To ask: why wouldn’t you take your husband’s surname?

[Josephinaphia]

Not looking for a row here - just genuinely interested in people’s reasoning behind not changing their surname upon marriage.
I am married and although I have a very unique maiden name which I love, I took my husband’s surname when we married. It was strange at first and a little sad, but now it is my name and part of my identity, as my original name was. We have 2 DDs who both have the surname too.
My questions are:
If you kept your name, what were your reasons? (e.g. you’d already made a name for yourself in your profession)
If it is a feminist issue of ‘ownership’ as some people seem to suggest, why is it any better to be ‘owned’ by your dad, to be known by your dad’s surname?
Is it not complicated having a different surname to your children, does it not get annoying when people assume you are Mrs DH’s surname anyway?
Do your children question why you have a different name?
With the whole double-barelling thing, again is this a feminist issue? To both be equal? But then what is the long-term plan? When your DC get married will they add their surname to their spouse’s surname and potentially have a quadruple-barrel name? And what of the generation after that?
I have a really lovely dad who treats my mum incredibly well and my husband is the same to me, so I’ve never really had a complex about men being superior or me being inferior and just never really saw the issue with having a shared marital, family name - but it seems so common now for women to want to keep their maiden name (their dad’s name) in some capacity and I guess I’m just curious as to why. As far as I can see, taking your husband’s name is the sensible way to do it if you’re going to have family. Double-barrelling in particular is surely just causing problems for your children further down the line?

Couldn't be bothered to change it but also my maiden name is a combination of my mothers name and fathers name (created by them when they got married) so it's not even like I have been given 'my father's' name ie still under 'ownership' of a man. There are only 5 of us in the world with this surname.

My husband offered to take my name when we got married but I declined because although i like my name now I'm older, i didn't want to pass it on to any children. Its double barrelled and quite a mouthful and when i was little i resented it. I also wanted to give my children the option of potentially creating a new surname like my parents did if they got married and that was easier to do if they were given dh name because it's just the one name.

“Do your children have your name Bert? Did you take your fayher’s name or your mother’s?”
My children have a hyphenated name. I have the name that I had when I was born, and which I made my own throughout my life.
(Don’t make your point about patrilinear names again. I have already said that I understand it)

The irony is, that this “feminist” act of not changing your name on marriage, would be regarded as conformity to the patriarchal traditions in so many parts of the world. It’s something women are rejecting as too conservative! Particularly if you give your children the fathers name.

That’s not ironic. That’s just different cultures having different traditions. HTH.

Yes, it is culturally specific Rethymnon. Saying that something varies from culture to culture doesn't empty it of meaning within a particular culture.

For me feminism is all about empowerment and choice, not swapping patriarchal tyranny for feminist tyranny. Do what you want, make your own choice, it’s nothing to do with anyone else, regardless of how much you curl your lip.

This thread is great, I'm definitely nicking the "because it was a marriage, not an adoption" line.

Rethymnon, please keep posting, you're very entertaining in the absence of the OP.

It is ironic when women on here speak in such ax supercilious manner re- women who name -change; throwing in terms such as “1950s” and “curled-lip” etc etc - yet they can’t see that their actions would be regarded as the conservative path in huge swathes of the world.

Or maybe they claim cultural superiority as well as naming superiority?

The fact is you can curl your lips all you like, but people will just think you’re a bit narrow-minded and silly, won’t they?

I didn't change my name, not for feminist reasons or because I don't like my DH's surname, it's because it's my name and I didn't see the point or need to change it. My name is a huge part of my identity.

We don't have children yet but when we do, their surname will be double barrelled as they are product of both my DH and I so think it's fitting that they have both of our names. What they then choose to do when they are older (go by their given name or choose one or the other) is up to them.

I’m on holiday Strughling. This is keeping me entertained too

For me feminism is all about empowerment and choice, not swapping patriarchal tyranny for feminist tyranny. Do what you want, make your own choice, it’s nothing to do with anyone else

I agree with the choice aspect.

For me, feminism is "what would a man's choice be?". If a man's choices are the same as mine, then I feel able to make my choice freely.

In the case of marriage, if you ask what a man would do, the answer is keep his own name. Generally it's not a choice, it's just how it is.

So until men also have an equal choice in society to change their names, the decision isn't freely made. It's directed by societal pressure.

For me, you can argue all the reasons you want to change your name. Bottom line is unless there was the same discussion as to whether your husband should change his name, it isn't a feminist choice.

Also, I actually like having a different name to my kids. I like not being identified and judged by my marital/parental status.

“yet they can’t see that their actions would be regarded as the conservative path in huge swathes of the world.“

Yes, I can see that. However, we’re talking about the culture in which we are living, though. Happy to join another thread about naming traditions in other culture though. That would be interesting.

this “feminist” act of not changing your name on marriage

It's not an act though, is it? It's the absence of an act. Changing your name is an act, you have to actually do things. Not changing my last name was no more an act than not changing my first name is.

What would a man do? is misogynist in itself. Choice is about doing what you want to do without reference to anyone else, least of all men.

“Choice is about doing what you want to do without reference to anyone else, least of all men.“
Do you think most women who change their name on marriage can say they are doing this?

You’re assuming everyone’s maiden name is their fathers name.

I took my husbands name and I regret it, I wish I'd kept my own name, after 15 years it still feels strange, like I'm not using my real name. I was 37 when I married, I don't even really like my old surname but it was mine and it felt right.

I am resined to my husbands surname now, I won't change back unless we divorce, but that doesn't mean I don't regret it.

I changed my name but in honesty it feels strange to me. It feels like I'm borrowing someone else's name. If I'd kept my name these would be my reasons....
The surname I was born with is MY name not just my father's (father's father's). I've used it since I was an hour old. Everyone knows me as that name. If they search for me on Facebook or any other source, I become unsearchable, almost anonymous once it is taken away. That makes it hard for me to look up female friends from the past- their identities havd been eradicated in terms of ability to find them and make connections. Whereas can find male friends easily. It seems weird and annoying on a practical level. And quite sad. There's a few women I gave up looking for as I couldn't. I don't really care what convention has applied for passing on names- whether it's male or female line- I just want people to keep their identities. For this reason I find couples who amalgamate surnames into one new one really, really odd. They're not even doing it to follow a society convention anyone expects.
I always feel strange introducing myself as my new name. I'm interested in history and geneology but my new name doesn't tell anyone about who I am. I'm happy for my children to have it as it's an authentic part of their ancestry, however tiny a percentage. But it's not my family tree. I'm just borrowing it and it feels a bit fake. Maybe this is even stronger a feeling because I married later in life.

I think if a woman says -

• I realise that my name comes from my father and this is patriarchal.

• Despure this patriarchal naming system in the UK, I’m not going to bother to change my surname to my mother’s or choose a new name because it’s too much hassle.

• When I get married my DC will have my name or we will double barrel.

Then that’s fair enough.

What irritates me is women are so angsty and up on their high horse about taking a man’s name when it’s their husband, yet fail to correlate this patriarchal tradition to the deeper significance of how and why their name in the first place and view it in a wider context. It’s as if because they identify as a particular type feminist, and set such great store by the fact they haven’t got a “man’s name”, they refuse to see the wood for the trees. It’s thinking in boxes.

Or they give their children the DH’s name while keeping their own birth name and yet claim this is less patriarchal

At the end of the day, everyone has to have a name - whether it’s double-barrelled; the DH’s; came from your father; your mother or something random. I really don’t think anyone has any business in feeling superior about such personal choices.

@BertrandRussell, I think women who change their name are doing exactly what they want. They’re not Stepford wives just because you disagree with their choice.

“@BertrandRussell, I think women who change their name are doing exactly what they want.”
Fair enough. My personal experience and many threads on here (which I realise is all anecdata) suggests otherwise. Women often say that their future husband, or even worse, future father in law “wouldn’t like it”

Where I come from it’s more common to double-barrel actually, but it’s still patriarchal because the fathers name tends to come first (unless it sounds really bad), so it just skips a generation, if that makes sense. Where DH comes from, women wouid generally keep what wouid be calmed their “maiden names” in the UK. In the past, this identified you as part of your fayhet’s tribe / patriarchal line, etc. In a way, they didn’t even need to bother with wives changing to their husband’s name because, even if you have 4 wives, all that mattered was that the offspring would have their father’sè name, if you see what I mean.

I must say that we Muslim women get berated a lot for “being possession of men” and our religion “oppressing women”.

I must say that I would like to point out, to the feminists that always make us feel that we don’t belong while we stay adherent to our faith, not for the sake of asserting any superiority, but to challenge the narrative of inferiority that the majority of feminists have been trying to spin using my religion...

What I would like to point out is, Islam has made it a law that no one is to change anyone’s surname/lineage for any reason as this would be disrespectful for the persons identity. And so the majority of muslim women adherent to the faith oppose to changing their surnames upon marriage.

It took my westernised DH few years to accept that I won’t change my surname for him. And it took his family until now to keep sending me parcels with their surname. Citing that it’s the right thing to do due to the customs of the western society we live in.

But the one thing that I did have to silence them all was to tell them that they were not abiding by the rules of the book which made it equally inappropriate for my husband to change his surname as it is for me.

Now I would like to credit feminism for many modern acts that encourage female liberty as well as individualism. But I would like to point out that I credit this phenomena of not changing the surname to preserve identity to my religion alone. As it’s something non of my maternal ancestors did. Not my mum. Or grandma or anyone..

And it is a clear message to the husband and his family that this is not an act of me handing myself over to him. But rather, two humans from two different background, cooperating together to form a unity with equal contribution from both background.

I’m prepared for the backlash. But I’m sorry, if people want to spin a narrative at every turn citing actions of Muslims in ignorant communities and blaming it on religion to support feminist vision, hijacking my religion at every opportunity to prove why feminism is needed for Muslim communities, then I am not sorry for hijacking the credit feminism is taking about something Islam has ordained 1400 years ago.

To point out that in the views of many of us Muslim women, Islam and respecting the individuality of females was NEVER mutually exclusive. And that it is in fact, mentioned in the Quran, that the culture of the Arabian peninsula needed Islam to restore rights of women and respect their individuality.

That’s not to say that Islam and feminism agree on everything. Feminism has a modern spin on what Islam has tried to achieve 1400 years ago, and in some aspects have things that Islam doesn’t agree with. But in many parts, I was a female that asserted her rights much before I heard of feminism... because I had learnt my faith.

Not sure why I’m posting this here except.. yeh, I’m not vulnerable and even though I appreciate feminism and learnt a lot from it, please stop hijacking our faith only when it’s convenient because that’s giving a distorted image when the other pieces of the puzzle are deliberately never mentioned.

Not aimed at the OP.

What does a couple do if they both have double barrelled surnames? Do their children have four surnames? So they make up a new one?