To ask what you think about being expected to take husband's last name

[DisaK]

Long time MNetter

I'd like to ask what other MNetters think about men who expect their wives to take their last name when they get married and are very pushy about it.

Of course I know for some wives who really don't like their own surname or much prefer their DP's, there might be no issue at all.

What I'd like to know is what you think of men who are very adamant that women should take their name when they get married.

I know a couple who aren't married... the man says if they got married he'd want her to take his name, she doesn't want to, so they've just never married!

I wouldnt marry a man that tried to pressure me or insist on me doing anything really let alone something as fundamental as a name change.
As for daddys name. What toss.
Ive got my mum and my dads names double barrelled and now they're mine.
Im always surprised how many young women change their names on marriage.
It seems so outdated and sexist to me.
They always use the excuse of having the same name as the kids but there's nothing stopping kids having the wifes name so that makes no sense either.

I took my husband's name. I pondered about it for a bit. Read the stuff on here about losing my identity. All I can say is it's rubbish. I did take my husband's name and I'm still me.

I think they are a man I would never consider marrying and would hope my daughter would stay very far away from

I'd think they were sexist traditionalists who were also likely to think that wifey had no right to say no to sex or shouldering 100% of the housework/childcare too.

@Itisbetter

Do you have children? If so, what name do they have?

Did you just make their surnames up to avoid the patriarchy of them having the name of a male ancestor?

What Mophead says is important.
Women taking men's surnames is a relatively recent fashion.

In the UK, your first name as registered at birth is often seen as your legal name, but you may change your surname at will. You may also change both first name and surname so long as it is not for illegal purposes. The official wording is that "your legal name is the name that you are generally known and called by" deedpolloffice.com/change-name/law

Nothing to do with "the patriarchy". More to do with 19th cent government bureaucracy which found it easier when compiling recrords to give one name per family. But in Scotland, because women did not usually change theri names on marriage - as also in many countries in Europe - a mother's name as well as a father's still appears on some official documents.

I double barrelled mine because I felt quite strongly I didn't want to lose my family name . Our dc has my surname as her middle name and dh surname. TBH 10 years later (well after 1) it was a pain in the arse having a double barrelled name. I have a very tricky first name also so now I just use first and dh surname for everything other than legal stuff. My dh didn't blink an eyelid when I said I would double barrel and not take his exclusively. Nobody should feel forced to. Do what you want.

My husband was quite keen for me to take his name, but the names sounded stupid together, almost rhyming (think Alice Wallis). In the end, I double-barreled it officially, but hardly ever used it and kept my own name for work. Eventually I got so fed up with seeing his name on the end of mine that I changed it back by deed poll. He was slightly miffed but shrugged his shoulders.

We are trying for our first child and it will have his surname. That is a dealbreaker for him and I don't really mind (even though it is a bit of a boring surname).

@ConstantlySeekingHappiness I’m not sure what my choices have to do with anything. I’m simply saying that keeping your fathers name is no more enlightened than changing to your husbands. As it happens we all share the same surname and it is different to all our parents. That’s just how it worked out.

I would be unimpressed with anyone demanding I change my name, or anything similar.

keeping your fathers name is no more enlightened than changing to your husbands

Of course it is. It’s MY name. I’ve had it since I was born. Same as my DH has had his since he was born. Same as anyone who hasn’t changed their name.

Every single decision made by you, should be yours and yours alone.

No person should want to try to force, coerce or manipulate you into anything.

The decision of your name, is yours and yours alone.

You won't loose yourself unless you don't really know who you are to start with.

I wouldn't be setting down with anyone who expected that of me.

I don't mind what anyone else does, I do mind being expected to do anything simply because I'm a woman.

I didn't take DH's name. No real reason, I just never felt it was required. I'm no less married, no less in love, no less loyal to him. I just don't enjoy the idea that I took my Dad's name as a child then my Husbands name when we married, like a prize heifer being passed along. I don't think DH gives a shit - he's not the type whose ego would be bruised by something like that. Which is possibly part of the reason I married him. MIL thinks it's awful and cheap and makes me more likely to leave/cheat/hurt DH. But if she didn't have a bee in her pants about that she'd find another reason to criticise so at least it keeps her busy.

I don’t agree @TornadoOfSouls but I’m not sure why that’s a problem?

@Itisbetter

And in any case, many people do NOT have their dad's surnames at birth, so your comment is irrelevant. to people who aren’t keeping their Daddy’s name. I think I was fairly clear that I was talking about people who were named for their fathers. Interesting that your father didn’t want to keep his fathers name but named you the one he’d chosen for himself.

Why is it Daddy's name when nearly all fathers got their name from someone else too? That's a double standard. A woman getting married has her father's surname, but her father got his in all probability the same way and yet you're referring to it as his.

*Itsbetter" I think the point here is that by keeping to her genetic-origin name, a woman is not subsuming her identity into her husband's family.

He has a heritage, reflected in his surname. So does she, in her family name. It's a very, very long-standing tradition, and more equal than mock-Victorian-beloved-of-the-over-hyped-wedding-industry today.

I don’t have a problem with people taking their husband’s name. I would have a problem with any man putting pressure on me to do so.

In fact it would be a dealbreaker for me.

[quote Itisbetter]@ConstantlySeekingHappiness I’m not sure what my choices have to do with anything. I’m simply saying that keeping your fathers name is no more enlightened than changing to your husbands. As it happens we all share the same surname and it is different to all our parents. That’s just how it worked out.

I would be unimpressed with anyone demanding I change my name, or anything similar.[/quote]
It's not 'keeping your father's name' it's 'keeping your own name that you've used since birth'

Women don't just borrow names from our male relatives. When a woman uses a name all her life it becomes her own name.

[quote Itisbetter]@ConstantlySeekingHappiness I’m not sure what my choices have to do with anything. I’m simply saying that keeping your fathers name is no more enlightened than changing to your husbands. As it happens we all share the same surname and it is different to all our parents. That’s just how it worked out.

I would be unimpressed with anyone demanding I change my name, or anything similar.[/quote]
Your argument rests on a double standard. If the woman's name is actually her father's, her husband's name isn't his either if he was given it by his father. Either all our names are ours however we got them, and thus you're choosing between your own name and your husband's, or only people who are the first to use their name have a name that's their own and you're choosing between a name from your own long dead ancestor or someone else's. The description you use here is as absurd as saying a woman chooses to keep her own name or take her FILs.

@florascotia2 yes that is the way it is done in the middle east. You are born, and named for your male relatives and never take on your husbands name, though your children are named for their fathers, which seems to be becoming a more common pattern among people here.

Putting pressure on someone to change it is a big no no.

We went for the unusual option of jointly choosing a completely new name and both changing to it

@PrincessConsuelaVaginaHammock I’m not arguing with anyone.

Itisbetter what makes my dad's name his? He was given it on his birth certificate. What makes my name mine? It was given to me on my birth certificate. I don't understand why you think those two things are different. It's not a loan because I'm female

I wouldn’t have married someone who expected me to change my name, let alone pushed it.

Your fathers name (I’m guessing) is his fathers, and his fathers etc etc. The naming convention is to mark with the male parents name(the surname) in the uk.