to not want to be defined by my marital status or surname?

[tealight]

To be not at all surprised that women still strive to achieve equality when some/many/most (???)women in marriage take on men?s surnames and (in marriage or not) agree to their children taking the man?s surname? That is the way it used to be when women and children were literally, in the eyes of the law, men?s property. That is the basis o the tradition for fathers to give their daughters away. And why should my marital status be used to define me every time I fill out my personal details? Miss, Mrs, Ms? Men just have Mr. Yet many of us still subscribe to this. Why why why?????

neenz WE see it that way, and we're not alone.

If you want a family to have the same name, why choose the man's? It's not enough to say 'that's how it's always been, let's not bother to think of a better way.'

I can understand that people might want everyone in the family to have the same name (although there are 3 different last names in our family of 4 and it's never caused us the slightest problem!) It's the automatic assumption that that name should be the man's that I think should be questioned.

Our language reflects our society, and our society remains inherently male dominated. I firmly believe that we should question any language that reinforces the view that maleness is the norm.

"I would have thought it odd if my mum wasn't called the same name I was"

No you wouldn't, it would have been normal. Look my parents have been married for 30 years, they have different surnames, I have my mum's name.It's never been weird because it's normal for me. You wouldn't have found it odd because that would have been your everyday and it's inconsequential.

I never said pay gaps didn't exist, bling just that I felt the issue was more complicated than how it was being presented. That the statistic quoted was not in itself demonstrative evidence of the existence of a 'pay gap'. It doesn't do any favours to present that particular statistic as if it does since it even says that in the report.

So you do feel that pay gaps exist curiosity? The type of pay gaps that bling is describing because you're not giving that impression. You come across as someone who doesn't believe that there is any significant inequality, I'm sorry if you think that's inaccurate but you simply haven't shown any sign at all to the contrary.

You haven't actually seen any sign of my opinion ninagleams because I haven't actually given my opinion. Therefore you are trying to make an opinion for me.

You offered a statistic, I said I felt the issue was more complicated than that. I fail to see where in that I have said I thought the pay gap didn't exist.

You would probably like me to say that because it would help you to put me down which seems to be your main motivation here. If I am coming across to you in that way it is because you are reading things into the things I am saying rather than actually reading the things I'm saying.

Seeker, yes I understand now why you see it as a problem, because of male domination of the name-changing. But I still don't personally think it's that big a deal - bigger fish to fry as other posters have said.

I agree it would be lovely if more men changed their names - if couples just chose which name they liked best. But there would have to be a change to the law to make that easier - men are not entitled to be called their wives' name on marriage, unlike women. I would definitely agree with that law change.

But I would still very much argue for husband and wife having the same name, whatever that was. I do think it odd when people don't change their name - it's like they don't want to be linked to their DH/DW. I'm not saying it's wrong, but I personally find it odd.

neenz, I think it's odd when people do change their names - almost as though they are doing it to prove devotion. DH and I are happy to be married to one another and extremely devoted. We could have decided to not bother getting married and I could change my name to his by deedpoll!

As for the 'bigger fish to fry' argument well as OPs have said, it's a specious one. There is world poverty, terrorist violence, countries where women are utterly oppressed and children work as slaves, parts of the world where volcanoes and tsunamis kill thousands. That's no reason to become paralysed into doing nothing about what are comparatively trivial issues in our own lives.

I think it's odd to judge people on the choices they make (whatever they may be) and to make assumptions on why they did so or what motivated them to do so.

Seeker, I agree that the automatic assumption that the name-change should be to the husband's is A Bad Thing. All the different options should be considered. If ultimately a couple do decide to follow tradition and take the husband's name because, say, it is as sensible an option in the circumstances as any other, that should be fine too. There is no need for no one ever to take the husband's name because it happened to be a tradition which happened to have bad roots. And no one should be judged for following that tradition.

I also think that we should be wary of over-estimating the significance of name-changing/name-keeping as part of the feminist debate on language. Names are proper nouns and it is difficult to know what they signify. If a couple have different surnames then we could assume that they have kept their birth names but we don?t know that and we don?t know how they came by those names. If a couple have the same surname we can assume that one or other one has changed their name (although as an aside I know two couples who didn?t have to do that!) but we don?t know if only one changed their name or both did. The joint name could be a made-up name, a combination of the two names, the wife?s original name or the husband?s. Traditionally it would be safe to assume that it would be the husband?s but we couldn?t know that, especially now. This is one of the reasons why I think that this issue is not a particularly significant one in the feminist debate.

Neenz, no change in law required - men are just as entitled to take their wives' names on marriage as wives are to take their mens'. In practice they may have an additional hoop to jump through but it's no biggy imo.

I totally agree, stillstanding.

I meant I agree with stillstanding that people have names for all sorts of reasons and you can't assume a Mrs xxxx has changed her name to her husband's.

Doesn't a man need to go through deed poll to change his name to his wife's? A wife just needs the marriage certificate.

Anyone is entitled to change their name to anything (within reason) via deed poll so it's not quite the same entitlement is it?

Who's assuming anything? Most women still name-change to their husband's and become Mrs. stillstandings quibbles are pretty theoretical.

Well I can't say fro anyone else but I changed my name to DH because I hated my name and liked his, I had no real connection to that side of the family.

I could have used mums maiden name, but again no real desire to be connected to them either. I could have had my step dads name - lovely family but name name would have become a bot of a tongue twister and I didn;t like it.

DH wouldn't have changed his name as he does have a strong connectin with his family and wanted to keep his name. o be fair he probably did automatically assume any children would take his name, however if I had kept my name there would have been a discussion about this. I certainly wouldn't have just roled over and said OK like the good little wifey!

So beacuase I have given a reason is that OK?

I shouldn;t have to give a reason it should just be accepted. I have never question anyone why they have chosen to keep their name and if someone I know get married I do ask what will do they want to be known as in the future - not cos I'm nosey or want to question them, but so I ensure I don;t offend them.

Someone may change their name for a variety of reasons - yes maybe some do just because its the way of doing things and this is a worthwhile discussion if it makes people think about their choices, but demonising those who do is just plain wrong.

Sorry bit garbled there but hopefully you know what I mean!

Is it not an assumption to say 'most women still name-change to their husband's and become Mrs'? I suspect it may be a correct assuption but I'm not sure how you would know. AFAIK there are no statistics. I am legally still known as Miss x as I haven't changed my passport because it was only a year old and I didn't want to pay. I prefer to be Mrs y. How would you compile statistics on this subject without asking people their names and prefixes as this would apparently offend as in the OP?

Most people's surnames have occupational or clan origins too. I have not started 'serving summons' by taking my husband's name anymore than I become his 'chattel' and I didn't live near a ford when I had my maiden name, my older two are not the sons of david O'Doherty either.

No, Neenz - see my post of last night. Contrary to what I had thought it turns out that legally a man does NOT need a deed poll to change his name on marriage although in practice he probably will need to get one to satisfy banks etc of his change of name and ninagleams says the Deed Poll website recommends that men do to avoid issues.

Unless all the people whose name-changing I know and know of are utterly extraordinary, which I doubt, then it's more than an assumption, and disingenuous to suggest otherwise. Their reasons may be many and varied but the fact of changing maidenname to marriedname and Miss to Mrs is undeniable.

I couldn't think of one good reason to change my name to my DH's, nor his to mine - and have never heard anyone else give one. However, if women want to make that change nobody's stopping them. Yet. Mwa ha ha.

My gut instinct (backed purely by my anecdotal experience) is that most name changes would be to the husband's name. That wasn't my point with my "quibbles" which were attempting to show that the argument about this being an issue of language were weak.

In any event, ermintrude, I fear your patience (such as it is) with waiting for all people to stop name-changing or to be stopped from name-changing will not be rewarded. Mainly because no one has yet come up with any good reason why it should be stopped. The (so-called) feminist arguments for this being an issue re language or equality don't hold much water.

This is different from the use of Mrs/Miss where I do think your patience will be rewarded. I strongly suspect that our granddaughters (if not our daughters [feeling optimistic]) will use Ms. This is because in this respect there are issues of both language and inequality and so there is good incentive to change.

ermintrude - you can't judge it by people that you know though. Unless you know the intricacies of all the people you know's preferences and legal names and you know everyone in the country in this way. You may know 1000 people intimately and it would not be representative of the general population.

You could say 'most of the people I know'.

You have never felt there is a reason to change and you've never heard of another person's reason to change that you would feel important to you and would convince you to change. This is your choice and no-one on this thread has asked to have that choice taken from you (unless I missed something) but presumably the people you know who have reasons to change and have changed for those reasons feel those reasons are important to them all I and some others are saying is who are you to judge what should be important to other people and what shouldn't?

Aaah come on, curiosity!

Sure, we can't know whether most name changes are to the husband's name but don't you think that we can assume that that is the case? My personal experience certainly supports that ... is yours very different?

'The point I have been trying to make - probably incompetently - is that the changing of a woman's name to a man's on marriage and the use of Mrs stems from a time when women DID subsume their identity and rights to a man when they married - in the same way that slaves had their own names taken away and were given the name of their masters. This is not opinion - it is historical fact.

The problem with this is that it misses the other point-which was that you were your father's property until you got married and you changed on marriage from one man's property to anothers! A single woman (unless she was lucky enough to have independent means) had no rights. This seems to be completely glossed over by people insisting that it is their name because they always had it. The message seems to be that it was perfectly OK for their mothers, but not for them.
I think that we can forget the historical significance -it no longer applies-it is more a matter of convenience.
We are all different-I don't think anyone should be pressurised to change if they don't want to, or be made to feel it is wrong to change.
Different things annoy different people-I can't bear being called Ms. I am quite happy if people don't change but I can't stand them being militant about it.

"We are all different-I don't think anyone should be pressurised to change if they don't want to, or be made to feel it is wrong to change.
Different things annoy different people-I can't bear being called Ms. I am quite happy if people don't change but I can't stand them being militant about it."

There's been a lot of this sort of thing. Saying that we should all be PERFECTLY HAPPY with other people's choices and then being unable to stand them. When the choice they are making is to voice an opinion on the matter.

Voicing in an opinion is also a choice. If the opinion of a person is not to your liking this does not mean they should not voice it. So maybe no-one should be pressured into not stating their opinion or made to feel it is wrong to have it. I definitely feel that people here have told me that I am wrong to have my opinion.

Actually I am cool with that. (Obviously a tragic person also for using the word 'cool' at my age but what the hell).

And militant seems a bit strong? No-one had suggested actually doing anything. Unless, dammit, I've missed the Mumsnet Common camp of sisterhood where we can all chain ourselves to the gates of Somerset House and sing we shall overcome?

Good plan. I'll bring a flask.

I was thinking about this, and from a work perspective I actually really don't know whether my female work colleagues are married, divorced or single except from conversation (I've been there less than a year) or whether their surnames are from birth, marriage, divorce. In fact for many of them I'm a bit hazy on what their surnames are in any case (except where there is more than one person with the same first name, and I've been sending them emails). I wonder if one of the main impacts of the feminist debate about names is that a lot of deformalisation has gone on. If you formally call someone firstname lastname you don't have to worry about titles (and hence getting it wrong and annoying them), and if you generally call them by their first name then you really don't have to worry at all (except for spelling).

Sometimes I wonder whether working in the public sector is just very insulating though. I know my male colleagues are paid the same as me for similar jobs at a similar level of seniority because we are on a nationally mandated payscale. I know I won't get asked stupid questions at interview because the interviews are always by panel, with written pre-agreed questions (and those interviewing will have been trained in what not to ask). Tea making is generally a shared endeavour (occasionally done by a PA if you are lucky). There are still fewer women than men at the top, but that's becoming less so, and I know some very powerful women who have very senior jobs.

If I worked in a different environment maybe I'd think my surname mattered more, but I really can't imagine changing it back to my parent's surname.

I did used to find it irritating that if I ever got knighted I wouldn't be Dame firstname, but Dame surname. But now I have accepted I am highly unlikely to be knighted, I am quite sanguine about that.

LovelyKay, I think saying cool is wicked