To STILL be considered odd to keep my maiden name, even though it's 2018?

[jamoncrumpets]

I married DH in 2013. I kept my surname for a number of reasons: wasn't that enamoured of DH's, feminist reasons, I just really like my own surname.

Didn't make a deal out of it at all, but did mention to family and family-in-law that I'd be keeping my name. Kept the explanation brief 'I just like my name', and left it at that.

So why am I STILL receiving post from family addressed to 'Mrs DHSURNAME'?! Even from my own DF?!

Then today I was talking to one of my aunts and she was utterly shocked that I was happy to have a different surname to my DC 'But he's your SON, how can you not want the same name, you're a FAMILY?!' - tbh it never entered my head to care! I adore my DS, and my husband, and don't feel like our name is the vital thing that links us together.

AIBU to just be a little bit fed up of having to explain myself over and over again to people?! How can I politely tell these people to fuck off?

It means that the family are known as "the x family", that's all. My husband would hate to have a different name to his own wife and children.

Easily solved by husband and kids taking your name?

It's not odd to keep your own name, most women I know have done in the last few years

I kept mine 25 years ago and gave the kids mine. Far less bother and much more practical when you think it's a 50/50 chance of divorce but more often then not the women get custody.

A name does not a family unit make. That smacks of insecurity.

About 30% of women getting married in this country now keep their own name londonrach. Up from about 25% in the mid noughties I think, so this isn't some new thing that's just crept up. Thousands and thousands of women, each year, for ages. Honestly, I don't know what 'real world' some of you think you live in sometimes.

In terms of the contention that keeping your own name isn't feminist because it's only come down through a line of men, well, actually, some surnames derive from women and vanishingly few of us can trace our lineage back to the pre-surname era. My apologies if everyone else on this thread is a member of some heavy duty European nobility and I'm the only pleb, but for the large majority of the population, we have no idea whether it's an all male line or not. Anyone who said that about my surname would be making an assumption they cannot possibly back up.

And wrt a couple choosing a new name on marriage being the most feminist option, not really. Because a woman changing her name on marriage has a connotation and a history, one that doesn't go away because a man engages in a process that doesn't have the same connotation and history. I have a lot of respect for any couple who think critically about this issue and come to a solution that is an attempt to be non-patriarchal, and so I don't think it's any less feminist than a woman keeping her own name... but nor is it any more. Because it involves a woman changing her name. That's patriarchy though, wide ranging fucker. Always getting in the way when you try and escape it's tentacles.

And lastly limoncello, it's a free country. Your husband could always have taken your name.

Vex...i think alot of people say things on here they wouldnt in real life. I seriously dont know anyone whos married who hasnt changed their name. Sounds insecure and strange if you dont

Sounds insecure and strange if you dont

Sounds insecure not to take another person's name? 🤔🤔

Vex...i think alot of people say things on here they wouldnt in real life. I seriously dont know anyone whos married who hasnt changed their name.

Maybe you should get out more?

Sounds insecure and strange if you dont

WTAF.

Only if you're a fuckwit.

OK, so I'm insecure and strange. Not something anyone who knows me would recognise.

Choices aren't made in a vacuum to that end people make all sorts of decisions that don't necessarily corroborate with their adopted world view. No-one is perfect but you seem to have outlined a doctrine by which you are arbiter of 'good' feminists and 'bad' feminists. I'd argue that that's more of an unhelpful or unenlightened view than a woman somewhere that changed her name.

I changed my name when I married at 26 because I wanted to show I was now validated as a woman. Thankfully I then became enlightened so it won’t happen again (I’m divorced). I realise some women may, like me, have developed their feminist thinking since marriage but are still happily married so experience cognitive dissonance now, which is why in one of my earlier posts I referenced speaking to women who had recently changed their name ie ones getting married now who should be more enlightened than I was at the same point 20 years ago.

If we accept that taking a husband’s name derives from a patriarchal tradition and that promulgation of those traditions holds women back then it’s logical that taking a husbands name is damaging to the cause of women. The fact an individual women had a variety of reasons for making that decision doesn’t change the fact it’s ultimately damaging. Pick and mix feminism will change nothing.

it's my interpretation of that comment, one that is made many times each time this issue is discussed. You've decided to be pissed off with that as is your right

I'm not pissed off at all, you didn't even direct it at me, I just thought it was a bit putting words in someones mouth is all

It is odd to not change your name in real life. Only on mn do people not change their name.

Not really, 3 of my closest friends kept theirs

Insecure to not take your husband's name? 😂😂😂😂

Yeah but they're not real. I think probably cultures where women don't name change on marriage are also not real, and nobody from these cultural backgrounds ever comes to live in the UK. Probs.

The fact is no one cares.

Yeah but they're not real. I think probably cultures where women don't name change on marriage are also not real, and nobody from these cultural backgrounds ever comes to live in the UK. Probs.

Well part of that's true, we're in Ireland :p

The fact is no one cares.

242 posts

I thought you had immigration these days trinity!

Honestly, reading some of these replies makes me feel as though I've time travelled back to the 1950s.

"Pick and mix feminism will change nothing."

Are you sure all women want to change the same thing? Who decides in 2018 what women should want?

What is "the cause of women?" How can you presume to know what all women do or should aspire to? What women may have wanted 100 years ago might be different to today. Perspectives evolve.

Do the non-NC women speak for me? Am I meant to be impressed by this?

By all means women can call themselves whatever they like, but please don't assume that not taking your husband's name puts you at a higher stage of enlightenment. Nor should you presume that all women even want to see the end of the NC tradition, any more than they want to see the end of other wedding-related traditions. In this day and age, if women don't want to do something, then they tend to just not do it, so the fact that certain traditions still persist tells you all you need to know. Women maintain traditions as much as men.

And yes, the fact is that in real life nobody cares!

BertrandRussell You're bang on

But don't forget that you've always wanted to change your name, haven't you? You've never really liked it. You CAN'T WAIT to change it.

Except of course, you have waited. Waited until you got married to change it, when you could have changed it any day from your 18th birthday onwards. But only now has this overwhelming dislike of your name surfaced, so that's good timing.

Married 13 years didn't take my dhs name never even entered my head too tbh. I have 3 kids they have dhs name never been an issue. My sister and most of my married friends didn't take their husbands names either. From my group of friends, school mums and colleagues less have taken their husbands name then havent

Only on mn do people not change their name

Did you somehow think that all the women on MN don't exist in the real world?

I know i can't be sure my original surname was not originally a woman's name, but the chances are, in our society, that it does come down from a long line of men. You're just keeping one mans name in favor of another's.

To be really free of sexism both parties would change their name on marriage.

I understand why people see keeping their original name as a feminist act, but I don't see it that way. Just because you've always been called something doesn't mean it was sexism free to start with. I can't help but question where it came from originally.

Men also have a sexist surname as it's their dads.

The main thing is respecting other women's choices.