Christmas cards and women changing their name upon marriage!

[mulledoverwine]

I am recently married and did not change my name.

I have been writing out my Christmas cards tonight and have realised that only 1 other woman I am posting to hasn't changed their name and another double barrelled theirs (he didn't).

Everyone else is Mr & Mrs {His Initial} Patriarchy.

I am quite enraged by it all! I have become more feminist as I have got older as I have started to question the norm more. Especially since reading the feminist boards on here.

I just want to shake every woman who changes their name!!

I am going to get slaughtered here aren't I??

I changed my name when I got married. I didn’t take the decision lightly, I really took time to think it over but my maiden name was one that could be spelled in 2 different ways (think Clarke and Clark) and I was fed up of constantly having to correct people, also my married surname is a really lovely name and sounds great with my first name.

If you think about it your surname is your father’s name and his father’s before him so whether you change it or not you have a mans name. I suppose the right thing to do would be to follow your maternal family tree back as far as you could and take the surname of the furthest back female, to make it fairer!

I absolutely support women's choice to change or not change as they wish, but I don't think a woman who chooses her father's name should berate me as less feminist for choosing my husband's.

I do find it amusing that those most vehemently berating us for changing our names are using the term 'maiden' name, which has to be the most patriarchal phrase ever!

When I was getting married, though, I had a perfect opportunity to take another name without cost, to a man I actually chose and loved, and which sincerely works better with my first name

In that case doesn't it make you quite sad that men with abusive fathers will, as you say, go through a lot more hassle and judgment if they want to do exactly the same thing?

I don't think a woman who chooses her father's name should berate me as less feminist for choosing my husband's.

You're either choosing between your name and your husband's or between your father's name and your father-in-law's. You can't have it both ways.

As far as I was concerned I had a man's name anyway because it wasn't my mother's name was it? I didn't think changing my name would have anything to do with the way I'm perceived in society, as someone suggested earlier. The days when being married conferrred some kind of status are long gone.

If anything, I would say I did it as a mark of respect for DH and the fact he would be my husband. It was an acknowledgment of that bond between us and a personal thing that we share - I have his name and he has a woman who has his name, if that makes sense? If couples want to do that, it's up to them.

In that case doesn't it make you quite sad that men with abusive fathers will, as you say, go through a lot more hassle and judgment if they want to do exactly the same thing?

It's a separate issue. If men changed their names on marriage I really wouldn't give a stuff.

Argh can't all the people who keep saying that women 'have their father's name anyway' just RFT?!

I've read it.

And I like my father i law more than my father, so yeah, happy to choose him too.

I have RTFT and to me it's obvious that I did have my fathers name. Who else's name was it? DH had his father's name as well as the name of the relatives before him. The fact is, his name is the one that has been passed on.
So yes, my maiden name was "my name", but I'm under no delusions as to where it came from.

Of course you're gonna get slaughtered. It's all about choice, rather than womankind doing what makes you happy ☺️

Men also have their fathers name usually atm.
But it’s defeatist to say because we have our fathers name (although I don’t nor my husbands) that we should just continue this way.
Change has to start somewhere.

"I absolutely support women's choice to change or not change as they wish, but I don't think a woman who chooses her father's name should berate me as less feminist for choosing my husband's."

Just seen my typo from my previous post. Should say "overthinking"

Here's another reason why some women change or don't change their name: safeguarding

I have a couple of friends who work in social services and who have to make difficult decisions. They deliberately keep their maiden name for work and use their married name for everything else and for their children so that it is more difficult for people that they have had to deal with to trace them or their children.

Lonicera
What do single women do regarding safeguarding then?

Or men who work in those areas

I don't think a woman who chooses her father's name should berate me as less feminist for choosing my husband's.

If you think a woman's name is her father's but a man, who got his in the same way, has his own, you're in need of a berating. Btw, why does your FIL get his own name even though presumably a bloke gave it to him?

I have no idea itsbetterthanabox

Nobody has their "own name" unless they make one up and change it by deed poll. This is obvious because names are passed through generational lines . My husband's name is his father's name and his grandfather's and so on.

YANBU. Patriarchy is doing very nicely.

"Changing your name is absolutely not a feminist thing to do. Its not the worst thing in the world, but it's not feminist"

So we have to keep our maiden names to appease the feminists?

Traditionally all names are male and will remain so unless we change that tradition.
If all women kept their name and passed their name on to their daughters the tradition would change.
If we wanted to we could own our own names. We could make it happen. Or we can say "what's all the fuss about?".