Name Changing
While this is a heated topic amongst feminists and humanists (those feminists who like to think they would be happy to support men’s rights if the tables were turned), other people have difficulty understanding why it is discussed at all.
Women are raised prepared for the possibility that they will be expected to change their name upon marriage. Men are free to not even consider it unless their future wife brings it up, as the odds of a wife politely suggesting to her husband that he takes her surname instead are still low. This seems unfair for two reasons:
1. Intellectual women agonise over whether to keep or change their name while men do not have to worry
2. It would be regarded as “wrong” for the wife to expect (let alone simply suggest/ask that) her husband to give up his name, yet the man expecting the wife to give up her name is fine.
(a 3rd reason I could put in here as a humanist is that it’s also unfair that men are not given the option of changing their names, and that they are unsupported if they want to.)
While most intellectual women surveyed (on websites such as offbeatbride.com and apracticalwedding.com ) have no tolerance for being called Mrs. HisFirstName HisLastName, and I personally have no tolerance for being called anything other than “Ms.” (or Dr. once I get my PhD) (thank you to Ms. Haupt my married French teacher who pointed out that she didn’t see why it was relevant to employers/electricity companies/students whether she was married or not), there are reasons for: keeping your own name, taking his name, hyphenating, or making up a new name altogether (my prefence). (Although to keep things even simpler, I’m going to try my best to become the next Cher or Madonna [no last name necessary].)
I’m going to skip the obvious reasons against taking his name: it’s a remnant of women being considered property, and it means that matriarchal names die out (and are therefore counted as of secondary importance to the male’s surname). An argument against this that I agree with, is that if you keep your maiden name, at some point you are taking a patriarchal name anyway, and as a sociologist at uni suggested: “To me the choice was between my father’s name (whom I didn’t choose) or my husband’s name (whom I did choose), and I decided to go with the name of the man I chose.” However it still annoys me that women are expected to choose while men don’t.
Keeping your own name also runs the issue of what surname to give your kids, and hyphenation runs the risk of two kids with hyphenated surnames marrying (it just delays the problem). In an ideal world, if I was unable to convince my future husband to come up with a new name for our family, I would like to think that I would give the kids his surname to symbolise his equality as a parent (even if he didn’t carry them around for 9 months). Similarly if I was in a lesbian relationship, I would give the kid the surname of the partner whose eggs weren’t used, to again try to equalise the parenting situation.
However my ideal world situation is that when you marry you and your husband pick a new name for your family. It could be a mixture of your names, mixture of ancestors names, or a completely new name. Then when your kids marry they too pick a new name for their independent family. That way your family unit is being defined by you, not by what worked in 1901. I know a couple that gave themselves the surname “Pixel” due to their passion for graphic design. I also have heard a few rare stories of those brave men who take their wife’s surname because, you know what, it just worked better for them.
In response to the objection that “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, unfortunately while genetically you will be the same person regardless of what name you are given, environmentally you will be treated differently depending on what name you are given (ie. you will smell the same but people will act as though you don’t). When you are given the name of only one parent, everything you do (good or bad) is credited to only one side of the family (my preference would be that rather than one side (or even both sides) of the family taking credit, that your decision only reflects upon you as an individual rather than on an identity external to you). If surnames are not important to you, but extremely important to your family, then it becomes even more important that you don’t play their game or you may find your surname being given far more importance than you’d wished (whereas if you choose your own surname your name-worshipping family will want to downplay the importance of your surname).
In response to the wanting to honour your family objection, I don’t think it is fair to only honour your father’s line, while your mother’s, grandmother’s, et cetera lines are completely unacknowledged even though they too are half the reason you are who you are. If you can’t honour everyone who is equally worthy of having their names carried on, then it is only fair to honour no one (and just remember to thank them in acceptance speeches). That way as well, your decisions as an adult reflect on you only, and your family get thanked for the good things you achieve but don’t feel they have any responsibility over choices you make that they think are mistakes (you can’t be guilt-tripped by “bringing shame on the family name” because it won’t be credited to them due to the new surname so it won’t reflect on them at all, it will only reflect on you [as in the end it is your life and thus your final decision]).
To give the child the mother’s maiden name as a middle name is a nice lip-service gesture but is NOT equality. The middle name is rarely referred to in our society, so the above issues will still occur. And sooner or later this obsession with keeping genetic surnames for more than one generation (if you want to be equal about it) will result in some names being dropped as dealing with 5 or more names becomes almost impossible. The Spanish system of mothers giving their daughters their surname and fathers giving their sons their surname is fantastic, but inappropriate for Australia because it is not retrospective (it is however still a step towards equality and better than nothing, but because it is not retrospective it will not result in complete equality).
So what you can do:
1. When you talk about your decision to change/keep your name, make it clear that it was a couple decision not a female decision. “My wife/husband and I both decided to keep our own names” “My wife/husband and I both decided to make _____ the family name.” It makes it clear that both of you thought about changing your name, not just the feminine partner.
2. If you can, refuse to use “Miss” or “Mrs.” unless the woman directly insists on it, always use “Ms”. Otherwise you are helping perpetuate the myth that a woman’s maritial status is relevant to judging her worth as a citizen. (Note that we get along just fine in society despite the term “Mr.” not revealing a male’s maritial status.)
3. Never assume. If a friend is getting married, ask, “So are you and your husband/wife changing or keeping your names?” Even if they respond with, “Huh? Him changing his name? He doesn’t have to,” at least you have put the possibility in their minds for them to consider.
4. If you are male, don’t get offended if your wife doesn’t want to take your name (or even dares to discuss that you change your name), or if your wife is hesitant about giving the children your surname. That same offence that you feel that someone would ask (let alone assume) that you would give up your name is the same offence women originally felt when this tradition was invented (and most women have learnt over the years to not be offended despite the original hurt of the suggestion, so you too can learn how to respond with dignity and openness).
5. If you hear of a male changing his name in marriage (whether it be to a new name or his wife’s name or a combination), encourage and congratulate him on being brave enough to take a step forward for equality (and try to behave like this is a totally normal, rational, reasonable and understandable decision - because it is). He is still a pioneer in this area (one of the brave few who do what they think is right, rather than what is popular, and thus are helping to give others the confidence to step out from following the crowd so that tomorrow’s world will be even better than today’s.)
If women still choose to change their name to their husband’s, it should be an informed choice where they have considered all their options, not a default one.
(As a result of this article Kieran has agreed that we will both change our surnames upon marriage so that we will be Kieran and Naomi Web [no need to change internet or twitter handes]. Even if you disagree, please be kind rather than critical towards him, as I think it is brave that he is daring to take a concrete action towards demonstrating equality despite having a strong Italian Catholic family. Also we want to break it to them gently and slowly in our own time in stages so that they get used to it.)
