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AIBU?

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Original poster

Christmas cards and women changing their name upon marriage!

950 replies

mulledoverwine · 15/12/2017 22:17

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 Hmm 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??

OP posts:
InvisibleKittenAttack · 16/12/2017 17:54

I understanding keeping your own surname/family ringle, what I don't get is then giving the dcs your DHs surname/family name. That's the bit that seems bizarre to me.

It just seems the norm if parents have different surnames is to give the father's automatically, or at most double barrel it. I don't get why the mothers surname isn't considered unless she's changed her surname to her DHs.

InvisibleKittenAttack · 16/12/2017 17:56

Sorry ringle cross posted with your answer!

MargaretCavendish · 16/12/2017 17:56

Thanks, Vladimir - I am getting a bit repetitive, I know! I actually don't think it's a Mumsnet thing, I think it's a women's issues things - so many people are so eager to tell feminists in the west that their concerns are trivial compared to those of women elsewhere in the world. Which I'd find easier to stomach if I thought those people really cared about those other issues - but most of them don't, they just want an easy way to tell themselves that there's no gender equality for them to feel uneasy about in their own society by using other (usually non-white) societies as examples of 'real' inequality. It manages to both dismiss women's valid concerns and at the same time be racist ('we're not like those savages in Africa/the Middle East/India/wherever!').

ringle · 16/12/2017 18:02

No worries kitten.

IsaSchmisa · 16/12/2017 18:12

Beautifully put margaret.

If all the women bleating about how this doesn't matter and feminism should have more important goals were actually working to empower women themselves, the world would be a better place.

NerrSnerr · 16/12/2017 18:17

I changed my name because we wanted our family to have the same name and my husband and his dad are both only children so we didn’t want the family name to end there (whereas both my parent’s names are being continued- they’re divorced so have different names).

I do understand what people are saying from both sides of the argument and I respect everyone’s choice to choose what they’re name is. I realised I didn’t know if a friend who got married this year had changed her name so I addressed the Christmas card to her and her husband’s first name to avoid getting it wrong.

I think the OP did start this thread to start an argument- if she didn’t she wouldn’t have said the whole shaking thing.

I have my husband’s name but that doesn’t make him the boss of me.

May50 · 16/12/2017 18:34

I don’t care if women take their husbands or not. But I’d prefer if the norm was 50/50 so on marriage the couple choose whose name to take, whereas currently the norm is still to take the man’s name.
I don’t see why a child should take the Father’s name, seems more reasonable to take the mothers name - my DD has my name, I am now separated from her father and he takes no responsibility (pays no maintenance, won’t have her overnight ) - sees her when it suits him, so frankly it’s much easier practically to have the same name.

WhatToDoAboutThis2017 · 16/12/2017 18:36

I couldn't wait to be Mrs DH, and I still feel proud and happy and excited whenever I get called or referred to as Mrs DH.

Why do you want to take choices away from women?

It was my choice to change my name to my husbands because I wanted to. Why shouldn't I have that choice?

Bodicea · 16/12/2017 18:37

I loved changing my name to my husbands. I liked that it unified us and now that we have children we all have the same family name.
It had to be one give up their name if we wanted to be the same and I can’t get that worked up about the fact that the tradition that you take the male name.
It’s just a surname at the end of the day. I don’t have much attachment to it. People generally call you and know by your first name only so I didn’t feel like lost my identity changing it.

Lizzie48 · 16/12/2017 18:42

It's a very interesting discussion. I will admit that I didn't really think through the feminist issues when I got married back in 2003, and my DH was keen for me to take his name, plus the fact that I didn't like my original name, as I've explained, so I took his name. It was also the case that his family would have considered it odd if I'd said no, so I didn't really think about it.

I can see what posters mean tbh. But I'm hardly going to go back to my original family name (not an option at all!), so that's how it is.

I was intrigued by the comment of a previous poster that in her patriarchal culture of origin, women aren't allowed to adopt their husband's name because they are tied to their father's family. So the issue is actually more complex than it appears at face value.

Maybe in the future, it will be our mother's name that we adopt rather than our father's, and our father's maiden name will be our security password. Because that's a massive assumption as well, that of course we won't be using our mother's maiden name in our everyday life.

PoorYorick · 16/12/2017 18:42

Why do you want to take choices away from women?

Because you should be choosing to do as you're told!

mousemoose · 16/12/2017 18:49

www.google.co.uk/amp/amp.timeinc.net/time/3940094/maiden-married-names-countries

This is an interesting (and short!) article from Time about lots of countries that have made it illegal for a woman to change her name on marriage due to gender issues. Can you imagine it getting raised in parliament here! From the views on this thread we are a long way from that. Oh, and in Japan one person HAS to change.

LoveInTokyo · 16/12/2017 18:50

Some of my friends have changed their name, some haven't, some have double-barrelled and one couple merged their surnames, which I think was great.

I'm getting married soon and sadly double-barrelling and merging won't work with our names, so I have the choice to either keep my name or take his. I'm almost sure that I'm going to take my husband's name. After all, I am choosing to marry my husband, but I didn't choose to be my father's daughter. (Not that I have a problem with my dad - I don't!)

I would like us to have the same name, and also I am living in his country where my name is difficult to spell and pronounce, so it will certainly make life easier.

I think YANBU to get annoyed when people don't respect the choice you've made, but YABU to get annoyed when other people don't make the same choice you made. Everyone is different.

Neiflette · 16/12/2017 19:05

When I marry my partner, I will be changing my surname to his. The reason for this is that while there are others in my family with my surname, my partner is the last remaining with his. Our daughter ready has his surname for that reason - it would die out otherwise. Didn't make sense to carry my own surname down when there are others to do it.

WhatToDoAboutThis2017 · 16/12/2017 19:06

countries that have made it illegal for a woman to change her name on marriage due to gender issues. Can you imagine it getting raised in parliament here! From the views on this thread we are a long way from that.

And thank fuck we are a long way from that, because we have freedom in this country.

Neiflette · 16/12/2017 19:08

My partner's brother/sister/cousins/mother/father all have a different surname to his. The only people who share his surname are his maternal grandparents, whereas I have cousins (male and female) with mine.

PopGoesTheWeaz · 16/12/2017 19:09

There are cultures where women don't take their husbands' names - Korea, Spain for instance, as well as a more number of countries like greece where recent laws have outlawed the practice and shockingly, the patriarchy still rules in those places.

gamerwidow · 16/12/2017 19:18

Live and let live. You can be a feminist and still take your husbands name. I am as much within my rights to have changed my name as you are to have kept yours. I think we’ve got bigger battles to fight together.

HashtagTired · 16/12/2017 19:24

Anyone can do what they want, OP. Not your business. Stop shaking people and get a grip.

stevie69 · 16/12/2017 19:31

Women like to believe they have been chosen

Some of us most definitely do not Hmm

CharisMama · 16/12/2017 19:36

Obviously when there are w's omen who say ''I'm proud to take DH's sur name'' it's going to be a minefield.

I don't get why anybody would be ''proud'' to use somebody else's name, but equally I think it's not worth getting cross if somebody thought of you and sent a card, to bitch about how they addressed it, well the good wishes were there until they were volleyed back

PoorYorick · 16/12/2017 19:40

Women like to believe they have been chosen

Everyone likes to believe that they have been chosen. Everyone who is in a relationship likes to believe that their partner has chosen them and they have chosen their partner. What in the feck would be the point otherwise? This is absolute 'no shit Sherlock' territory. And it is fuck all to do with choosing whether or not to take a married name.

Rightly or wrongly, this system has been in place so long that it is just no longer possible to go right back to where it all began, names wise. Unless you choose a name from the phone book and change by deed poll, you're taking a man's name from somewhere. This is why I really can't get het up about it. If a woman did want to choose a name from the phone book, I respect her choice, but most of us just don't feel strongly enough about it to go to that level of hassle.

However it may have started, nobody nowadays thinks that a woman has become her husband's property because she chose to take his name. Anyone who does is an idiot. And I'm not going to make my choices according to what idiots will think.

I don't assume that women will change their names when they marry; I address wedding cards to "The Bride and Groom" or "Joe and Sarah" for this reason. If I need to know for some reason, I ask and then go by whichever name the woman has chosen. I agree it's generally rude not to, but I make an exception for older people who were brought up that way and who are sincerely just trying to be polite.

In other words, I respect your choices. Kindly do not shake me, and respect mine. I'm as intelligent as you and I've thought this one through.

MsP0b · 16/12/2017 19:41

I agree with and support you @mulledoverwine

I'm not married to my DP and our offspring get my last name. I posted about that while we were making that decision and got a bit of a bashing on here, as well as support.

Some people have to be early adopters of progressive social change towards equality and there will always be bashers at first!

stevie69 · 16/12/2017 19:42

But if you say that changing your name to your husband's is a free, feminist choice, you are wrong

Really?? According to whom?

Neiflette · 16/12/2017 19:48

If I were the last in my family with my surname, I would expect my DP to take MY name. It's not all to do with patriarchy.