Getting married in a month and I can't decide if I want to take his last name

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Curious why it matters pp? Are you in a field where you work with people too stupid to understand a name change for marriage? It wasn't any issue at all in my field (finance) because it is so common.

No dear in some fields your name carries prestige and you don't muck it up with hyphens and name changes. That's not relevant to someone just in finance.

Oh really dear? I assume that you are a real peach to work with and very prestigious to boot.

I enjoy making a ton of money and having the "prestige" and reputation to carry off a name change without a worry. I get it why people are insecure though, so I'm sorry.

Seriously my mother is a renowned doctor who changed her name when she's married my dad, when she divorced him and when she married her stepfather.

Your mother sounds like quite the trailblazer.

[Anonymous]

Some fathers/families don't have names worth keeping.

I will never understand why a single mother allows her kid to carry the name of deadbeat and barely present fathers, of families that they have no history with or connection to. If I'm raising the child, the child will have my name.

My sister had the name of a birth father who bailed on her when she was only an infant. She couldn't wait to get rid of his name when she married her husband.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:it feels so archaic and anti feminist to take his name...

Okay, but it is REALLY practical to just have one family name. Just pick one.

I kept my name -- my 2 kids, 8 and 6, have my husband's last name. I honestly cannot recall this EVER being an issue (including with international travel, ER, doctors' offices, etc.). So I'm not sure the practicality argument carries the day.

It may not be an issue for you but I promise it's an issue for others. Whenever someone sends something to your house or involves your kids they have to use two different last names. It's high maintenance.

NP. This has not been my experience. Most people will usually use just one name. It's really never an issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:it feels so archaic and anti feminist to take his name...

Okay, but it is REALLY practical to just have one family name. Just pick one.

I kept my name -- my 2 kids, 8 and 6, have my husband's last name. I honestly cannot recall this EVER being an issue (including with international travel, ER, doctors' offices, etc.). So I'm not sure the practicality argument carries the day.

It may not be an issue for you but I promise it's an issue for others. Whenever someone sends something to your house or involves your kids they have to use two different last names. It's high maintenance.

NP. This has not been my experience. Most people will usually use just one name. It's really never an issue.

I had a different name than my mom and stepdad and brothers growing up. It was annoying. I had to explain it frequently and it did lead to one or two trouble spots when picking up early from school and what not. It also made me feel bad, for whatever that's worth. So you're not just making this decision for yourself, you're also making it for you kids, FWIW.

[Anonymous]

I always introduce kids to parents of classmates as Mrs. Friend's Last Name.

[Anonymous]

LOL what a stupid issue to founder a marriage over. This is lose-lose for the woman any way you slice it. Either the groom insists you take his name and you call off the marriage because you have to prove a pointless point, or he caves and you end up with a passive doormat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I always introduce kids to parents of classmates as Mrs. Friend's Last Name.

I don't follow. Are you say you disregard what the Mother's last name may or may not be tell your child to call her Mrs. Friend'sLastName?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LOL what a stupid issue to founder a marriage over. This is lose-lose for the woman any way you slice it. Either the groom insists you take his name and you call off the marriage because you have to prove a pointless point, or he caves and you end up with a passive doormat.

Or you marry someone who thinks it's crazy that women change their last name this day and age. He was the first to encourage me to keep my name "it's your name! Why would you change it? " was what he said just after proposing. I respond to Mrs. HisLastName, just as he responds to Mr. MyLastName. We are both proud to be members of each other's families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always introduce kids to parents of classmates as Mrs. Friend's Last Name.

I don't follow. Are you say you disregard what the Mother's last name may or may not be tell your child to call her Mrs. Friend'sLastName?

Doesn't everyone?

[Anonymous]

I can tell you what not to do -- don't try to use 3 names, ala "Mary Tyler Moore." I moved my maiden to the middle and wanted to use all 3. No hyphens, no middle initial. My god, you'd think in this day and age, people and computers could handle it, but they can't. I get so many "Mary T. Moore" or "Mary Tyler-Moore". Sometimes I get Mary-Tyler as my first name! Arrgh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can tell you what not to do -- don't try to use 3 names, ala "Mary Tyler Moore." I moved my maiden to the middle and wanted to use all 3. No hyphens, no middle initial. My god, you'd think in this day and age, people and computers could handle it, but they can't. I get so many "Mary T. Moore" or "Mary Tyler-Moore". Sometimes I get Mary-Tyler as my first name! Arrgh.

Does your surname (Tyler) sound like a first name? Does it happen so often you wish you'd stayed Mary Tyler? Or is it just annoying?

[Anonymous]

I'm 39 yo in DC and it feels like maybe 10-20% of my friends changed their last names when they married. My non-DC friends seems to all change their names.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I wanted us to all have the same last name. My husband would have considered taking mine if I'd asked him to.

I grew up with divorced parents and my mom remarried and I lived with them so they were all a family and I had a different last name. It always made me feel just the tiniest bit like an outsider. I a) didn't want to feel that twinge in the family I was building with my husband and b) didn't want my kids to feel it either.

Honestly its NBD. I am a VERY strong, opinionated, female supporting woman (and an atheist democrat in case people think its just conservative thing). Some people would say obnoxiously so but this felt like a silly hill to die on. It is not viewed as succumbing to the patriarchy in today's society, be real. I felt a little sad as my wedding approached and I knew my time as a 'Smith' was coming to an end but six months later it was whatever. Your last name is not your defining characteristic.

If you want to keep it, keep it. If you want to change it, change it. Neither choice defines you as a 'better' or 'more independent' or 'stronger' woman.

You can rationalize it all you want, but there are a million "little" ways that our society confers second-class status on women, and this is one. Is it worth wailing in the streets about, no, but please don't delude yourself that it doesn't.

I am the pp you are responding to.

You are completely off your rail. I had every right to not change my name, I did what I wanted to do and it had nothing to do with being a second class citizen. Take your feminist brigade elsewhere. I explained my reasons and you should respect my choice if you're a real feminist. I made no criticisms of women who keep their name, just that it was not that big a deal one way or the other.

Of course it is your choice, but I don't have to respect your choice to be a real feminist. That line of thinking is bullshit. The whole idea of the name change is *based* on the idea that women were the property of men...first their fathers, then their husbands. That is what it is based on. You cannot dispute this, even if you don't think of it that way yourself (now).

Well that's what the entire institution of marriage is founded on too. Should no one get married because a few hundred years ago marriage was frequently an exchange in female property?

Acting like history is the only thing that can influence a proper feminists way of thinking is just so stupid and narrow moved.

I never DID dispute that it was based in a sexist practice, I disputed that it means those same things today. Because it doesn't. And actually feminism DOES mean giving women the right to choose. I guess you don't have to respect my choice (which was, in case you didn't actually read it, based on my very real experiences as a child not sharing my family's name) but to judge this in particular so harshly seems like a lot of wasted effort. Plenty of very strong, secure, independent women choose to take their husbands name when they choose to start their family.

I can see where you are going, but one could argue that the institution of marriage under the law in this country has changed to be more egalitarian and that many couples do it either for spiritual reasons (a joining recognized by their religion) or for the legal benefits (or maybe both). I would argue that in this country, it has become more symbolic of joining two separate lives into one and not about exchange of property.

On the other hand, with the name changing, the norm is still for the woman to take the man's name. It may not translate to literal ownership of one person by another, but the symbolic meaning is still there. The woman ceases to be her old self and has a new outward identity and he changes his outward identity not at all. In most cases there is no discussion of whether the man will change his name; it is either assumed the woman will change hers or there might be discussion of the woman having the choice to keep her name. Some progress for women with that choice, but not full equality. It does remain as one way women are seen as secondary to the man they marry. I'm sorry if that insults you personally; I don't mean to insinuate that I think you are completely anti-feminist for changing your name. My original comment was meant to say, wait a minute, for some of us, this is a big deal. And you come back with "you are off your rail" and "feminist brigade" and I'm not a "real feminist" if I don't agree with you. Maybe you need to stop and think about who is really being narrow minded here. I never said history is the "only thing that can influence proper feminists way of thinking" but to forget or ignore history is not a good idea, either.

Oh yeah sure I'm the only one who heightened the rhetoric. You're the one who responded to my initial (very nice) post telling me I could "rationalize it all I wanted" but I was "deluding myself" that this doesn't demean women. Also that you did not "respect my choice" to change my name. But sure yeah I'm the narrow minded one who attacked you for no reason.

I hate this brand of feminism, this, you're only doing it right if you're fighting every fight. Are you also the type who says SAHMs are hurting the cause?

Taking on a family name is the norm. Sure it's normally the male but who cares? I'll tell you one thing I don't know if it's insecurity or whatever but the only people I know who beat this issue into the ground are people who wouldn't change their name. I don't know a single person who changed it who has spent time regretting it. What people do in their own relationships that isn't abuse is no one's business but their own.

No, I don't think SAHMs are hurting the cause. You are over the top with your generalizing. Get a grip.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:it feels so archaic and anti feminist to take his name...

Okay, but it is REALLY practical to just have one family name. Just pick one.

I kept my name -- my 2 kids, 8 and 6, have my husband's last name. I honestly cannot recall this EVER being an issue (including with international travel, ER, doctors' offices, etc.). So I'm not sure the practicality argument carries the day.

It may not be an issue for you but I promise it's an issue for others. Whenever someone sends something to your house or involves your kids they have to use two different last names. It's high maintenance.

Oh good grief. I changed my name but if it's so taxing to do those simple things because folks have different names, how do you make it through life each day?

[Anonymous]

I didn't change mine. I have too much pride to do that.

I told my husband if he really needed all of us to have the same name he was welcome to change his.