Title and name when married

And yes, both DH and I see our marriage as an achievement.

You can enjoy the tradition of the name change without any type of ownership in the relationship, and ours is very healthily 50/50 with no-one 'owning' anyone. People celebrate Christmas without having to believe in God. But it's a tradition. There are lots of traditions. Yes I was proud to take his name but as I said he offered to take mine and he would have been equally proud to take mine if we had done it that way.

As for liking the tradition - it stems from women not being considered anything but property. How can anyone like that?!

I felt really proud to take my husband's name, but I wouldn't knock any wives who want to keep their own. He did actually offer to take my name, but I preferred the tradition of taking his. I like that we all 4 have the same surname, too. 😊

To all those quoting me AGAIN I was pointing out the whole ludicrousness of all surnames coming from the male line. The OP’s choice always involved a male lineage. It wasn’t meant to be a serious statement in itself.

But being serious, I do think it is easier for surnames to come down the female line. It is easier because, on average, children tend to stay with their mothers and mothers do more caring duties eg. booking doctors appts, passport applications etc everywhere where having the same surname is useful.

So from an entirely practical viewpoint, in general, with families splitting up more, it is easier for surnames to go down the female line.

OP if you are not going to have a family, it doesn’t matter a jot which of your male-line relatives and ex-relatives surnames you have. I would go with the surname I like the sound of the best.

It's your name, so the only person whose opinion matters on this one is you. It's a bit of a faff changing it anyway so I wouldn't unless you really want to.

I changed my name to my husband's name when we got married and just couldn't get on with it. My name is still his name officially, but I always refer to myself as my birth name. I'll change it back at some point.

Only cheques we write are to the school when we are paying for something for them to buy.

I'm Mrs Husband's name. I was very happy to take it and I wanted the same name as my children. But while my husband was pleased I did I don't think he would have cared of I'd kept my own. As it is second marriage and a bit older I see even less of a reason to change your name. Everyone it entitled to an opinion and as it is your mum you'll just have to seethe inside.

I kept my name, and we double-barrelled the children's surname. It just made sense to both of us at the time, and we've run into any issues stemming from it.

My parents were completely unflapped about all this, but my ILs were shocked. After banging on at me about how most Englishwomen regarded taking their husband's name as completely standard, they ended on that hoary old gotcha, "And what will happen with surnames when your boys grow up and marry someone, hmm? What then?"

They had no response when I pointed out that in their model, the boys' assumed English female partners would undoubtably adopt our double-barrelled innovation without batting an eyelash.

It's your name. Not your husband's, ex's, or father's. It's your name. You should chose it.

I always ask now with friends getting married what their plans are. People have their own reasons for changing or not changing. Some change their minds as well.

We have friends who legally have different names. Socially (with friends) they are known as a combination of the two (social media, Christmas cards etc).

I cannot reach back in time and alter the fact that my parents, and their forebears perpetuated a sexist surnaming convention, any more than I can retrospectively make female suffrage happen earlier.

This.

However, as I've mentioned before on these sorts of threads, there are surnames which come from women.

Baxter is the feminine form of Baker.
Brewster is the feminine form of Brewer.
Webster is the feminine form of Webber.

It should be the norm. It would make geneology a lot easier.

I cannot reach back in time and alter the fact that my parents, and their forebears perpetuated a sexist surnaming convention, any more than I can retrospectively make female suffrage happen earlier.

But I have my own surname and will keep it for life, and DS has both my and DH’s names. He and his wife, if he marries, will make less kneejerk sexist decisions on their marriage and what their children are called.

Feminist1010 I assume you have the bank details of all your parents then? We run second hand uniform sales throughout the year, so send hundreds of cheques out for those, plus cheques for committee members and class reps for purchases for events. We don't like to bother the school secretaries, they are busy enough.

Mrs was a contraction of Mistress, as in Mistress of the House. The word Mistress developed into Mrs for older, married women and Miss for younger, unmarried women.

In European languages, forms such as Señora and Madame are now used for all adult women regardless of marital status. Señorita and Mademoiselle are reserved for little girls. I'm not sure why this didn't happen in English with Mrs.

Miss and Mrs both strike me as terribly old fashioned. I adopted Ms as my title on my 18th birthday and haven't looked back.

I should have put a at the end of my post. It was meant to show the point that your surname is from a male ‘ownership’.

I debated mine. I preferred the sound of my first surname but wasn’t that bothered (neither was Dh) so thought, as I was moving job, that I would change as I wanted our future children and us all to have the same name.
Ironically it turns out the one who couldn’t get used to it was my narcissistic dad who kept thinking Dh must have my dad’s surname and sent confidential emails to a random distant relative on more than one occasion.

If we needed to, the school secretary would help with parental names. (I myself have a different surname to DD (she has mine as a middle name) but it’s caused precisely fuck all issues for over a decade.)

I do not understand how women don't see the blatant sexism of the title Mrs. There is no male equivalent. Women should all use Ms throughout our adult lives regardless of marital status. Men are always just Mr. Why, except sexism, should it be different for women?

@Zandathepanda, not always. My name isn't connected to any one in my family/life. In fact it spans from a bit of an identity crisis so i took it and kept it to stabilise myself.

My surname is my LONG buggered off Step Dad's surname, I was "known as" since I was 7 but legally changed it before getting married because I didn't want my birth name appearing on my marriage certificate as I've totally disassociated with it.

My Step Dad found me on social media and messaged me to ask "why the fuck are you using our name, your fuck all to do with us?!". It's about time someone half decent was added to that family tree 😁

He was a prick of the highest order but it's MY name. I don't belong to anyone.

Honestly, it's just a name. I and all my friends have taken our husbands surname, but it doesn't diminish us as people. I just don't get the outrage, in a modern world it really doesn't have any moral or legal consequence.

It is an administrative nightmare however trying to get school event cheques from the PTA to mums via their children when they don't have the same name. Lots of lost or misnamed cheques. Minor inconvenience I know, but a very personal one!

My dear old aunt addresses all post to the man of the house, seems to think women are not entitled to receive mail or something. And my MIL pretends we are married, she just couldn't handle us living together. This all used to piss me off but these days I don't have the energy ...

By that reasoning, your husband's name isn't 'his' it's his father's. Which is in turn his father's.

So you're either taking the name of a distant ancestor to whom you have a biological connection or you're taking the name of a distant ancestor of someone else.

Which would you prefer?