Would you give up your surname of you got married?

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I'm so undecided

I cant believe anyone would think it was actually damaging for a woman to keep her surname.
It just feeds the belief that the worst thing you can call a man is a woman.

Before marriage I'd always said I would 100% change my name, however, as the big day approached I became sentimental about losing my maiden name, plus I'm regularly addressed by my nickname which is part formed of my first and surname so was worried that would fall away.
Anyway, I got married and took my DHs name and a few have tried to alter my nickname to coincide with my new surname but that fell by the wayside too.
Weirdly enough, I also chastise myself in my maiden name Hahahahahaha, prob cos I had thirty odd years of practise beforehand lol

Kept my name, because it's my name. It's also quite unusual where I live and his is v common. There's also his mum and his ex with that name...

We don't have kids so that's not an issue.

Some people seem to think I have taken his name but just don't use it at work, but I haven't at all. I like it when he gets called Mr 80s Waistcoat because I've booked hotel or whatever.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29804450

Here's an article about the history of women having their names removed upon marriage and the feminist struggle for women to have the legal right to use their name.

To me it's similar to women who choose not to vote. I lose respect for them too.

Feminism isn't about choice it's about women's liberation from patriarchy. Name changing isn't a free choice. The patriarchal pressure to do it is huge and not recognising this is cognitive dissonance.

Have had zero problems at school with the dcs not having my name.

Could a third wave, "choice" feminist, explain to me why changing names on marriage is a choice overwhelmingly made by women, and one which, to go by this thread alone, many men expect, or even insist on?

friends who didn't change their names found the hassle came when dcs started school. I really hope it's changed now though.

What sort of hassle? I've had none whatsoever. (Staff at DC's school just call me by my first name.)

Sameoldiggi- That's good to know about school, DS is just a toddler but not had any problems at doctors/hospitals or leaving the country with a different name to me. I would have thought it was a common thing now.

I like it when he gets called Mr 80s Waistcoat because I've booked hotel or whatever.

Me too. (Including our honeymoon which demonstrated perfectly to DH how annoying it is to be called by a name which isn't yours.)

Beebeeeight To me it's similar to women who choose not to vote. I lose respect for them too.

So are you saying you don't respect all the women who have changed their name, that they are beneath you, basically?

Dangerous waters. Implies we can't critique and analyse instances of sexism unless they are the One True Worst Thing. But who decides what that is!

Indeed it is, and one can never quite shake off the suspicion that the 'focus on something more important' is being used by people who find the current topic of discussion inconvenient, and would rather it went away because they don't like it.

Regardless, anyone who is telling a feminist to focus on another area of women's rights had better be doing every single thing she can in said area before daring to tell anyone else how they should approach their liberation.

I had a HV visit just before I had DC2. She was asking about names of family members etc and she said 'So does DC1 still see his real Dad then?' I told her DP was DC1's real Dad. She was puzzled because they had different surnames. When a HCP's first assumption is that he must have a different Dad, rather than oh he has his Mother's name, you realised just how deep rooted this stuff is.

"are you saying you don't respect all the women who have changed their name, that they are beneath you, basically?"

Losing respect is rather different from not respecting. And neither of them mean "beneath you".

Bert, someone has started a thread about that.

Regardless, anyone who is telling a feminist to focus on another area of women's rights had better be doing every single thing she can in said area before daring to tell anyone else how they should approach their liberation.

Not sure I agree, Hyacinth. My personal opinion (as I've stated before) is that a name is something for administrative convenience. I wanted our family to have the same name and I preferred my DH's. End of. I fully understand the points others make about patriarchal symbolism and the like, but I think they are minor in the overall scheme of things. Here's the nub of the argument, though - a lot of men think this is minor in the overall scheme of things too. So rather than the debate about women's rights being focused on changing the workplace so that more women can participate on an equal footing and making flexible working something more common and gender neutral, it is easy for men/detractors to trivialise it down to - "Feminists. Just a load of uppity middle class women who object to being Mrs". And that's the real danger here. At the risk of really causing an uproar, just look at the recent Brexit debacle if you want a different example of the popular debate losing sight of the core economic issues and focusing on the trivial....

Beebeeeight, what else causes you to lose respect for women? Their choice to be members of a religion? SAHMs? Hijab/high heel/make-up wearers?

...I'm now banging on a bit here (for which apologies!), but have just thought of another, possibly better way to express it. I would not claim to be a feminist. I am also not a member of the Labour Party, but I would dearly love to see some sort of effective political opposition in this country. It therefore makes my heart sink to see all these fired up young people, who could do something to change the world, jumping on the Corbyn bandwagon. Why? Because to bring about change you need to have a seat at the table - which requires votes - which requires an understanding that the country is essentially centrist. Same with feminism. Getting exercised about whether I am Miss Maiden or Mrs Osipova does nothing to convince the powers that be (which I presume is what you would call the patriarchy?) that it is in their economic interest to have more women in jobs and more men and women able to share childcare responsibility. And it's then easy for the same powers to dismiss you as extremists. In short, it isn't tactical and it can reduce your power of opposition.

I don't agree. I think that we need to address the small things as well as the big ones- it's not either/or.

The fact that everyone doesn't say "oh,yes- it is a bit odd that women overwhelmingly lose their names on marriage- let's stop doing that, shall we and make it a proper choice" means that we live in a society which is happy to erase women. Where it's still noteworthy if there are equal numbers of men and women on television programmes, for example. It's all part of the overall picture. Yes, some things are more important than others- but that doesn't mean that the small things aren't important too. We've got the legislation- it's the mindset that needs to change.

Natalia I think you make some really good points however for me the issue of women name changing doesn't directly feed into issues around jobs and childcare.

It's sort of symbolic, men are of high importance and their wives are somehow an extension of them. I think others are able to explain it better than I am. Women are always expected to make the compromise. Always expected to fix things.

I realise why people might not think it's relevant in this day and age but I don't think it's irrelevant.

I think there's psychology behind everything we do and smaller things feed into bigger issues.

I come back to the point that if a name is purely administrative then why in this day are men so horrified at the thought of changing theirs. Why do men carry such pride in their family name? There's got to be something in that.

I will never forget the feeling I was given as a child, that women were worthless, (not from my own parents) when our cleaning lady asked us to pray that her grandchild would be a boy, so that he could 'carry on the family name'. Which was something really everyday like say, Brown or Smith. I did pray for her as well!

Then my brother got a bit obsessed with 'carrying on the family name' , and really got quite angry when I gave it to my children, saying that I had 'no right' to do so.

so yes, it seems to be women as extensions, who are less important becuase they do not have their own name. OK the cleaning lady scenario was back in the 70s but it did affect me at that time, got me thinking a bit.

'I fully understand the points others make about patriarchal symbolism and the like, but I think they are minor in the overall scheme of things.'

I really could not disagree more. Women changing their name to their husband's is all part of the wider picture. And guess what, women are capable of worrying about the 'minor' (in your mind) issues as well as the bigger ones.

'I come back to the point that if a name is purely administrative then why in this day are men so horrified at the thought of changing theirs.'

Well quite!

I did change my name (am I still allowed to identify as a feminist having done so?) but somewhat regret it now. I made a rather rash decision when we were booking the honeymoon - for some reason I think I thought if I did change my name, I had to change it immediately after marriage. There was no pressure or expectation to change it from anyone. DH later said he would have also been happy to double-barrel; he should have made that clearer at the time! I'm not sure if would have liked to double-barrel however, as I used to find my name a pain to spell, without having another name added on to it as well. My name was very unusual whereas DH's is relatively common. It used to get on my nerves but now I rather miss it and feel a bit sad when I look back on things that had my former surname on. I feel like I have lost a bit of my identity and that the new name isn't really "me".

I even thought about changing it back, but if I did I'd have a different surname from my children. If anyone has heard of a happily married woman who reverted to her maiden name, please let me know!

I also started counting all the women I knew who have got married. I think something like 80-85% changed their names and a handful double barrelled. And of the women I know who aren't married or who kept their own names without double-barrelling, in all but one case the children have the father's name.

The name thing is far from 'minor' it is a reflection of the whole system.
women are not real people who have their own names. People therefore pray that they are not born, because their nameless value is so low. Wtf is that about?

Creative Ok - the symbolism thing I get. But then that surely leads inexorably to an "entirely personal choice" position rather than, say, the one Bertrand espouses? Because it honestly isn't symbolic to me in that way at all.

I think the economic part is at the absolute core of it. Someone (my point would obviously be far more impressive if I could actually remember who! Adam Smith maybe?) said that economics is at the centre of life. I believe that. Look at the movement for women's suffrage. Did they bring about change because men suddenly thought "These women have a point"? I think it was because they realised that the growing level of tax revenues for women was under threat. Same with maternity legislation. Maternity leave was enhanced because the government wants more women to go back to work - because that, in turn, enhances GDP. If the big things change, the mindset may well follow.....but I don't think it works the other way round.