheesey.
Posted by mcm | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 4:41 PM
Wacky. I mean, I'm not a traditionalist about what happens to one's name when a union is formed -- I didn't take my husband's name -- but really, why? You gonna dress in identical clothes, too?
Posted by profgrrrrl | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 4:43 PM
I think newlywed couples should take on superhero names.
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 4:48 PM
Not everyone has a last name as good as Kotsko. Why not upgrade?
Posted by joe o | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 4:49 PM
Why skip straight to both taking a third name? Why can't the husband take the wife's name? Why can't that be the social norm for a few years, so that men "know what it's like"?
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 4:50 PM
I think on getting married people should take on epithets.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 4:55 PM
I had some friends in high school whose last name (they were brother and sister) was a combination of their parents' last names. Their parents, however, kept their pre-marital names.
The father was the only person I've ever seen chew someone out simply for using the term "maiden name."
Apparently, the "correct" term is "given name." Also acceptable: "birth name."
Otherwise, they were nice people.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 4:56 PM
Agreed with Wolfson, so long as he means homeric epithets.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 4:57 PM
That is what I meant. Also, this practice would be less offensive if the people practicing it weren't so relentlessly silly, and didn't take such idiotic names. I wouldn't want to know a couple that gave itself the family name "Providence".
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 4:59 PM
"Well, how about Skullsplitter?"
"SKULLSPLITTER?"
"Well, yeah, you could marry me and then you'd be a Skullsplitter."
"I am not having people refer to our kids as the little Skullsplitter children."
"Aw, c'mon. The kid could go to school and he could announce his name as Thorvald Skullsplitter."
"That's terrible!"
"That's a proud Viking name."
"I'm Irish."
"Which means you have serious amounts of Norge in you, what with that 9th century conquest of Ireland and such. That being a contributor to your blondeness."
"Whatever. I am not giving a child the last name of Skullsplitter."
"He'd be a tough little son-of-a-bitch."
"Are you calling me a bitch?"
"Only in the most complimentary way possible."
"{stares}"
"Come on. Skullsplitter! Erin Skullsplitter! How much cooler than that can you get?"
"NO."
"{sigh}"
[silence]
"Well, fine, then, what about Bloodaxe?"
"NO!"
"C'mon, there's nothing wrong with a kid named Erik Bloodaxe. He'd be total rock star material even."
"NO! {slap}{slap}"
[continues indefinately]
ash
['You're no fun anymore.']
Posted by ash | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:00 PM
Well, the qualifier of homeric makes this proposal rather off point, but what about changing their names to anti-epithet's?
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:09 PM
I know some people who did this, actually, and they were lovely people and their last name wasn't silly. They were earnest, kind folks and she got through her dissertation in record time (and it was a good one) because she was completely free of neurosis.
Having said that. I think it's ridiculous. Why do married couples have to have the same last name? Silly. (But let us note it is no sillier, and less offensive, than the norm where the woman changes her name.)
Anyway, all that name changing really screws up the archives. Stick with what you've got, people. Future researchers will thank you.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:11 PM
Ash, that sounds kind of like this:
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:12 PM
B, hugs and kisses to your doc for finally getting the dosage just right. That's what last names are for, people: to tell us from whence you came. This is insanity.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:15 PM
Ash,
I wanted give "stonecold" as a middle name for one of my kids but my wife wouldn't let me.
Posted by joe o | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:17 PM
ogged, I'll claim that outpouring of affection for myself, thank you. I haven't seen my doc in weeks, because she's on vacation again, so I've been experimenting with dosage on my own.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:21 PM
Good work! (The hugs and kisses aren't transferable though.)
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:24 PM
joe: What to name kids.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:28 PM
Anyway, all that name changing really screws up the archives. Stick with what you've got, people. Future researchers will thank you.
I agree, but what about last names for offspring? One couple I know decided when they got married to keep their own names but that regarding children girls would take her last name and boys his.
They only ended up having two boys so there were no siblings with different names (not that that would be some big dogs-and-cats-living-together disaster anyway), but for some reason the arrangement seemed reductive and unsatisfying to me.
As is my wont, I made a tortured argument that since Y chromosomes contains less genetic material than X chromosomes, they should name girls after him and boys after her, to reflect the quantity of each parents' genetic material in a particular offspring. They weren't convinced.
But anyway, what's a sound policy for what last name offspring should have?
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:35 PM
Oh damn, someone on Yglesias' site had a great system (it might have been the Russian system), but I can't remember the link. I'll look for it.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:37 PM
Mitch, that couple is weird.
I know a couple whose kids have their respective names hyphenated, and who kept their original names.
If that became common practice, and people standardized on an order for the names (they did mother's first, which sounds much better than the opposite would have), you'd be able to read off someone's ancestry with ease just from their name.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:38 PM
Yeah, I see the appeal of having the same name (or both parents having the same name as the kids, which means something's got to give, because hyphenating is super annoying). I think a big part of the problem is that people make stupid choices ("solaris") and, more basically, that people make choices in the first place.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:42 PM
read off someone's ancestry with ease just from their name
The name itself would be impossible to read at that point, no?
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:43 PM
There's always a tradeoff, Labs.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:44 PM
She gave up her maiden name, Meyers, when she married Frank Berry, and the couple took a new surname - Providence - together.
Damn, they could've been the Meyberries.
Posted by ogmb | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:47 PM
Not to get all historical about it, but much of the reason behind the practice of making the last name follow the father's/husband's name was so that people would have an easier time transferring title to property (at a time when women generally couldn't own it, except possibly as widows) and the state would have an easier time keeping track of it.
At least that seems to be what this guy says.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:52 PM
This practice is too cutesy and precious to be tolerated, and, as Ogged says, ignores the whole point of having a name. But it is responding to a real problem (at least for couples who plan to have children). Neither my wife nor I ever considered the possibility that she would take my name. But, now that kids are likely to be in the semi-immediate future, there is the question of what to do with their names, a question that wouldn't be coming up if we shared some wacky, joint name. In our case, it's a particularly difficult nut to crack because my surname is really cool and ethnic, whereas hers is neither of those things, and also I am likely to be such a bad and emotionally distant father that *any* connection the kids can have to me will be a help.
Posted by pjs | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:52 PM
The Russian system is weird. First name is your own, but there are only like 7 for each sex (at least traditionally, there are more now). The middle name is a patronymic. Different endings for males and females (so for alexei you get alexeevna (F) and for boris you get borisovich (M) ). There are more than one ending for the patronyms, and that's beyond my comprehension. Then, the last names also have different endings for males and females. So you could have Kruschev (M) and Kruscheva (F).
More here
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:54 PM
Ah crap. More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_name
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:54 PM
Speaking of which, TG's last name has more syllables than my whole name (first, middle, last).
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:55 PM
Hmm. Maybe the suggestions on Matt Y's blog was Russian with a twist: using the mother's maiden name for the middle name. But isn't that the American tradition anyway? I have no idea what I'm saying.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:58 PM
Mitch, that couple is weird.
Actually, it was just the wife. The husband, while caring about the subject, didn't care enough to want to argue with his wife's zeal for her naming scheme. She was one of those people who has a strong opinion about absolutely everything, no matter how trivial, and will go to the mat every time to defend it (e.g. creamy peanut butter is absolutely better than crunchy peanut butter. Full stop. Anyone who thinks otherwise is either stupid or crazy) I argued for the XX v. XY naming set-up primarily just to annoy her.
you'd be able to read off someone's ancestry with ease just from their name.
With ease, but after a few generationsit would take a very long time .
And if it were written on one of those "Hello, My Name Is . . ." stickers, the required smallness of the writing in order to fit the whole damn name in that space would make reading it not so easy.
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:59 PM
Am I the only one who interprets first-name + last-name as "name of individual" + "name of family group to which that individual belongs"?
I've always thought of marriage as forming a new family group, so it only makes sense that the group have the same identifier. Especially when children are involved, it's nice for the children to have the same name as both parents. It cuts down on confusion and helps children identify as part of a family. Isn't there some cognitive dissonance involved when children have a different last name from their mother?
The patriarchy of using the husband's name bothers me, hyphens and such just put off the problem until the second generation, and making up a new name seems silly, so I certainly don't believe there's a best way to do this. It just sems to me that family unity is a pretty good reason for sharing a last name.
Posted by Big Ben | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 5:59 PM
"That's what last names are for, people: to tell us from whence you came."
Yes. I wouldn't call it "insanity," though. I'm searching for the right term...help me out here: I'm looking for something that evokes both the earnest good intentions and the basic narcissism of this practice...
Posted by mcm | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:06 PM
Hey, did you all read Bothofus immediately as "both of us?" I just got it. I was trying to decide between "bot-ho-foos" and "bith-o-fus" when, suddenly...
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:06 PM
Well, pseudonymous kid has his father's last name (and a version of my first name for his middle) on the grounds that part of the reason for paternal last names is that they are, in a way, a man's way of affirming his fatherhood. Pseudonymous kid came out of me: there's no doubt who his mama is. But his papa, well, he has to take it on faith. So I view the paternal surname as a sign that a man is acknowledging his paternity.
Of course, you could make the exact opposite argument: since paternity is usually taken only on faith, it makes more logical sense to give the kid the mom's surname. People have said that to me when I've explained my reasoning on that thing. Or there's the option of taking turns: your last name on this one, mine on that one (which Mr. B. proposes, and which I think makes even more of a record-keeping nightmare). Or the Mexican custom (is it Spanish too? Does it extend throughout Latin America? I'm not sure) of having the parents keep their last names and then hand down to the kid both names (not hyphenated): papa's name first, then mama's name. So, by Western standards, the kid has its mother's last name. But in actual practice, the last name is the one most often dropped, and when it's time to have kids, it's the paternal surnames (that is, the penultimate surname) that gets passed on. I think.
Or there's the way that European aristocracy did it for centuries: the kid gets the mom's last name as a middle name, and the dad's as a surname. The line still ends up being patriarchal two generations in, but the continuity is easier to trace.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:08 PM
do-me-gooderism?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:08 PM
Especially when children are involved, it's nice for the children to have the same name as both parents. It cuts down on confusion and helps children identify as part of a family. Isn't there some cognitive dissonance involved when children have a different last name from their mother?
Why is it confusing? Only because we assume that nuclear families should share a last name. I don't think pseudonymous kid has any problem identifying himself as part of our family, or identifying me as his mama.
And anyway, there's a ton of cognitive dissonance involved in little girls growing up imaginging themselves changing last names for every boy they develop a crush on.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:11 PM
Bitch, I think it's not just Mexican. At least, Gabriel García Márquez's last name/family name/what have you is "García Márquez", not just "Márquez", though I don't know if it's precisely how you've described it.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:14 PM
In Spanish culture, I believe that it would be something like Pablo Miguel Neruda de Mercado. So that would be Neruda of Mercado. So of the mother I guess? So if I had a kid, it would Tweedlesonny McTweedle of Tweedlegirly.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:18 PM
And then when Tweedlesonny or Tweedledaughter got married, they'd drop of Tweedlegirly.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:18 PM
Yes, that sounds right. Yay the collective conscious!
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:20 PM
Since it is now St. Patrick's Day in Ireland, I'm changing my name for 24ish hours.
Posted by Tweedle McDopey | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:22 PM
Is it racist for me to say I hate St. Patrick's Day?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:24 PM
bphd, I'm certainly not arguing for the traditional version of "taking his name". But names are for identifying people, and it makes things much easier if a family all have the same name, if only to cut down on the extra explanations involved.
"I'm X Y, Z's mother" vs. "I'm X Y"(who has the same last name as Z and therfore requires no explanation)
"I'm going over to the Xs place" vs. "I'm going over to X and Y's place"
I was perfectly willing to take my wife's name for this reason, but we settled on mine mainly for aesthetic reasons.
Posted by Big Ben | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:24 PM
But then it's much easier in terms of history if names don't get changed. And I've found that not explaining works just fine most of the time.
Anyway, maybe XY is Z's aunt.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:25 PM
Let's just go to clan names, the clan name will depend upon who's marrying into who's clan. (With a dowery paid by the side that receives the new clansmember.) Solves the problem, and it's fun. Kinda like the British Royal Family, no?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:25 PM
Is it racist for me to say I hate St. Patrick's Day?
Only if you consider either the Irish or Catholics a race.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:26 PM
Merde. Should've previewed. "the clan name of the married couple will..."
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:26 PM
I don't see how history is aided by keeping only the names of fathers. Either way, some link to history is broken with every generation unless you go with exponetially increasing hypheneation. That's why I favor using a name to identify the present family unit rather than to identify who one's paternal grandfather was. This is not to put down anyone's choices; I just think arguments from history or "where you come from" are pretty weak.
Posted by Big Ben | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:32 PM
"do-me-gooderism?"
I like it.
Posted by mcm | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:33 PM
I was engaged to my hig school bf for a while when I was 18, and we were planning to both change our last names to "Presley".
Posted by alameida | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:35 PM
"Alameida Presley"? It'd never fly.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:36 PM
"do-me-gooderism?"
I like it.
That's mighty kind of you, but I don't like it anymore, and the phenomenon really needs a term. I might have to pull this one up into a post.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:42 PM
Ben, but think in terms of archival research.
AB (f) marries CD (m). They have a girl child, ED.
ED marries FG. They have a child, HG.
Now, if you're tracing ancestry, you know that HG is FG's child, or you assume it, because of the surname. Then you find a record of the marriage to determine who the mother was. Then you know that ED is CD's daughter, again b/c of the surname, and you find the marriage certificate that shows CD marrying AB, so now you know ED's mother. It's a little involved, but you want to find out marriages and like that anyway, when you're doing geneaology (which I can't spell).
But if you're doing biography, alone or as part of the genealogical search, then you can *much* more easily trace everything that HG and ED did in their lifetimes, because their names don't keep changing.
Whereas with the present family unit, AB can, if necessary, simply say "yes, I am ED's mother."
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:45 PM
genealogy is not to be confused with genieology.
Posted by tweedle mcdopey | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:48 PM
bphd,
That's a good argument against making up a new name, but says nothing about whether AB should change her name at marriage, and it seems to me that the same amount of information is transferred if CD changes his name to CB at marriage instead.
I agree that continuity is a good thing, but I also think family unity is a good thing, and I think we agree that patriarchy is not a good thing. I'm also not sure why genealogy should be more important than the daily life and family cohesion of living people. I don't think there are easy ways to resolve this.
Posted by Big Ben | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 6:59 PM
Ogged: nymomania?
Posted by Walter Sobchak | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 7:05 PM
No, I'm not going to agree, because I completely refuse the premise that common surnames have anything to do with family unity.
But hey, this is obviously an issue that's in transition, and people make decisions accordingly, and eventually my side will, of course, win, but in the meantime I do not publicly admit that I object to women changing their names on marriage. Much.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 7:14 PM
My ex and I briefly considered forming a "new" name out of parts of our surnames. We could have become the "Hamsters". It seemed like a good idea at the time, but we were, admittedly, chemically enhanced...
I kind of like the "clan" thing - 'I'm Asha McCleod of the Clan McCleod' - especially if said whilst waving a sword - has a certain ring to it. 'Asha Garcia y Llorca del Rey de Psmith' is just too long for most forms.
Posted by Asha | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 7:14 PM
Absolutely worst faux pas committed by me ever: In the discussions leading up to my nuptuals the issue of last name came up. I hit the softball that is "do you, husband to be, want me to take your name" out of the park. I thought I was home free. And I only say that as if these discussions are fraught with tension and peril because, even with the aid of the Internet, wedding planning sets us all on edge. Which matters for the next part, when my one and only raised the question of whether I would consider taking her name.
I said, "no way." and laughed at the thought of it.
Which, of course is my right, but it wasn't the best way to answer the question.
Posted by benton | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 7:17 PM
I really think that this should just be left up to everyone. Shit, what's in a name? To some people it is important. Some people hate their name. Some people don't care. But bphd (which sounds really weird to say phonetically), why do you object when women change their names? Shouldn't that be their own choice? We can take this to email if you want, I'm just curious.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 7:20 PM
I object to it on the grounds that the "feminism is all about women having the right to make individual choices" meme (which is what's behind the argument that it should be left to everyone) overlooks the political significance of women changing their names, one, and conveniently ignores the fact that it just so happens that it's virtually always the women who just happen to make that choice.
Until men start doing it in more or less equal numbers, it ain't a choice. It's a compromise, one women make becaue they don't want to rock the boat, and one that their husband are all too happy to have them make.
Otherwise the men would be changing their names. But, as Benton admits (and for the record, that would have been my response too, so I have no beef with him for it), there's no way y'all are gonna start doing that.
Why not?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 7:26 PM
bphd
makes sense. nothing you've said doesn't make sense (how's that for double negatives?). so you object to it on a societal level, but what about on an individual level?
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 7:39 PM
Bphd,
I know you are someone who believes that the words we choose to use matter and are important parts of our identity. For me, and many others, the family unit we have chosen to form by getting married is a very important part of our identities, and expressing that by sharing a common label is an empowering use of language. It's a way of expressing that the family one has chosen is more important than who one's father or grandfather may have been. To say that doesn't have anything to do with family unity seems strange to me.
(Of course I am not arguing that a common name is necessary to family cohesion.)
I guess this is a matter of how one parses names. I have always thought of myself as Ben, and my last name is just a symbol of my clan, not an identifier of me as an individual. I can see how changing one's last name can be seen as a submission of identity, but I think to assume that women(or men) who chose to change their names at marriage are being submissive is to misunderstand what those people see their names as representing.
I honestly considered taking my wife's name, because I thought the message it would send to people would be good for the reasons you stated. Unfortunately it really didn't scan well.
Posted by Big Ben | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 7:39 PM
Ben,
I think the part bphd objects to is that it is expected that the woman changes her name, and that it is not a two-way street with men having to make that choice as well.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 7:43 PM
Well, on an individual level, my innately bourgeois tendencies kick in, and, as I said, I don't publicly object to it. I would certainly never think of hassling someone about it in person (even though I realize I've come close to doing that here, to BigBen, and I did try to keep it abstract and hope he isn't *too* put out). Well, except that if it were, like, my sister or close friend I might say, "really?" in a kind of disappointed voice. Luckily my sister didn't change her name either.
Though all my married sisters-in-law did (I hold out hope for the youngest), and secretly I find it appalling.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 7:46 PM
I think there's no way I'm going to start doing that. IBut I do think that there is some chance that the culture is going to turn on this issue and it will do so in a way that leads to more compromise in the future.
Think of it this way, I for one am very aware of the issue in ways that I wasn't when I stuck my giant foot in my mouth and this will affect the boy's socialization in some way. As will his mother, who will treat this differently than my mother did with me. Reality television not withstanding, there's some chance this will change over time and that it may even become fashionable. How is Madonna naming her little ones? Etc.
The steady drip doesn't make things right or provide an appropriate reckoning. But I think it gives you a shot at winning before the giant boulder strikes, wiping out all life.
Posted by benton | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 7:50 PM
Ben, I understand what you're saying. I respect that it matters to you. My point--on the abstract, not the personal level--w/r/t the idea that a shared surname expresses family unity is that this is a social construct, one that has historically been used to justify women changing their names (once upon a time, women--especially women of a certain class--did not, or not consistently) in conjunction with a model of the nuclear family that sees the man as its "head" and the woman as the "helpmeet."
I realize this is in flux. But even as we're getting sick of the sexist model of family, certain of its ideological effects--like the idea that a family should share a last name--continue to linger.
FWIW, I'll also say that I have a problem with marriage, full stop. And yet, I am married. We're all products of our history and our culture. I don't hold individuals responsible for the ways they make their peace with that.
Unless, of course, they are my sisters-in-law, but then, I have my reasons there.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 7:51 PM
Oops, note 68 is a direct response to BPHD's question of why am I what I yam in 63. The commenting is coming too quick for me to keep up. In more ways than one.
Posted by benton | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 7:53 PM
So b... what's your problem with marriage? And why are you player-hating on all the societal norms?
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 7:56 PM
It's a way of expressing that the family one has chosen is more important than who one's father or grandfather may have been.
That's interesting. When I was engaged, I didn't want my fiancee to take my name when we got married, and she had no desire to take it. But it was (and is) very important to me that if I have any sons, they have my name, precisely because I feel a real responsibility to carry on the family name, and, culture being what it is, my sons would be the ones to continue that.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 7:56 PM
Strictly speaking, tweedle, I think it's only player hating if you're not a player, and b, being married, is--so I don't think she can be (in this instance) a hater.
She can, however, as I understand it, be plain old "hatin' on" societal norms.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 7:58 PM
Surely you can see how those who gave it long and hard thought and came up with a different answer from yours, and who can back it up with all sorts of good reasons, might be a little "put out" at hearing that you're appalled. (I'm not, really, but I think you might want to reevaluate your assumptions on this.)
It does bother me that some people automatically assume that a woman who changes her name is giving in to patriarchy, and I fail to see how it is any more feminist to keep the name of one's father rather than taking the name of one's chosen family.
I agree that marriage as traditionally defined has its problems, and that right now people are redefining it in many new ways, some of which may superficially resemble the old ones. I think judgement should be reserved until you know the details.
Posted by Big Ben | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:01 PM
Oh, I don't know that I hate all social norms. I just hate it when people accept things without examining them, and a lot of social norms, when examined, turn out to be kind of stupid.
My problem with marriage, in a word, is that I have an open one. I think, on the one hand, that especially where children are involved, it makes a lot of sense for society to create an institution that holds both parents responsible for raising them. On the other hand, well, it's kind of silly to expect that one size will fit all, and I'm sick of the argument that that's how people are "supposed" to live when it's so freakin' obvious that, in fact, we are at best serially or occasionally monogamous.
I think committment is a great thing. And I see that society has an interest in formalizing and making that committment public. And I see why people would want to have a commitment of that nature honored in a spiritual kind of sense (for those who like church weddings). The down side is that when marriages break up, we get all freaked out over what to do with the kids, how to split up the property, whether or not to change our names back, etc. etc., and in part that's because the idea that marriage is how it's supposed to be is so all-pervasive that, as a society, we haven't really thought through what to do when it turns out that things don't turn out like they're "supposed" to.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:03 PM
Ah, Big Ben, but you are assuming I haven't examined my assumptions. I have, carefully and at length. And these are the conclusions I've drawn.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:05 PM
Oh, and on the keeping daddy's name thing: that's a compromise, freely admitted. It's the name I was given at birth. Therefore, it is and has always been my name. Is it sexist that I got my dad's name and not my mom's? Surely. Do I spend time worrying about that? No.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:06 PM
Bphd,
One of the reasons I love your blog is the way you rip into idiots who make assumptions like "she's married but has a boyfriend--there must be some problems with the marriage". I'm arguing that you are making similar assumptions about women who change their names. Names, like marriage, mean different things to different people, and your being appalled in this case seems similar to people assuming that monogamy is the only way to go.
Posted by Big Ben | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:14 PM
BPHD (shoudl we change it to Biffed? Perhaps not...) re this comment number 75: I think I understand what you are saying in that paragraph 3 stands well enough on its own. But that first sentence in the second paragraph is confusing and worrying. Do you not want an open marriage, yet have one?
As for the meta point, my sibling still hasn't gotten over the break up of my parents marriage, which occurred in the dim recesses of Reagan's first term. TO the extent that I hold abhorrent memories of the crap that built up in the Ford and Carter years, my own opinion was that it didn't end soon enough. Either way, it makes your point.
Bill Bennett, I think would differ and there are some stats that indicate that the institution does society measurable good. But I didn't get married for society (although I shudder to think that at some level I and all the rest of you got married as a result of society).
Posted by benton | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:16 PM
I'm largely with McTweedle on this - let them pick whatever they want. I'm keeping my name, and I am certainly fine if Future Wife wants to keep hers. I'm OK with the kids having her name, but I think we should flip for it.
More to the point, I'm distinctly uncomfortable with the idea that I might have to play misery poker with my Future Wife about a family name (if we were to go that way). I can certainly imagine that there are people out there whose names indicate they are from a distinctly disfavored group (are there any US Hussein's out there?). If we are dicking around on stuff like that - well, I foresee too many battles down the road for it to be worth it.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:18 PM
Hey. It's mcdopey. mctweedle is someone else.
Posted by tweedle mcdopey | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:23 PM
b,
the problem would remain if there weren't marriages. unless kids were raised in a kibbutz-like collective, there would still be the question of who gets to raise whom, who gets to keep what while the commitment was going on, stuff like that. it's only partly a what's the fucking word... function of marriage.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:25 PM
By the way, we're being extremely heteronormative in this entire discussion. What about gay couples? What are they supposed to do?
See? The best and simplest path is just for everyone to keep their name.
BigBen, I disagree (of course). I'm not making assumptions about women who change their names. I'm not judging them as saps or tools of the patriarchy, at least not on any meaningfully personal level. What I am saying is, be honest. The tradition is patriarchal. We choose what to do within the existing system, which is still patriarchal. People choose to go along with some things, and not others. That's cool. All I'm saying is, don't pretend that that choice is completely neutral and has no relation to patriarchy.
It's not like people get married in a vacuum: of *course* the decisions we make w/r/t marriage must, in some inevitable way, grapple with the patriarchal norm. Hell, the whole fucking institution is patriarchal. The fact that I wear high heels occasionally is patriarchal. My preference that it be my husband who goes out in the rain to bring the car round is patriarchal (and selfish, and then patriarchal again if part of the reason is that I'm wearing a fancy outfit).
I just wish people would cop to it.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:28 PM
Isn't it narrowminded to say that the feminist way of thought is the only way? Without bringing up The Lottery here, at what point does it become ok for Tweedle Dummy to say that my mom took my dads name, and i've grown up with that and so did my bride, so why should anyone get pissed if we don't think about the societal impact when we do the same thing?
Posted by tweedle mcdopey | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:35 PM
tweedled: Ah! (God, I can so go on about this topic, but really, I have given it Much Deep Thought. You all just rue the day you met me, don't you?) But see, that's partly b/c we now think of the nuclear family as the norm. In an extended family, it's someewhat less of a problem, at least as far as kids go. So, like, in theory you could have a situation where divorced spouse becomes, more or less, like favored uncle or aunt and is just, you know, around a lot. Both parents are still involved, and the kid is, yes, raised in a more or less collective manner, because grandma, grandpa, auntie, and uncle are all also involved in the raising. So it lessens the extremity of the tension between mom vs. dad. Hell, both extended families could do it, and the kid could benefit from a big ol' bunch of warm relations.
Plenty of kids spend, say, summers at grandma's. When PK was little, his aunt and uncle were over at our house every day (when he was born, his aunt--the sil I like--was actually living with us; when she moved out, she moved a few blocks down the street). I got to have a lot of freedom because there was usually someone else around if I wanted to go out or whatever. In theory, if Mr. B. and I had divorced, he'd just have moved down the street (presumably, however, not to his sister's place--I still have a social prohibition against incest) but remained within the large, loose social network.
In contrast, now, when we live without extended family, we never go anywhere because we don't have a regular babysitter (nor money to hire one), so if we split up things would be much, much more traumatic for everyone.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:35 PM
So why is changing one's name any more worthy of derision than getting married at all, or wearing high heels, ar keeping one's father's name, or what have you?
Obviously every decision is made in the context of culture and tradition. I just don't see why this one in particular merits being "appalled".
You know, I thought of mentioning gay marriages, but thought it would be a distraction. I think one spouse taking the other's name is a good way to state to the world that they are forming a family, regardles of the genders involved. In the case of gay marriage, the message sent is even more powerful.
Posted by Big Ben | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:37 PM
Oh, well, if you want to just say, I'm going to follow tradition because it's traditional, then we wouldn't even have this conversation, right? But the conversation is clearly taking place within a feminist framework in which, it is presumed, a conscious decision has to be made about surnames on marriage.
There isn't "one" version of feminism, by the way. So it would be not narrominded, but meaningless, to say that "the" feminist way is the only way. Except that we're all agreeing to be feminist here and think about surname choices, as opposed to just automatically assuming them.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:38 PM
BB: It isn't. Feel free to be appalled by my being married or my shoe fetish--as long as you do it on feminist grounds.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:40 PM
Nah B. We lurve you. I just like to argue. Like politics, I won't change anyone's mind, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to think about what you say. And I hope you don't just dimiss what I say. Even if I'm only low-20's (that's iq, not age) and not married. yet.
Posted by tweedle mcdopey | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:40 PM
Anyway, have I been derisive? No, I have not. If anything, I've been fairly breezy about the whole thing.
It's important to me, but I'm not going to hassle anyone about it. Not right now, anyway.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:41 PM
but while not taking a husband's name may have its roots in feminism, is feminism the only reason now?
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:42 PM
dismiss. not dimiss. and i dont want a sudden sex-change and deflowering.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:43 PM
#91: Yes, I think in the end it still boils down to feminism. It's not as if we've reached a point where men change their names as often as women do, or even one where women keep their names as often as not.
#89: I, obviously, love to argue too.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:45 PM
I think it's not as bad in the United States, where you have a choice of taking the last name of your partner or not. I am from Ukraine, where (as in most Slavic countries) the female is not only expected to take her husband's surname, but hers is "femininized." This usually means that it ends with an -a (e.g. Ivanov vs. Ivanova).
Furthermore, our middle names are patronymic (based on the name of our fathers). So if the father is Alexander, the daughter's middle name is Alexandrovna.
In other words, a child has nothing of her mother (except genes).
Posted by periangel | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:46 PM
ok, now I have to be patriarchal and go work out for tweedlegirl (and myself). im getting fat. working too hard and getting fat. and today, i struggled to open the bag of total for breakfast. so, definitely need to exercise.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:48 PM
I second reading periangel. Not so political. But pretty stuff. Poetic really.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:51 PM
93, part the first: is that because, whatever private reasons a woman might have for not taking her husband's name, merely the fact that she doesn't do so is a feminist act, or because there are no reasons that aren't explicitly feminist reasons available to a woman for not taking her husband's name?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:52 PM
You haven't been derisive, but others have. This seems to me like the stay-at-home-parent controversy where all sorts of factors go into the decision of whether someone stays home and who it should be. Your being appalled at women changing their names without access to their individual decision making seems analogous to those people who put down stay-at-home-moms without knowing their individual circumstances.
As for being against cultural and legal factors that perpetuate patriachal norms, I'm with you. It's the judgement of individuals that bothers me.
Posted by Big Ben | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:55 PM
I hope you weren't referring to me BB about others being derisive. I've just been trying to be inquisitive.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 8:58 PM
one hizzy.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 9:01 PM
#97: I'm not a philosopher, so I don't know that I see the distinction, but I would say both. I can't think of any non-feminist reasons not to change names: the fact that it's an option at all is because of feminism, so even if you have other reasons (e.g., my sister didn't change her name on either her first or second marriage because her daughter was born before either, and she didn't want her daughter to have a different last name than she did), the fact that you have the choice is feminist. Which means that I think it is also, whether or not one intends it as such, inevitably a feminist act not to do it. Unless you can come up with a case in which it isn't.
#98: I'd say the same thing w/r/t the working vs. at-home moms argument: the fact that it is something women, and for the most part exclusively women, have to "choose" means that it isn't a real choice. Increasingly men are seeing themselves as faced with that choice, so maybe we're on our way. Certainly I think men are farther along on this one than they are on the question of changing their names.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 9:01 PM
I'm so jaded a hundred doesn't even affect me anymore.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 9:02 PM
I think the word you want there is "exhausted."
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 9:03 PM
On to five hizzy!
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 9:03 PM
Um, no.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 9:05 PM
How about mars? Seems as far fetched.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 9:06 PM
Tweedle,
No, no one here. And I realize I'm being hypersensitive about this becasue of abuse I've received elsewhere.
Bphd,
I agree about societal trends in general, but there are couples like my wife and I who gave a lot of thought to all the alternatives and made our decision carefully, and our choices are valid even if most in society are making the same choice for the wrong reasons.
Posted by Big Ben | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 9:08 PM
101: the difference I was thinking of is: if my reason for not changing my name (say I'm female) is that my sister didn't, then, while the fact that the choice is available to me is something that I owe to feminism, and my taking that choice may advance feminism in some way, I wouldn't characterize the reason for taking the choice itself as feminist--"my sister did it so I will too" doesn't strike me as terribly feminist (assuming that the reasons I'm imitating my sister are relatively simple and not themselves tied up with more explicitly feminist issues, and further assuming that I'm not just being ignorant in not being so struck). So one might say in this case that while it's still a feminist action, and the conditions of the action's being carried out or even available to me in the first place are dependent on feminism, I didn't do it for a feminist reason, which is what I thought tweedledopey was asking about in 91.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 9:10 PM
BB, I nowhere said it wasn't a valid decision.
Ben W., I am completely lost. You're not changing your name just in order to imitate your sister, right? How could that be completely independent of feminist variables? First of all, it's a sister. Second of all, it's in order to keep the same name as someone in your birth family. Third of all, it's a choice. Fourth of all, it's a choice where you're choosing nominal alliance to a sister over nominal alliance to a husband. You're trying to tell me there's a way to understand that as not-feminist?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 9:18 PM
Or suppose the reason is: I'm not changing my name because my husband told me not to.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 9:19 PM
Um, husband-to-be, that is.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 9:21 PM
Then your husband is a feminist, even if you aren't.
So, for instance, Mr. B. always said he wouldn't marry a woman who would change her name. Luckily, he wasn't forced to find out if that was true or not.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 9:22 PM
Anyway, this is all very dancing-on-a-pin territory. I defy you to find an actual woman who opts not to change her name for non-feminist reasons.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 9:22 PM
Bphd,
You certainly implied it by being appalled.
If you are only appalled at the structure of society that causes most to make the same decision, then I've got no argument with you. If you are saying that taking one's husbands name is a bad choice, I still think you're being unreasonably judgemental.
Posted by Big Ben | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 9:26 PM
Ok. I didn't say "bad." I said appalling. To me. On the grounds that I've laid out. Which aren't so much about judgmentalism for its own sake as they are about some very deeply-held principles which I think I've articulated very clearly. I mean, I'm sorry that you're offended, but they're not directed at you personally, and I wish you wouldn't take them that way.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 9:30 PM
First of all, it's a sister. Second of all, it's in order to keep the same name as someone in your birth family. Third of all, it's a choice. Fourth of all, it's a choice where you're choosing nominal alliance to a sister over nominal alliance to a husband.
The second and fourth of these are not necessarily true, and the third is independent of the reason I have for making the choice. After making the choice I have the same name as someone in my birth family, and that person is my sister, but that doesn't mean I did it on order to keep that name, or that I even concieved of the name change as a matter of nominal alliances—of course I'm also choosing a nominal alliance to a father over one to a husband (in the general case, anyway). And I admit, I don't see how being influenced to choose behavior X because a sister also chose it is feminist.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 9:30 PM
It's hard not to take them personally, but I understand that's not your intention and don't believe any apology to be necessary. But the deeply-held principles you have laid out, as you have admitted, are equally applicable to high heels, or marriage itself. So I ask again, what sets this apart as particularly appalling?
I apologize for going on like this, but I'm having trouble understanding your reasoning.
Posted by Big Ben | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 9:35 PM
I defy you to find an actual woman who opts not to change her name for non-feminist reasons.
Well, your 101 seems to imply that I wouldn't be able to even if this weren't a theoretical discussion:
(re-reading, for some reason I thought the parenthetical was not a true example drawn from life, but an example of a reason one might have for not changing one's name: I'm not changing it because my sister... Having realized this earlier might have led me to be less confusing. Anyway, if you think the example given in that parenthetical really is an "other reason", then you can sub it wholesale into my last-but-one comment, and have it serve as a non-feminist reason to perform an action which is itself feminist—though I suspect you would characterize not wanting to change one's name for the sake of a daughter (or, for that matter, son) as a feminist reason (something that would then confuse me, since you seem to give it as an example of a non-feminist reason, but if I go further I'll be triple-guessing you, so I'll stop here. I'm tired anyway.).)
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 9:42 PM
Then your husband is a feminist, even if you aren't.
That may be true, and it makes his decision to say, "don't change your name" or even "I forbid you to change your name" a feminist one (albeit in a kind of twisted way).
But that still doesn't make the decision to obey him a decision made for feminist reasons. There are two decisions here; only the first is clearly feminist.
Admittedly, this definitely is dancing-on-a-pin territory now.
Tell you what, if I marry someone who keeps her name for non-feminist reasons, you'll be the first blogger I'll tell.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 9:43 PM
#116: I think the distinctions you're drawing are meaningless. I'm keeping my name because my sister did. How is that different from saying I'm keeping my name in order to keep the same name as my family of origin? My sister *is* my family of origin. Moreover, there is no way on god's green earth that a woman choosing a tie to her sister over a tie to her husband isn't, on some level, feminist. The only way I can even understand what you are saying is to remove all signifiers of gender and history from words like "sister," which makes the question completely meaningless.
#117: Well, it appalls me more because it's someone's *name*. It's permanent. I can change my shoes from day to day, but--and I realize no one intends this, but it does happen--if the marriage ends, or one partner dies (which god forbid), the name change thing just gets ridiculously complicated. It's also a public labelling of compliance with a patriarchal institution: whatever one's private reasons for making that choice are, virtually everyone you meet is not going to know that, and unless you go around explaining it (which is surely more work than explaining that no, you are not divorced even though your name is different from your kid's), then you fade into the larger cultural landscape, which in this instance is patriarchal.
Of course, wearing heels and looking femmey can do the same thing. But names are identity in a way that clothing is not.
Plus, in all seriousness, there's the academic who is just horrified at how difficult it can be to trace women because once they get married, they just become invisible. "Mrs. John Smith." Who is that? Which of John Smith's three wives? Who the hell knows? AHHHHH!!!!
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 9:58 PM
OK, those are good reasons. I think they can be easily outweighed by other factors, but I accept that there can be reasonable disagreement on this. One can see it as a public labelling of compliance with a patriarchal institution, but one can also view it as a public affirmation of family.
Given that all of the options for surname choice are flawed, I think people should be given the benefit of the doubt on this issue.
I don't expect to convince you, but it's been an interesting conversation. Thanks for being patient with me.
Posted by Big Ben | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 10:15 PM
I changed my name when I married. I know all the reasons given for not doing so, and I did it any way.
To quote my therapist, "There's a technical term for parents like yours. We call them monsters."
Neither my husband nor his family expected me to change my name. My husband, in fact, expressed no little surprise when I announced my decision.
What I did not expect, when I made my decision, was the remarkable sense of relief I felt the first time I held a piece of legal identification that no longer carried the same last name as my parents. That name belongs over there, with those people my therapist so aptly described.
Posted by Saoba | Link to this comment | 03-16-05 10:45 PM
Saoba, I know how you feel. Not because of marriage, though, but because of a bureaucratic mistake. The US government assumed my mom misspelled her last name on her Green Card application (the extra "a" at the end), but my records were looked at separately.
In effect, I ended up having a different last name from my parents, officially. How refreshing!
Posted by periangel | Link to this comment | 03-17-05 12:34 AM
Coming in really late on this thread but my wife, for unfortunate Czech legal reasons, had to take my surname plus the -ova suffix.
Which leaves here encumbered with the less than euphonic surname "McGrattanova" -- there are all these Czech women walking around called "Smithova" and "Jonesova" as well.
The Czech state takes this shit really seriously so there's no way around it. Here in the UK she could use any name she liked but it's pretty difficult explaining to your employer why your passport and all your legal documents contain a different name from the one you actually use.
My little brother, to take up the example of kids names, has a made up surname. My mum, who still uses my Dad's surname, didn't want to use that name since there's no connection between them (my brother and my father), didn't want to use her maiden name (which she hasn't used since she was 18), and didn't want to use his biological fathers name etc. so she just made one up.
He, my brother, really likes it. He has his own name, no-one else has it. The name sounds cool. What's not to like...
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 03-17-05 2:19 AM
Anyway, all that name changing really screws up the archives. Stick with what you've got, people. Future researchers will thank you.
Feh. If reserachers are too stupid to figure out that my parents were named one thing and me and my kids were named something else, oh, well.
Also, I dislike being tracked anyways, so throwing chaff bothers me not at all.
Ash, that sounds kind of like this:[Njarl's saga, I think]
Exactly!
I wanted give "stonecold" as a middle name for one of my kids but my wife wouldn't let me.
Heh. She's chicken.
Names have POWER. If I want a sweet dog, I name her Zoe. If I want a tough little hombre and I name him Timur [Tamerlane]. And it works, too.
Since I am NOT in the least little bit attached to my parents name [or my non-existent clan - fuck 'em], I feel entirely free to start a new one.
If I get bonus feminism points for it, cool!
ash
['I like Bloodaxe.']
Posted by ash | Link to this comment | 03-17-05 6:12 AM
We combined our names into a compound, unhyphenated pair when we married in 1979. I was the Hayden; she was the Nielsen; together we're the Nielsen Haydens.
Being tiny young people, we had no idea what a lifetime of annoyance we were wishing on ourselves. 26 years later, we're not giving up on it at this stage, but we don't recommend the practice to anyone else, as we explain here.
Posted by Patrick Nielsen Hayden | Link to this comment | 03-17-05 6:17 AM
Saoba, I'll concede that that is an excellent reason for a name change.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-17-05 7:34 AM
Or there's the option of taking turns: your last name on this one, mine on that one (which Mr. B. proposes, and which I think makes even more of a record-keeping nightmare)
I knew a couple who flipped a coin to decide each kid's last name. The father lost each toss, and with the last kid he traded away lifetime control of their finances to have one kid with his last name. I didn't know him, but I worked with the mother who was funny as hell. She was so good at her job, every time you walked by her office she had her feet on the desk reading a novel because everything was done. That wouldn't have lasted many places.
Posted by cw | Link to this comment | 03-17-05 8:08 AM
B, are you saying that you think the distinction between the decision to do X, which will have the further consequence Y, and the decision to do X in order to achieve Y is meaningless, or that the distinction in the context of the example given is meaningless? Because (as I somewhat incoherently tried to say in 119) I only chose that example because of a rather drastic misreading of one of your comments.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 03-17-05 8:11 AM
Hey, McGrattan, I know a guy in the Czech Republic with the surname of Carey. He SO needs to marry a local!
Posted by peter snees | Link to this comment | 03-17-05 9:20 AM
cw, I want to be that woman.
ben, you make my head hurt. Ok. I think what I am saying is that, in terms of actual *effect*, the distinction is meaningless. I'm a big believer that motive counts a lot, but in terms of this particular issue, I just shrug it off as a purely academic distinction; the more so as feminism is, by definition, concerned with history and cultural context, rather than with pure abstractions. E.g., a sister is not the same as a brother.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 03-17-05 11:00 AM
I changed my name both times, which has some sort-of bizarre results (the name I graduate from college under, the name I published under, the name I graduated from nursing school under...)
It really made the husbands happy, and it wasn't that much trouble. Although when people ask me how to pronounce my name, now I have to reply, "I can't, really, because I'm not French."
I work in an infertility clinic and almost all of our patients are using their maiden name or hyphenating. Meanwhile most of the mothers at my kids' schools seem to use their husbands' names. I would guess that not changing her name, like infertility, is associated with getting married later in life?
Posted by Shamhat | Link to this comment | 03-17-05 5:32 PM
I realize that this discussion is pretty much over, but I had more things to say about this, so I posted them on my (otherwise almost entirely post-free) blog.
Posted by Big Ben | Link to this comment | 03-18-05 4:48 AM
Nice site.
Posted by Pacific Poker | Link to this comment | 01-24-06 12:30 PM