Taking husbands name

[luelle]

I've just read a twitter thread regarding women taking their husbands surname when they marry, and out of the hundreds of replies I skim read I would say a good 90% of the replies are people absolutely dead against it. Countless posts saying that it's ridiculous in this day and age, it's outdated and degrading, no women should be treated like property to be passed about. That its awful when women would throw away their family name without a second thought etc.. I'm just shocked, I never realised it had become such a negative thing in so many peoples eyes!

I am aware of the history behind taking surnames and yes it was to do with ownership from father to husband, but surely in this day and age we have moved past all that enough for it to simply just be a nice thing you do when you get married, if you want to?

I think it's become so common now for women to keep their maiden names, and I don't think women are really expected to take their last name anymore. It is a choice and it's great that women are free to make these choices - but I just found it quite sad that this thread had so many people bashing people that do choose to take their husbands name?

I plan to take my DPs name if we get married, just because I'd like to. In my mind, it's an exciting part of marriage and a new chapter. I'm still me, I'm still part of my family, I still have my family history. AIBU to be a little sad that I could actually be looked at negatively for doing so? Or have times just changed that much?

I have an engagement ring (2 actually), wedding ring and eternity ring. The engagement and wedding rings came out of our wedding fund so I paid towards them and I did it because I want to wear them, not because I felt I had to.

I guess the difference between you and I Jassy, is that I'm not sure that all cultural norms or expectations of men and women are always a bad thing, or that the alternatives are necessarily preferable.

And maybe the difference between you and me is that I don’t extrapolate to absolutes for rhetorical impact.

The example you cited is a perfect example of the needed to take a wider view. The decision of whether to work outside the home or not, and its impact on individual women as well as women as a group, can’t be viewed in isolation of the big inequalities between men and women in ‘wifework’, including when both work outside the home. Which is a huge driver of inequality, including in the workplace as too many women have too many other pulls on them that men do not. It affects true choice.

Men expect women to do more of the household work, more of the mental load of running the family, more of the childcare. 61% of men expect women to take their name on marriage.

I wonder if all those expectations of what women should do in a marriage are linked in any way.

I don't think I do only see life through one lens. Of course anyone can see how being a SAHM could be risky for many women. But I also see loads of other women who feel they have to be all things to all people - work, husband, kids - and it's a tough deal. Even those who are in a financial position to be a SAHM are made to feel it's not enough or they are a bad role model (well, not in real life to be fair, but definitely on MN)! I think these judgements are barking up the wrong tree, to be honest.

Even those who are in a financial position to be a SAHM are made to feel it's not enough or they are a bad role model (well, not in real life to be fair, but definitely on MN)!

Do you think there’s any less judgement of WOHMs? (In the real world as well as on MN...)

Being a SAHM can be a perfectly understandable and justifiable decision by a feminist without being a feminist action. But is rarely a decision made in a truly equal context.

A diamond ring really does not need to be seen as a dowry! It's a gift and a symbol of commitment. If your DH gives you something diamond on other occasions e.g. after a baby, then why not? If you can't even celebrate the best parts of life then what's the point?

It never occurred to me I needed a diamond to celebrate having a baby. If engagement rings are gifts and symbols of commitment then as Jassy said, why don’t men wear them? I don’t buy the line that men don’t like jewellery (your husband excepted) as you said earlier most men wear wedding rings now

I had a piece of fancy kitchen equipment after having my baby.

She was born 2 days before my birthday.

I don’t need rewards or bribes for having procreated. What a weird idea. And no, I don’t need diamonds.

A diamond ring really does not need to be seen as a dowry! It's a gift and a symbol of commitment. If your DH gives you something diamond on other occasions e.g. after a baby, then why not? If you can't even celebrate the best parts of life then what's the point?

That is ONLY GIVEN TO WOMEN.

That’s as sexist as it gets FFS!

That's because men don't wear diamonds (generally) so what's the point of giving them a ring or necklace or anything?

I’m done. You’re either as thick as mince or a total WUM.

And there it goes again.

Ok Titty, you’re happy with ‘a piece of fancy kitchen equipment’ good for you. I can’t think of anything worse personally, I’d much rather have diamonds thank you. That’s my choice though nothing to do with anyone else.

Keep polishing your diamonds, lovely. The rest of us will create a fair world for our daughters.

Yep Titty. Me too

Oh lovely, a world where people aren’t allowed to have different opinions to you.

Astonishing that you can get so worked up about diamonds and extrapolate so much from this, yet kitchen equipment is acceptable in the "fairer world."

Do you realise how narrow minded that sounds.

Good point saf, surely women shouldn’t be in the kitchen? Personally I don’t do the cooking, my DH does it. Perhaps I should buy him some fancy kitchen equipment!

Well, with the leaky tits and stitches a track day was rightly off the table.

I called you dim saf because you were trotting out the tired out "it's just your father's name" trope and arguing that because the name comes from a man, the act of changing your identity on marriage is no more or less anti feminist than keeping the name you were born with.

IMO that's profoundly illogical.

That said I don't have an issue with diamond rings whether they be engagement or "push" and I happen to have both! Because DH wears a ring too, so it's equal in that sense, and having suffered through pregnancy I feel absolutely no guilt or shame in buying myself a nice ring out of our joints funds! (I would much prefer that DH could have been the one to be pregnant and get a diamond ring...)

the act of changing your identity

It’s very sad if you attach your identity to a surname. Mine is far more than just that.

It is odd that so many women on here do attach their family's identity to a name. Apparently you can't be a secure family without a family name.

But why are men often so unwilling to contemplate changing their surname?

Many many women say “it’s just a name / not my identity/ not important in tne grander scheme of things/ I changed to have the same name as the kids who have his name “ etc, and in many ways , I agree. Just a name, no big deal.

BUT many men refuse to change to the woman ‘s name, even in couples where the woman double-barrels and adds his name, he doesn’t do the same, MN is full of tales of the parents of sons who go apeshit to the point of disinheriting if the grandchildren don’t have their surname, or refuse to use the woman’s name.

Why is this? Clearly the ‘meh, not my identity, it’s just a name’ is a narrative that is expected only to apply to women.

I disagree with you Gennz and I have explained the reasons why.

When, on an adult forum, posters need to resort to calling other people "dim," "goading" or "thick," just for expressing an alternative view, it comes across as very brittle and petty. You let yourselves down.

I’m not concerned with your alternative viewpoint. It’s your absolute failure to understand anybody else’s - even when spelt out in excruciating detail - and comments like “men tend to keep their names, that’s all” that led to that.