Can’t make a decision on taking his name

[PoptartBarry]

Name change for this one (ha!)

I am getting married in one week and I still can’t make up my mind about changing my name. It’s driving me a bit mad so I want your opinions.

Have any of you changed your name and regretted it? Have any of you regretted NOT changing your name?

My surname is ‘foreign’ to English speakers, long and tricky for English speakers to pronounce so I’m not considering a double barrel. It would be too much!

Does anyone keep their maiden name at work and use their ‘married’ name in their private life? How do you feel about it now?

YABU = stop overthinking and change the name!

YANBU = no way, keep your own name!

Would love to hear your lived experiences.

Yes so civil partnership was a happy medium.

Didn't change my name as I don't like to think I'm owned by my husband. Never ever regretted it

Sorry a coherent argument turned out to be beyond you. The one about how married women should be campaigning about CP and never mind what any of the people in it might want was a particular corker.

It wasn’t though. It was no solution at all to single sex couples who wanted to be married. We seem to have ended up with a very clunky resolution.

Personally wouldn't change mine - several friends use their own name for work & practically everything bar children's school, medical, etc - apparently that's easier (all though most of the children are adults now - may have improved).

I was listening to a radio program or podcast recently about recruitment discrimination - the same applications with anglicised names had a far higher success rate in being shortlisted, which may be worth considering.
It's a really shit situation, and I'm not supporting that position.

Well, so that heterosexual couples could avoid the religious/patriarchal connotations of traditional marriage and, apparently to encourage more people to
formalise their relationships in order to offer greater legal protection.

I use both of my names. Married name socially and maiden name professionally.

I have bank accounts in both names. I used to have passport in married name and driving licence in maiden name to help with ID, but for various reasons they're now both married name. It isn't a problem; if I have to prove I am Maiden Name I just show my Married name ID and my Marriage certificate and all is well.

In the U.K. you are absolutely allowed to use both names, as long as you're not doing it to carry out fraud!

As you can see, I’m terrible at just leaving something!

I've always suspected it's because they had their heads turned by the bleating about heterophobic discrimination, those gays getting privileges straight people didn't etc etc.

Agree with your final sentence, but sadly I don't think the existence of straight CP has done much to assist with that particular problem! I'm pleased for the people who feel they've benefitted from it existing, but anecdotally I think the people choosing CP over marriage are generally the ones who have some understanding of the law anyway.

How so? Every couple now gets a choice.

I’m not sure what you mean. I just think that if something is important to people, they need to be proactive instead of just accepting the status quo.
I mean, marriage, and everything that goes along with it is patriarchal in origin. So either make your peace with that or try to change it.

I initially kept my maiden name at work but changed privately. Then our daughter was born and I started a new job, so used my married name (name had to match passport). 20 years and an unhappy marriage later, I'm changing back to my maiden name and wish I'd never changed it in the first place. It's such an outdated concept.

Well I agree. It doesn’t feel like CP for heterosexual couples has ever really taken off, and that’s a shame. With hindsight I might have preferred that although we had an entirely secular ceremony, walked down the “aisle” (register office) together and, as I said, though I was happy to lose my horrible surname, I do now have both my husband’s parents names and not just his dad’s. But there’s just something about marriage that can feel a bit difficult to justify from a feminist perspective.

third option - when my sister got married, neither she or her husband liked their respective surname, so they chose one they both liked.
I assume they changed it by deed poll.

I agree the institution itself is problematic, walking down aisles, white dresses, garters, the traditions that go along with “wedding” is absolutely mired in patriarchy.

the taking his name being such a default shows how entrenched we are. Plus the “mrs” thing, and all that goes with it. Women giving up work, men disengaging from family life because their responsibility is work.

marriage as a legal contract though with none of the trimmings gives equal legal standing.

I had no hesitation in taking dh’s family name. I much prefer it to my maiden name and my maiden name had some connections to a traumatic time in my life so was glad to have a new family name.

Well it does but for many, it’s still unacceptably rooted in patriarchy just for the fact that it’s marriage.
The older I get, the more the Mrs thing pisses me off. It wouldn’t be as bad if men were actively and routinely expected to disclose their marital status every time they fill in a form (though there’s still no reason for disinterested parties to have that information) but it’s just so clearly sexist. The connotations around it are awful - married women seen as adult and respectable, unmarried women seen as second class, immature, unwanted. It’s enraging.

The mrs thing seriously pisses me off and I don’t use it 😂

i have seen first hand the change in attitude when you take marital status out of the equation. It happens frequently.

is that Miss or Mrs?

Dr actually….

You can hear the attitude switch and the brain changing gears as they have to change their preconceptions.

If we had to be shiny spotless surely none of us could have an opinion on anything.

I make plenty of unfeminist decisions, for various reasons - ease, socialisation, etc. I'm not beholden to live with feminist principles behind every decision, but I can recognise they aren't feminist.

I didn't make this particular one, which is the one under discussion. It isn't castigating other women to point out that this one isn't feminist

It was bizarre because it would be arrogant of people who aren't in CPs to decide, over the heads of those who've chosen it, that it has to change. Not our lane!

The argument that marriage has patriarchal origins, which it does, is a different one to it being the most patriarchal option. It was plain and simple a bad argument to say that a woman who cares about patriarchy wouldn't marry in the first place. And the whole reason for that is the advantageous legal protections for more women than not. As I said before, I'd understand a political lesbianism argument. But that's not what this is.

My point has always been that if you think it’s unacceptably unfeminist to change your name on marriage, it’s incongruent not to believe it’s equally unfeminist to get married!

I know literally no one of my generation who took their husband’s name. It’s an incredibly retrograde decision. Why would you ditch your birth surname just because of who you’re married to?

Well ok but if you were massively concerned about and opposed to patriarchy you probably wouldn’t get married. And if you just feel a bit ugh about it but not enough to not get married, you can’t really complain about others also feeling the same when it comes to changing name.
Political lesbianism hurts my brain because it kind of makes sense and it’s hard to argue against from a radical feminist viewpoint but at the same time it’s not something I’d ever want to do! I guess we’re all imperfect feminists in some ways.

You might not like it?

I disagree. I can think of no other legal contract for which a name change is even suggested. And the bottom line is that’s all marriage is. All the patriarchal symbolism is just frippery.