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AIBU?

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Original poster

To want to keep my maiden name?

382 replies

Mitzimaybe · 03/08/2014 11:21

My DP wants me to take his surname when we get married next year. It's traditional and he says if I keep my own name that means I want to keep my independence, so we might as well not get married.

I think it's a leftover from a patriarchal society where the bride ceased to be the property of her father and became the property of her husband, and it has no place in our modern, equal relationship.

I'd appreciate any replies that would help him see my point of view, (not just LTB!)

N.B. We are not young and won't have any children, if that makes any difference.

OP posts:
EverythingCounts · 04/08/2014 18:47

That's fine for you mj. Your name, your choice. But you could also have had that feeling if your husband and son had your name because he had changed to yours instead, no?

plumnc · 04/08/2014 18:48

YANBU

It's quite normal these days, no? (and very normal in many parts of Europe too. In Scandivania for instance a woman automatically keeps her old name unless she choses not to)

I only took dh's name because I liked it better than my old one and I still have a family middle name that I always I've used as my surname anyway (the dc's have both those names so that way it worked for us. incidentally and irrelevant here really, I never understood why a woman would want to give a child the father's name, if it was not her own. Personally I would not want my children to have a different name to mine, but maybe that's just me).

mjmooseface · 04/08/2014 18:49

Nomama, great quote! But then men won't be happy with that and it'll be this never ending power struggle between men and women! lol

mjmooseface · 04/08/2014 18:51

EverythingCounts I would never have asked my husband to take my surname? That would just feel weird and wrong to me!!

Nomama · 04/08/2014 18:55

And in Greece it is illegal for a woman to change her name, was made so 30 years ago and on it goes.

But in the UK it is still the norm to change.

Younger women may be changing that, but maybe not. I haven't found any complete longitudinal data for the UK, yet! But, so far, I am 'normal' as far as our wider society is concerned Smile

So that does leave the average poster on this thread outside the norm (UK and USA, other European countries are quite different).

Aurestel79 · 04/08/2014 19:03

The man wanted me to take his surname but we've been married now for more than a year and I still have my surname. No way. My name is part of my identity and I shall not change it. I'm not his property, at the end of the day!
You should clarify what your surname really means to you and then explain it to your partner. He can't be so selfish and possessive... Good luck

PopularNamesInclude · 04/08/2014 19:12

A woman never really does have her own name, it seems. Of course she does. I have the same name as my brothers. I have my own name as much as they have theirs. All of us get our names from somewhere!

At any rate, I'm happy to be out of sync with the majority on this one. The only time I ever want to be normal is when I'm getting the results of medical tests.

Nomama · 04/08/2014 19:18

Popular, what I typed is logical given what has gone before.

A woman lives with her father's name until she gets married then she takes her husband's name. That is the societal norm in the UK.

But I appreciate that it won't fit in the scheme of things here ...

flipchart · 04/08/2014 19:21

I am reading a lot of posts here about people being adamant that they are not changing their name and keeping their independence.

I wonder if it is a regional thing. I am in my 40s and work for Lancashire County Council. I have known bout 2 dozen women in different departments such IT, HR SS and Policy and others get married in the last 2 1/2 years. Without fil every single one has changed their name. Their ages from mid 20s to late 40s.

None of my friends or their daughters have kept their name.

Yet reding this thread it seems everyone is changing!!

mjmooseface · 04/08/2014 19:22

Thanks Nomama for your statistics! Interesting that it is illegal for a woman to change her name and has been for 30 years! Are women fighting for the right to change their name over there?

mjmooseface · 04/08/2014 19:25

flipchart Every married woman I've ever known in my life has changed their name to their husband's. All ranging in ages. I was 19 when I got married 3 years ago. It wasn't a big deal to me to change my name. For me, it was part of the marriage process. I am still me. I just have a different surname!

flipchart · 04/08/2014 19:31

mjm. I changed mine as well.
That's why I was wondering if it was a regional thing.

After I posted I did remember 1 colleague kept her name at work but that lasted about 18 months and then she changed it. Everyone who didn't know her that well was congratulating her. She was rather embarrassed to say that the wedding was 18 months previous!

Nomama · 04/08/2014 19:35

As far as I can tell there is no problem, Greece came out of dictatorship and this formed part of a reform in the late 70s that gave women a lot of the freedoms we now take for granted... mainly getting out into the workplace, degree level education etc

And I found a quote to support my women don't have their own names...

One of the big debates in feminist circles is whether it's really any better for women to keep their maiden names, which often are their father's last name. Is that really liberating?

But in Greece parents choose whose name their kids will take.

I thought that was all quite positive until I ground a Grauniad article on it, which finished with this fascinating tidbit: Iran has had this system for over a century... and you couldn't claim that Iran has a good track record on women's rights.

EhricLovesTheBhrothers · 04/08/2014 19:37

Nomama I wasn't being offensive, just extrapolating the type of upbringing you probably had from the insight into your father's value system that you have.

Old fashioned marriage isn't wonderful, it's rubbish. I don't abide strict, binary gender roles and I don't want a head of my household. I don't believe in women being given away by their fathers and I don't believe in women changing their names. I never wanted an old fashioned marriage, I abhor the concept.

TalkinPeace · 04/08/2014 19:41

OP
I see you've not posted again.

Its simple really,
Do both
be Mrs Maybe when you are with him and Miss Mitzi at work / with old friends

the UK law is very clear : you can have as many names as you like so long as it is not for the purposes of fraud.
I have bank accounts, CRB, pay slips and passports in both of my names
all totally above board

Nomama · 04/08/2014 19:46

Sorry Ehric. I have been judged and found to be a Little Woman on here a lot recently. I have obviously become touchy - especially as that really isn't me at all.

I am with you as far as gender based roles and head of family... but DH and I did want the wedding. From his comment to my dad you can tell DH doesn't hold with old fashioned tut either. Our marriage is one of equals, always has been. I don't like that you find my life choice abhorrent, but that is your point of view.

My dad's value system... I'd love to be able to defend him, he was brought up 1 of 9 kids by a very strong matriarchal woman (his dad was profoundly effected by shell shock). Sadly dad is very much one of those 'Head of the House' types, something I recognised and walked away from at 17. You may have a point!

Saoirseba · 04/08/2014 19:53

You're not choosing between your father's name and his name, if you're playing it that way.

You're either choosing between your name and his name, or alternatively, your father's name and his father's name. They both come from the father as people are ~cleverly~ pointing out, so why is the man's "his" and mine a placeholder to change upon marriage? Where does the ownership come from? Using your logic, your father's is his father's is his father's so nobody has a name at all except the very first man who had it.

Either everyone owns their father-inherited names or nobody does. Saying women alone don't have last names is internalised sexist bullshit hth x

TalkinPeace · 04/08/2014 19:56

One of my cousins and her husband have a made up family name that bears no relation to either of their parental names
their children have the new name
both sets of grandparents are on edge about it

why deny where you came from?

I admit where I came from : that is why I use both my legal names

EhricLovesTheBhrothers · 04/08/2014 19:58

I don't think you or your dad are wrong as such, you are just embedded in a value system that is not mine. Your dad's views probably entrenched themselves in you somewhere in as much as your concepts of gender were shaped by him on an unconscious level. It happens to us all! I don't find you abhorrent, or most weddings that I go to, even the ones with the woman being walked down the aisle by her father etc. I know that most people don't see these things as having any negative meaning anymore, they see them as quaint and charming traditions but I just don't see them that way. Maybe when men and women are truly equal in society these things will become meaningless traditions but right now we are miles off that.

EverythingCounts · 04/08/2014 20:00

I can well believe the average MNer does not match up in all respects with the average British woman. That doesn't make anyone from either group abnormal! Neither does it prove that in 20 years either a) many more women will be keeping their name, or b) things will remain static and most women will continue to change their name. We just don't know. As keeping your name becomes more common and more socially acceptable, it's very likely there will be an increase in doing it, but old habits die hard so I am not surprised that changing is so far still the norm.

mj So my question is, what makes it weird and wrong for your husband to change his name? It would achieve the aim of you all having the unity of the same name - what does it matter whose name it is to begin with? Plus you've said changing doesn't make you feel less of your own person, so surely it wouldn't for your husband either?

BringMeTea · 04/08/2014 20:01

Recently married in my 40s and not name changing. Husband completely gets it. His sister didn't change her name 18 years ago either. However, all of my friends have changed their names and we are all educated to degree level. So, it is a conundrum as to whether that plays a part. Oh and from the NW of. England for the person who thought it might be regional.

nickelbabe · 04/08/2014 20:08

mjmooseface
you seem to be living under the assumption that everyone has to live the same way.

marriage is indeed about sharing everything, but inasmuch as I didn't change my first name, I also didn't change my surname.
and Shock DD has a different name from both of us

I asked my dad to give me away because I knew he'd like to. he definitely didn't believe he was handing over ownership!

and talking traditional, our wedding was 1928 book of common prayer, hymns, choir, everything.
as it happens, I walked down the aisle and dh walked up the aisle! he played my entrance on the organ and then joined me at the altar (which is in the nave in our church) . I think that counts as equal - we met halfway.

nickelbabe · 04/08/2014 20:11

nomama yes, of course a woman has her own name!
ffs. in the uk, you choose your name. full stop. once you hit 18 you can be called anything you frigging like. the only stipulation by law is that you are not doing so with intent to defraud.
and that's it.

so as long as it's the person's choice name changing is fine. it's when it's pressure from someone else that makes it wrong.

Nomama · 04/08/2014 20:18

Ah, those who are telling me now that I am talking tripe... our society is patrilinear... so your surname is a patronym. I am sure that if a group of eminent feminist writers can debate this you lot can spare it a thought (that being where I got my last quote from)

nickelbabe.. the thread hasn't been about anything other than changing your name when you get married... your post 18 choice scenario is not really the point. But your point about choice is the most apposite thing posted in a while!

nickelbabe · 04/08/2014 20:21

from other thoughts -
I don't think it's regional.
most of the people I know in nottingham changed their names, including both of my sisters, and most people I know in kent changed their names.

I make a point of asking the married couple if there will be a name change (and apparently that means I'm forcing my views on them), but actually, it's better manners to find out how someone wishes to be addressed rather than assuming.