feminism and last names

[dead0man]

why is a women keeping her father's last name more feminist that taking her husband's last name.  I never thought about it before, but I ran into the idea last week.

[Rand]

There’s a lot of paperwork involved with changing your last name. Paperwork is associated with clerical occupations like secretaries and receptionists. Therefore, feminists refuse to do the paperwork.

[Del Tachi]

Keeping your father's name emphasizes a woman's right to her own familial and personal identity separate from her husband.

[Lambsbread]

Either way, who cares? Wouldn't you want people to have the freedom to choose whatever name they please, regardless of their reasoning?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The problem, as Rand jokes about above, is the amount of hassle and stress that is, for some reason and in only some cultures, expected disproportionately of women based on absolutely nothing deeper than cultural residue that has yet to be cleaned up from straightforwardly patriarchal past understandings of marriage. I don't think there'd be a strong feminist argument against changing one's name at marriage if it was something that men and women (and gay and straight couples for that matter) did with about equal frequency, but as it is, the argument is not only strong but nigh-dispositive.

[muon2]

My wife kept her birth name, but more importantly has a a middle name from her mother's family. We used that to give our children more choices to link to family. Each of them has their mother's middle name (their mother's mother's name) as their middle name and my last name (their father's father's name) as their last name. If they were to choose to change their name for marriage or some other reason, they could choose to keep a family name in the process.

[Crumpets]

This is a separate question from the feminism angle, but I have always been much closer to my mom's family than my dad's family - both in terms of location and in just sharing more things and experiences with them. When my mom talks about her side of the family, she usually uses "we." But when either of my parents talk about my dad's side of the family, it's more of a mix of "we" and "they," with a lot of emphasis on how "we" are the black sheep of the family who don't live in the same city as the rest and are usually out of the loop on things (even to the point I've been told many times I don't have the [my last name] look like my cousins and dad do).

Maybe it's a unique situation to me, but if my hypothetical future wife took my last name, it would almost feel like it would be making a distance between us, like "no, I married you, not one of the people I only ever see at weddings and funerals in other towns." That being said, I'd probably just leave it up to them what they'd want to do with their name.

[The Dowager Mod]

I hyphenated my last name for the first marriage, second marriage i took his name.

[VBM]

I think that a good feminist solution to this problem would be that the one who proposes is the one who keeps their last name.

[dead0man]

if someone is taking notes, I've married twice and both women took my not great, not horrible last name (it's a food), but they both had/have mild (at least) "daddy" issues (hence why they married a daddy) so they were eager to lose their last names.  The first wife had a fine previous surname (Flemming), but the second (current) wife's previous surname was just as bad as mine, if not worse (is easily mispronounced as a derogatory term for women).

[Property Representative of the Harold Holt Swimming Centre]

The double-barrelled creations amuse me. They make the couple in question sound as if they are part of the aristocracy.

[nclib]

As a male feminist, I've long felt strongly about this issue, and puzzled how most feminist women getting married now change their names (though less so than the general population). There are plenty of ways where women changing and men keeping is symbolic of patriarchy and tangibly perpetuates inequality. Also, a man's last name usually reflects his ethnicity/ancestry, while a woman's usually doesn't.

[Edu]

if someone is taking notes, I've married twice and both women took my not great, not horrible last name (it's a food), but they both had/have mild (at least) "daddy" issues (hence why they married a daddy) so they were eager to lose their last names.  The first wife had a fine previous surname (Flemming), but the second (current) wife's previous surname was just as bad as mine, if not worse (is easily mispronounced as a derogatory term for women).

Nice to meet you Mr vichyssoise, and say hello to former Miss Cund

[Badger]

if someone is taking notes, I've married twice and both women took my not great, not horrible last name (it's a food), but they both had/have mild (at least) "daddy" issues (hence why they married a daddy) so they were eager to lose their last names.  The first wife had a fine previous surname (Flemming), but the second (current) wife's previous surname was just as bad as mine, if not worse (is easily mispronounced as a derogatory term for women).

Nice to meet you Mr vichyssoise, and say hello to former Miss Cund

And today sir, you have won the internet.

[SWE]

The obvious answer is that the member of the couple with the cooler last name should be the one to keep it

[Antonio the Sixth]

Husband and wife should keep their respective last names, and children should bear both last names until their majority, after which they can choose to keep either (or both).

[Associate Justice PiT]

     My wife changed her last name when we got married, which has been an absolute headache for filing taxes ever since. It baffled me why the law is so unkind to people changing their name when this has been a traditional practice for centuries.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I'd view a woman not wanting to take my last name as a major red flag, perhaps a deal-breaker, because it would mean that she doesn't subscribe to Biblical gender roles.  The husband is the head of the family, Biblically speaking.  That's not something for the husband to lord over the wife, but an added responsibility of the man.

[Beet]

The woman should keep her last name, as that is in line with what is egalitarian. The truth is that Jesus loved us all equally, and His love, as well as the notion that each person has a Soul, which is of incomparable value, is at the Core of the Bible. Therefore, men and women should be equal. As far as the children, the boys take the father's last name and the girls take the mother's last name. Easy peasy.

[nclib]

I also strongly dislike the practice of when a husband and wife have different last names, the child (boy or girl) automatically gets their father's last name (with a small percent having a hyphenated name), with virtually none get just the mother's last name, despite the fact that the mother carried the child for 9 months, gave birth, breast fed, and probably took maternity leave, and did most of the childcare.

[Badger]

I'd view a woman not wanting to take my last name as a major red flag, perhaps a deal-breaker, because it would mean that she doesn't subscribe to Biblical gender roles.  The husband is the head of the family, Biblically speaking.  That's not something for the husband to lord over the wife, but an added responsibility of the man.

Hopefully the woman would consider your reaction as a major red flag.

Fundamentalists can dress this up as added responsibility for the man or whatever other self justifying language they choose, but at the end of the day it's unreconstructed sexism by any objective measure.

[Badger]

     My wife changed her last name when we got married, which has been an absolute headache for filing taxes ever since. It baffled me why the law is so unkind to people changing their name when this has been a traditional practice for centuries.

This. While the choice whether or not to take when's husband's name should always of course be a personal one - my sister kept her maiden name and one of our prior pastors and his wife who was also a pastor jointly hyphenated their names after marriage- it should be made as easy as possible if one chooses to give up their Maiden name.

I've had friends who got married and did so say it wasn't that big a deal other than having to change some credit cards and government forms, but I'm disappointed to hear that apparently it's more burdensome and bureaucratic than that.

[dead0man]

yeah, I don't remember it being a big problem for either of my wives, but that was 30 and 23 years ago.

[Del Tachi]

     My wife changed her last name when we got married, which has been an absolute headache for filing taxes ever since. It baffled me why the law is so unkind to people changing their name when this has been a traditional practice for centuries.

Women earning/owning at roughly the same rates as their husbands is a relatively new phenomenon, however, really only catching-on in the past 40-60 years.  This is probably also exacerbated by the trend of older first-time brides, meaning that marrying women are likelier to have established careers or income-generating assets (and the associated tax liability!) by the time they tie the knot.

[wnwnwn]

The spanish surnamea system rules