To think women taking their husband’s name doesn’t have to be sexist?

[RealNavyEagle]

I know it’s a traditional thing and some people see it as outdated or patriarchal but I actually think there’s something quite nice about a whole family sharing the same name. It doesn’t feel like “losing my identity” to me, just part of building a shared one.

AIBU to think it’s not automatically a regressive choice and that it can just be a personal one?

@DazedAndConfused321 Is all if your self-worth tied up in your identity as a wife and mother? What would happen to you if you separated?

She’d still be a mother, she’s their mother for life 🥰

I didn't say they didn't, all of those things are of interest and make for great adult conversation. The humdrum day to day life we all live of taking care of ourselves/our families is what I was critiquing as being this beautiful amazing act you described it as, and if you expect people to find you taking care of the children / the house as timeless and beautiful yea you may well feel people "look down on you" when they aren't.

@SayItLikeItIsLetsKeepItReal And when her chidlren become adults and fly the nest?

Then hopefully she will be blessed with many grandchildren, or in the meantime nieces or nephews to shower with kindness and fun.

I completely disagree with you if you think an unmarried childless nurse or teacher had a social status higher than a SAHM unless you're just completely forgetting the reality that the social hierarchy under patriarchy valued and perpetuated the concept of marriage and children and men being the head of a house which is the whole concept of Mrs and changing surnames etc all play into as well as the idea that a women's place was to take care of people. Why do you think employment was so limited for women yet society did allow unmarried women to be teachers and nurses? Roles that play into them being caregivers before they give it up to become a caregiver to their husband and children. You can't rewrite history as though single teachers and nurses had some sort of social status they didn't or that society didn't look down on or disapprove of a woman working outside the home.

I genuinely think is is a beautiful and peaceful way of life though.

I’ve actually had a high paying career and even been the breadwinner, I’m very highly educated.

I massively prefer being at home though. More than I even thought I would. I always knew I would be with my children, but the home element had surprised me. I was always rushing around in and out so busy. I always cleaned, gardened, etc, but I wasn’t fully in sync with my home like I am now. Every inch of my home now runs exactly how I want it, as does my garden. It goes beyond that though. It feels alive, lived in, loved, visitors (adults and children) in and out, kettle on, lunch made for others, dinner smelling beautiful to greet my children.

I am now time rich. I say yes to all social invitations, yes to varied volunteering opportunities, yes to evening events, yes to all school invitations, yes to study opportunities. I don’t ever want to be too busy to RSVP, write a personal thank you note, wrap and post a present myself. I sip my tea in my beautiful garden before walking in the fresh air to collect my lovely children every day and think you couldn’t offer me triple to return to work, no thanks! I am outdoors more, it really suits me.

That’s what I do miss about the past- less women to share this with. There are a few, and plenty who work part-time who like to visit my haven on their days off for some excellent food and conversation, but I do miss some of my favourites who aren’t on the school run as often. Working mums often wonder what SAHMs think of them- I miss you! 🥰

See I don't think its either or. I myself do everything I want and don't feel I don't have time to enjoy my home or have it how I like. If you feel that's only possible to you through not working that's absolutely your choice but you haven't really listed anything that makes it special in itself or anything totally impossible by working. I think that's where the rub comes from between SAHM and mothers who are employed, one side thinks they're doing things no one else has the time to do, and the other side are wondering what else these people fill their time with as they already do everything they're listing as an advantage. There's no reason why you can only socialise with the people you miss in the day while your children are at school, if you've lost them from your life perhaps you had nothing else in common. It's absolutely fine for you to love it and think it's beautiful, but you can't say other women and society don't value you just because they don't see what you're doing as timeless and beautiful.

You could say society has moved on from women being expected to do the lion’s share of the caring and nurturing in return for little to no respect or status, and no pay, to society having a massive problem with an ageing population that few people want the responsibility of caring for, because the work involved still lacks respect or status, and it takes people away from other work they could be doing. I think part of the issue some women therefore have with discussions about sexism and patriarchy is that the denigration of anything important that was traditionally considered “women’s work” still continues, whether due to a genuine lack of interest, or fear of low status and lack of respect.

So you’re arguing a wife and her children in the poorhouse had more respect than a nurse or teacher?… Yeah, right. I do agree, though, that any respect a woman had related to her role as someone who cared for others.

No I thought it was clear in the context of the thread SAHM means a woman married to and living with a man who stayed at home and cared for her husband and children as her sole purpose aka the housewife. I don't think anyone has ever meant a women in a poorhouse when using the term SAHM or housewife about the past. Single nurses and teachers were definitely respected but I think viewed through a lense that they were doing some decent in the meantime and preparing themselves for the end prize which was marrying and becoming a SAHM

SAHM as a term makes no reference to marriage, so that’s a poor choice if you actually mean middle class woman married to man of means who can therefore afford not to engage in paid work - and then that sort of a woman was actually expected to have some involvement in the community, unpaid of course, so as to demonstrate she was worthy of the status conveyed upon her through marriage. She was certainly not expected to stay at home meekly and not do “good works” outside the home.

It's getting a bit exhausting having you respond to me with these weird twists on the past. Of course today SAHM doesn't imply marriage but we are talking about PPs dream age which was over 50 years ago and we all know that the dream the tradwives are still spouting as being beautiful and timeless is the life of the middle class housewife which absolutely was a social status above working women and unmarried women. None of the tradwives are roleplaying as a lower income married women who or an unmarried mother and that's not what they're referencing when they say the past was better. The existence of women who had to work outside the home as their family couldn't afford for them not to doesn't negate the very real patriarchal ideal of a man having a housewife at home, and the very real reality that that housewife had no financial independence or legal protections and that it's not something to be looked up to. It's within that context that taking of names and changing of titles are still inherently sexist. I'm not sure why you're intent on responding to me with pedantic queries as though this conversation isn't taking place within a context of the thread and it's previous posts, it's a bit odd. So again, What's your point? Do we agree that there's a lived history of sexism.amd patriarchy tied to marriage and family and names and titles or not? It's very unclear from all your derailing.

Caring for other people is timeless and one which will be difficult for even AI to replace.

Unfortunately as a society we do not value those who care for others. I include in that category homemakers or those who work who care for an ill spouse or frail parent as well as their own children. I also include TAs, nurses, social care workers, cleaners, etc. People do look down their noses at these jobs and don’t want to do them. These people are vital but sadly underpaid. People moan about immigration, yet it was a team of immigrant nurses who saved my life in hospital. We will always need people who care, and I think it in the past this traditional ‘women’s work’ was rightly far more respected and valued. Whether it’s men or women, we absolutely need people to do these jobs.

We are in for huge future problems with our current western individualism, an ageing population and declining birth rates, that’s for sure.

So, you insist on making massive assumptions about what everyone on this thread who disagrees with you is thinking of when referring to a SAHM and as a result you, yourself, are reinventing the past.

Plenty of teachers today only do it until they can live their dream of become a SAHM. Most only teach max 2 days a week. At my children’s school all the full time staff are single or don’t have children. Over the past 2 years none have returned from mat leave, even the Head had noticed an increase in teachers picking their own children instead. Heads know it hasn’t kept pace with the WFH/remote flexes of other graduate professions, and teachers are much less prepared now to miss out on their own children’s special moments. Good for them!

As I said it's not even clear if you disagree with me and if so, on what 😂 if it's that the last was better for women and that marriage doesn't have old-fashioned sexist patriarchal customs then disagree away but it doesn't make it true!

I think extrapolating the return to work rate of teachers to it being their "dream" to stay at home is a bit of a reach, where are you collecting that data from?
We see time and time again on MN women weighing up giving up their careers to stay at home to reduce the childcare bill and in most cases the women that is expected to give up her career if it pays less than her husbands and teaching is famously underpaid imo. In a sexist society that doesn't provide adequate affordable childcare, lacks extended paternal leave, and still not enough men to really taking on a proper 50% of all childcare, school pick ups, housework etc we can't just assume that the rate of women staying at home is representative of those women's inner dreams. If we had all those things and women still wanted to choose to stay at home, I'd be happy for them but we can't pretend it's a free choice just as it wasn't for the women of the past you so romanticise.

It’s very clear what I disagree with you on, you just keep insisting on your definitions and interpretations of everything, as though they are all true. And when I point out they are not true, you argue that the sorts of wives and mothers I am talking about don’t even count, rather than accepting your sweeping generalisations are as ridiculous as those of any of the “trad wives” you are arguing with. It’s a gross over-simplification to argue that there was always a clear hierarchy for women, where the married woman always had a status above all unmarried women, regardless of family background, husband’s status, her own behaviour and a myriad of other factors. A single, unmarried teacher may have been considered less lucky and with less status than a former teacher who had married well, was happy, had several children and was now running the local branch of the Women’s Institute, but it is ludicrous to argue she had no respect or status as a teacher, or less respect than she would have to make an “unfortunate marriage.”

I never said she had no respect...I said she was lower down the social hierarchy which your post agrees with. I also never said ALL of anything so not sure where you got that from. You can bang on about over generalisations all you want, it doesn't negate the existence of the patriarchy or sexism or women's role in maintaining and enforcing it throughout history just because it intersects with class or another characteristic just as it does today. The fact that there were and are still women who don't fit into the patriarchal ideal doesn't make it any less real or make it an over generalisation. You don't seem to understand that these things can being a prize or an ideal or am higher social status and doesn't actually mean it's attainable for everyone - the inequality is kind of the point....likewise bringing up fringe examples who didn't need to rely on the social status of marriage in order to have social standing because of their family background or wealth doesn't mean it didn't exist on the whole.

Anyway, the only thing you've clearly disagreed with that is clear to me or anyone else is you think the equality act shouldn't be named as such which has been noted 👋🏻

Absolutely don’t just take my word for it- the government is more than aware. Have a Google of ‘Missing Mothers’- mothers in their thirties are statistically the largest group by far leaving teaching. They’ve realised the utter fallacy of ‘having it all’.

I speak to plenty of teachers IRL who are far happier at home now. It’s common to take out at least 7 years then either return in a much reduced capacity or do something else than better fits.

Some people seem to not get that many mothers actually love spending time with their own children more than those of strangers!

I wouldn’t have used childcare if it was free or paid, irrelevant to my decision. I actually have a DH who would have been a SAHD- I didn’t want him to- I wanted to do it! Assuming women are only SAHMs because of wider societal factors is an utter myth. Some are yes, but many are because they prefer it, simple as that. It’s really not that bad spending the majority of your time with your own actual children 😂

Marriage and children were also a prize for men - no perpetuation without procreation…. A bachelor may have had a better name and a better life than a spinster, but he was also lower in the hierarchy than the man who created an heir. I personally find it aggravating when women insist on seeing absolutely everything as evidence of “the patriarchy,” except for the most glaringly obvious thing of all - that it disrespected the work women were expected to do, and continues now to denigrate and disrespect it, to the point it is obvious that patriarchy is not being replaced with equality, fairness or equity, but just another form of abuse of power, with those who care eternally being rendered powerless by those who quite literally don’t. I find it aggravating that so many feminists wholeheartedly go along with this patriarchal view of the importance and level of respect that should be accorded to those who spend their time caring for others. We are heaping more and more responsibility onto the people who are expected to care in a parent’s place while they are at work, and expecting increasing amounts of our children’s time to be spent in the care of third parties or in the virtual world, and it really doesn’t seem to be increasing anyone’s happiness as people scrabble to avoid the short straw of being left holding the baby, rather than the money or the respect.

I'm not saying it's bad or unenjoyable though, I'm saying we live in a society that has structures and doesn't make everything a free choice and that it also doesn't make something feminist just because you choose it as with taking your husbands surname.

I did explain to you earlier about why these things can be difficult to explain especially to people with no imagination or people with the view that being a woman is terrible. Dont project your unhappiness on to all women.

Of course it was a prize for men too...you do understand that men, women, and children ALL live under patriarchy and as such also have a hierarchy so again we aren't disagreeing. We still live in a patriarchal society so nothings been "replaced" with anything yet we just have minor improvements in women's rights. As a feminist I absolutely disrespect those caring for others, I was responding to a poster who was describing the past when we didn't have any of the rights we do now as women in general, but especially mothers and wives, as "timeless and beautiful".