Mr and Mrs his initial surname 🤬

[ottermadness]

I just hate it, I’m not a Mrs and I have a name.

It’s nice that people remember to send anniversary cards though so I’m not going to be impolite.

AIBU that this gives me rage!?

@looluu

“the decision to give up your woman's name for a man's is always entirely patriarchal, whereas the decision to keep it is not.”

I fundamentally disagree with you in this and I’ve explained why. Not just about feelings. Facts. The fact that what matters is birth names.

I would agree a woman’s decision to give up her name is patriarchal. But not necessarily more so, just differently so, than keeping a name you inherited from a line if male ancestors.

You disagreed yes, and were wrong in doing so. Most women don't know whether their surnames are entirely patriarchal, and some know they're not. Whereas all women know that taking their husband's name is patriarchal. And even for those women who do know their surnames are entirely patriarchal, it's still giving up a woman's name for a man's. These are all facts. The existence of these facts mean that keeping your own name is less patriarchal. Not differently so, less so.

It doesn’t matter if your surname is not “entirely patriarchal.”

Chances are it’s bloody well been patriarchal enough over the years.

Denying or trying to blur the massive impact of the patriarchal naming tradition in this country, is akin to denying the impact of patriarchy itself.

It’s like arguing the gender pay gap isn’t an issue because some women out earn men. Or domestic violence isn’t an issue because some women in history and more recently may have injured men and “we can’t be sure.”

Yes it does matter if your surname isn't entirely patriarchal. Colossally. Because that makes it definitely less patriarchal than the 100% patriarchal decision to swap it for a man's. Again, this is a fact and not affected by your feelings.

It's also a particular logic fail given that you'd allow a surname that was previously 100% from men to not be patriarchal if it was your mother's first and didn't come from your father, but you willingly erase what could easily be much greater female involvement in a name if a woman's father had it before her. Double standards again.

Your last paragraph is nonsense.

I’m sorry I see no sense in your argument at all. If you can’t understand the history of patriarchy in the UK and the intrinsic importance of a man’s offspring inheriting his name for reasons such ownership / inheritance / control / legality / status / power - I don’t know what I else can say to you. Our whole society has been shaped by patriarchal lineage. This matters to feminism - or it should. Women changing their names was just a side -show really to the main event which was preserving the male hereditary line and the powers / influence that engendered. Yes women believed that marriage gave them status, but only insofar as they produced offspring to take forward the male name of the husbands. Otherwise, nobody would have really cared what name wives had.

Loolou - given you changed your name on marriage AND gave your children your husband's surname can you please stop lecturing us on what we should care about - you didn't even care about it yourself!

You don't see any sense in it because your views on the subject are informed by double standards and failure to apply logic consistently, and because you're unable to discuss the issue of women's names without goalpost moving. But the facts will continue to exist outside of this lack of understanding, and a woman keeping her own name will continue to be less patriarchal than a woman taking a man's.

As if patriarchy only happens when / if a woman takes her husband’s name. Ha! If only. You are generally born into it. And even if you personally are not, the fact is that the majority are and this is the fundamental issue for feminism.

As if women regularly passed on their names to their children in history. It wasn’t that long ago, that if you weren’t married, your child was taken and put up for adoption. Cohabitation wasn’t a thing, even in my parents generation. Under what circumstances would a child of married parents have inherited their mother’s name in in the 1950s, lets alone 1850 or 1250?

Ok Zombie. If you need to believe that, then believe it.

You are no more an authority on this matter than any other woman.

All I can tell you is that, a woman who did actually change her name, you don’t speak for me and I disagree with you.

@looluu

Ok Zombie. If you need to believe that, then believe it.

You are no more an authority on this matter than any other woman.

All I can tell you is that, a woman who did actually change her name, you don’t speak for me and I disagree with you.

She says. Having repeatedly attempted to speak for other women.

As if patriarchy only happens when / if a woman takes her husband’s name. Ha! If only.

Nobody suggested it did, so this is a strawman.

Also, even if there had ever been a period where we knew no unmarried woman had ever been able to keep and name her own child, this would not affect the fact that some surnames were created by women and some women have passed those names down. Most people in the UK will not be in a position to trace their lineage enough to know whether it has been transmitted at any point by a woman. And even if they had, changing it would still be swapping a woman's name for a man's and would therefore be more patriarchal than keeping it.

@looluu

Ok Zombie. If you need to believe that, then believe it.

You are no more an authority on this matter than any other woman.

All I can tell you is that, a woman who did actually change her name, you don’t speak for me and I disagree with you.

I'm more of an authority on facts than you, evidently. And I don't need to speak for you to correctly identify that you're wrong.

@zombielizziebennet You are officially my first Mumsnet crush.

This is the very attitude that is irritating because it’s so supercilious and high-handed.

“You are wrong” ....

Says who?

Maybe stop asking me questions now then and ask yourself why the idea that you may - shock horror - have an essentially patriarchal name after all - regardless of what you do on marriage, troubles you so much.

Why do you need to cling to this insistence that one tradition have to be “more” patriarchal than another? Does it make you to feel better - why? What does it achieve? I would put those questions to yourself.

At least I can own the patriarchy inherent in my marriage. I can own the patriarchy inherent in my birth name as well. Different, just the other side of the same coin.

Oh and this tends to happen on these threads too - “you are my MN crush.” Give me a break.

Looluu - why on earth do you care enough to argue about this, but not enough to actually challenge the patriarchy in any of your choices? Why are you pissed off at those of us who have challenged the patriarchy?

@looluu

This is the very attitude that is irritating because it’s so supercilious and high-handed.

“You are wrong” ....

Says who?

Maybe stop asking me questions now then and ask yourself why the idea that you may - shock horror - have an essentially patriarchal name after all - regardless of what you do on marriage, troubles you so much.

Why do you need to cling to this insistence that one tradition have to be “more” patriarchal than another? Does it make you to feel better - why? What does it achieve? I would put those questions to yourself.

At least I can own the patriarchy inherent in my marriage. I can own the patriarchy inherent in my birth name as well. Different, just the other side of the same coin.

You are calling people supercilious and high handed when I listed about half a dozen quotes in which you have been both AND contradicted yourself.

You started the conversation about things being ‘more patriarchal’ (your comments are literally still there) and are now wondering why it’s happening.

What on Earth is wrong with you?

I’m not pissed off at women who challenge the patriarchy through non-name changing. Where do you get that idea? I fully and wholeheartedly support them.

In the case if my own relationship, I guess I had priorities that mattered more in the context of how we relate to each other. You have to be honest with yourself about what you actually want. But, I don’t for one second, think that other relationships don’t take off on a different footing or with a different concept of equality. If not name-changing is meaningful to a woman for any number of reasons, she should most definitely do it. Start as you mean to go on, whatever that means for you.

I just don’t support anyone who thinks not name-changing is the be-all-and end-all. Because clearly it’s not and it’s just one aspect in a much wider and highly complex condition that affects all women.

I get the idea of you being pissed off because of how rude you are being to Buggrit and Zombie

There’s nothing wrong with me now at all thanks. There was another thread I’d been reading about why on earth if women take their husbands names - how backward! - and the usual malarkey. I think the title was something about Mrs or Ms, something like that. Anyway, some of those posters were also on this thread too and so I thought it was the same thread, or an extension of the other one. I’ve been ill so came on MN and here we are.

@looluu You have been aware that this is not that thread for quite some time. You started the conversation about things being ‘more patriarchal’ on this thread. You are also aware of this.

Despite being the person who brought the whole thing up and has been repeating her point for many hours, you have now bizarrely asked ‘Why do you need to cling to this insistence that one tradition have to be “more” patriarchal than another? Does it make you to feel better - why? What does it achieve? I would put those questions to yourself.’

So, I do think something must be not quite right. Perhaps you should pose those questions to yourself.

Yes I have been aware, but I was in the discussion by that point.

You and Zombie have repeatedly told me that I’m wrong because you are right. As if there’s only one way of looking at this and that’s that.

Keeping your birth name HAS to be less patriarchal than changing your name on marriage, simply because you declare it to be so.

@looluu

Zombie - the real crux in terms of the ongoing perpetration of this patriarchal naming-system is birth names. Birth names are how how the whole patriarchal structure is transmitted through generations.

My birth name is not my father's birth name.

But, this is the name I have had all my life, and that is enough to make it mine. I'm not changing it now.

@looluu

This is the very attitude that is irritating because it’s so supercilious and high-handed.

“You are wrong” ....

Says who?

Maybe stop asking me questions now then and ask yourself why the idea that you may - shock horror - have an essentially patriarchal name after all - regardless of what you do on marriage, troubles you so much.

Why do you need to cling to this insistence that one tradition have to be “more” patriarchal than another? Does it make you to feel better - why? What does it achieve? I would put those questions to yourself.

At least I can own the patriarchy inherent in my marriage. I can own the patriarchy inherent in my birth name as well. Different, just the other side of the same coin.

Says reality.

The suggestion that I may have a surname that came to me only through patriarchy doesn't trouble me, because it's a possibility. I don't know if it did or not, but it might very well. It's the pretence that the possibility that I don't and that if I did, me giving it up would be no less patriarchal than keeping it that are the problems. Because they're both wrong.

As for the question about why this is important, the time to ask this was before you'd engaged in a couple of dozen posts trying and failing to successfully argue your view. If you didn't think there was any value in ascertaining which is more patriarchal, you'd have said that at the start instead. As it is, it's clear that your only problem is that you resent the facts being spelled out and the refusal to allow you to strawman or move the goalposts. That's why you've brought out the cod psychology.

Thanks buggrit!

You are not spelling out “facts.” You are spelling out your view. No more.

This straw man cliche is also doesn’t wash so please stop trying to deflect and compensate for your own intransigence with that..

I have repeatedly said, if you believe, in the context of your life, that taking your husband’s name would be a more patriarchal act than keeping your own name, then that is absolutely fine.

If you want to think that birth names aren’t really patriarchal because if the odd female lineage her and there, well that’s up to you too.

But it’s not a fact. Far far from it. It’s your perspective.

Can you conceive that people make decisions in different contexts?

The “facts” as you declare them to be are not a bloody dogma. They are the manifestation of infinite personal circumstances of individual women who may see things differently to you.

That’s reality.

What would you say to a woman who had been sexually abused by her father? Does she have to keep his name to be feminist? Could you try and understand, for one second, how in that context, taking her husbands name may seem like the more feminist opinion? Would you tell her she was wrong too, because of your “facts.”

So no, deciding to keep your birth name on marriage is not always “less patriarchal than keeping it.”

You can “spell it out” as much as you like, but you will never make any woman believe what they don’t feel to be true. And those women are as much in “reality” as you.

All this about women keeping the family name makes me laugh.
The family name normally being her father's surname.
Oh no, I took my mother's name!
Which inevitably was her father's surname.
Keep your name, change your name, no one actually cares.