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?????

curiositykilled I'm afraid you are very naive if you think that we don't make choices because of the accepted cultural norms of the time. That is why they are cultural norms - because people continue to perpetuate them!

You have chosen to change your name. Fine. But you are doing so because 'you are joining your DH's family'. Yes, but you aren't leaving you own are you? In fact you are creating a new family and as such should be allowed to give yourselves a whole new name. But you never would. Why? Because the cultural norm is women change their names, women 'join the man's family' (men don't join the women;s family?) women make the changes to their identity on marriage, whereas men remain the same.

Choose to change your name if you wish, fantastic, but try to acknowledge that this isn't a choice in a vaccuum - there are very strong cultural and historical reasons why you are changing your name and your DH isn't.

ronaldinho and Professor: it's exactly that, my name is my name because it's always been my name. I don't see why I should give it up because I marry someone.

BlingLoving: it's true, men are totally unwilling (in general) to take the woman's surname. my OH was a bit concerned i didn't want to take his name (it's not a good name anyway!) but he wouldn't consider taking my name because "it's my dad's name,though". regardless of the fact that we've lined up one of his dad's given names as a given name for the imaginary son.
but he wants his name for the children (this is after recalling that his teachers constantly called him a right PITN!)

calling myself after my mother is out too, because her name is similar to a farm animal.
i wasn't going to take my ex's name had we got married for the same reason (slightly different name, same farm animal). and letting children take that name is just cruel!
(my mother was adopted so her mum's name wasn't an option either)

Echt's brilliant point on animals: the chickens belong to me, and when I took erica to the vet, she was given my name, then ex took sandra to the vet and she got his name. next time erica needed to go to the vet she got his name, so we had sooo much fun in the vet trying to find the records for the animals! they should all have my name because they belong to me.
so children should have the names of who they belong to. (which causes double-barrell hoo-haa)
if i stayed single they could all have my name and i could keep my name and noone could complain.

oh, and if someone calls me Miss or Mrs I always correct them (i don't care if i sound haughty) and if it's wrong on forms, then i correct those too.

kat2907 - I'm not saying people don't at all, just that it is strange to assume that is the reason someone has made a particular choice.

By attempting to interpret my choices and reasons without any knowledge you are doing what the OP is accusing society of doing to her. You are making my point for me. People will judge you by their own logic and interpret your choices their own way. They will not be able to understand your reasons for your choices unless, and sometimes even once you have, explained them in detail. People pick what is relevant to them. People call you ds's mum, dh's wife, mrs dh, that is what is relevant to them, not you. That's all it means.

I often wonder why not just pick another second name when you get children or have a wedding - that way you could pick pout a name you like the sound of as a family name and give that name together to the children.

I have meet a couple who did change there name as niether of them liked his name or her mname so they just picked another name - a random one and used that.

But that isn't all it means, curiosity. If I have told someone for the last ten years that I am Ms Myname not Mrs DHname and they still refer to me as Mrs DHname all the bloody time then it is Rude. When they also write me cheques made payable to Myfirstname DHname, who doesn't exist and hence doesn't have a bank account it is not just Rude but Bloody Inconvenient.

How many times do people insist on addressing you as Miss Youroriginalname? How many of your Christmas cards have that on? How many cheques do you get made out to that name? Take your family as an example. By your "People call you what is relevant to them" argument, they would think of you as your parents' daughter and the little pigtailed (or whatever) mini curiosity they used to know. Being Mrs DH is a comparative innovation and not directly relevant to them. So obviously they all call you Miss Youroriginalname... or do they Have Some Bloody Manners and remember that you have chosen to be Mrs DHname?

I retained my "maiden name" and mostly use Ms Morloth, but occasionally use Mrs DH's Last Name. DH has gotten used to being Mr Morloth on many forms etc, cause I arrange stuff and use my name. It really doesn't matter.

DS has DH's last name because it was important to him and I didn't give a damn. Been a while since anyone used Miss though, think perhaps I look my age and the wedding ring is probably a give away.

Having a different last name to DS hasn't caused any issues, no-one even notices these days.

When I wrote that I considered double barrelling my name, I mean that DH and thought about changing BOTH our names to minename-hisname, but it sounded a bit odd with lots of 'f' sounds. He was also more than willing to take my name if I so chose, because my name meant slightly more to him than his. Our overrulling thought was to have the same name, it didnt matter which.

In the end I decided to stick with tradition and take his name, and I'm glad I did. Most of his family with that surname are twats but we have nothing to do with them. We may share a name, but we are making what we want of it. It is OUR name and we are making a family around it. The name itself means nothing without us.

Thats our feelings on it. I dont feel like I have lost anything because I have gained a husband whom I love. As for belonging to him, I feel like I am connected to him, and he to me and DD just cements our little family.

But that doesnt mean anyone else who keeps their name or so on is wrong. We should just be glad we have this choice!

I also think everyone should just do what suits them and everyone else should shut up about it.

We have friends who created a new last name when they got married.

Surely if marriage (and name-changing) is about creating a 'new' family unit, or defining your family as a partnership etc etc and not a traditionalist / patriarchal approach which now seems to have been steeped in romantic love to make it 'OK' for a woman to change her name, then everybody would be double-barrelled, including the husbands?

Hello - I?m new here and have so far only posted on the ante-natal thread. This is a subject really close to my heart, and it really angers me that we have to justify our choices regarding changing names - whichever way we go! DH and I got married very recently and we have both double-barrelled our name, with my name coming first as that way it sounds roughly ok. It is still one of the world most unwieldy surnames, our children will never be able to spell it, it's longer than your average credit card, we have to spell it out all the time, we constantly get 'don?t you get sick of spelling it' etc etc etc. AND DH and I have to constantly justify our decision to do it. But we did it because we considered our marriage a coming together of 2 families, of 2 individuals who would remain the same but be stronger together (or certainly longer . I could never have been Mrs DH because I would immediately have become his mother, plus i would be disregarding the last 31 years of who i was - equally i would not have asked him to do that either.

In Scandinavian countries the matriarchal line is followed, in Spain they traditionally double-barrel (if you aren't double barrelled there are rumours that you married 'in' - received wisdom so don?t shoot me if its incorrect!)

"That post was addressed to ninagleams who was attempting to describe my reasons for my own choices inaccurately."

No I wasn't and at no point did I say that your choice was less significant than anyone else's but what I did say was that most of the reasons for making that choice, including those that you have stated are irrational. I didn't say that was always a bad way to makes choices nor did I say that I believe those are your only reasons for doing so. These issues are very complex from every perspective. I don't necessarily think that we should make choices in a rational manner all the time because all people have more going for them then cold, rational choice but to make an emotional choice or to decide to do something because it's simpler or to feel that you want to go with cultural tradition is undermined by trying to create support for it as an intellectual decision. You said that you wanted to create a new family but that isn't what you did, you simply inherited someone else's paternal line of naming so if that upsets you then you shouldn't be questioning me. Either you didn't write what you meant or you are not pleased with that aspect of your decision.

I have called myself Ms from my teens and kept my own name when I got married. This was for a few reasons i) I had grown up with it and was kind of attached to it; ii) the combination of my first name plus DH's sounded very Welsh. Nothing wrong with that, but gave a very misleading impression as my origins are not European at all; iii) I was known professionally by my name and it seemed a shame to give that up. Double barelled wasn't an option for us, as it wouldn't have worked with our names.

My parents reaction to me keeping my own name was kind of interesting "oh, good we invested all that effort in bringing you up/educating you, its nice that someone else doesn't get to take the credit""!

I can see that its a pretty finely balanced issue. For myself, I like my own name, but having DCs, I do see the force of having a single name for our "family unit". My sister took her husband's name for those kind of reasons. No easy answer. I guess you could take a different name altogether, but it seems a shame to give up everyone's history/background/baggage to do it. And then what does the next generation do? (I knew some people who tried to do this, but so offended their parents that they had to back track).

So each to their own really...

No justification for having to declare your marital status in your title though, that one has always annoyed me, as well as those letters that address me by DH's first name! Surely we are each entitled to our own one of those...

If you're happy with what you've done, stop getting so aerated about what others choose to do. Simple.

Mind you, it wouldn't be Mumsnet then...

I don't have a problem with people taking their dh's name (or dw's for that matter, or not. But I do oblect to Miss and Mrs. Thing is as long as women don't mind being identified in professional and other circles on the basis of their marital status, those of us who think that being married or not has fuck all to do with anyone other than our nearest and dearest will have to continue explaining ourselves. It annoys me
On the other hand I sometimes relish being a feminist harridan

It's not just an anachronism (did I spell that ok?) - when you sign up for eg utilities and they say 'is it Mrs or Miss' and it's the latter - you can get a lower number of points on their credit scoring!! Found this out a few years ago - disgusting and surely discriminatory (do they ask the blokes if that's 'Mr - married' or 'Mr-single'?

yanbu

i was quite please to start introducing myself as MRS DH to stop people assuming he was my dad!! happened a number of times!!

DH and I both changed our names when we got married, to become double barelled, so we became Mr & Mrs Myname-Hisname.

I had always said I couldnt imagine 'giving up' (thats how it felt) my name which is part of me and after some thought decided to go double barelled. He immediately said he wanted to change his name as well, so that when we have children we will all have the same suname. It was also about two familes coming together to create a new family of their own.

Interestingly though to do this we both had to change our names by deedpoll- I wouldnt have needed to do this if I had just taken his name as most women do.

professorlayton That is my point exactly. People refer to me by a variety of names depending on what is relevant to them all the time - DS/DD's mum, DF/DM's daughter, DGM's grandaughter, DH's wife, Miss x, Mrs y... None of it offends me, none of it makes me feel 'defined' it only reflects how that person knows me, what they think about me or the reason they are talking to me all reflections on them and not me. I would find it strange to assume everyone would call me by the name I would choose. It's like assuming everyone would know the shortening of your first name that you prefer to be called. Some people would get it deliberately wrong to try and wind you up, what's the point getting wound up.

ninagleams - it is only your opinion that some of the reasons I have given are irrational. It is not a fact and you don't really know my reasons because I haven't really given them. Therefore I stick by my assertion that you were attempting to describe my reasons inaccurately.

sprogger - The fact that there are cultural norms does not negate the element of choice in any situation or mean that anyone fitting with a cultural norm is wholly influenced or being taken advantage of by that cultural norm. It could equally affet choice either way i.e. by making prioritise rebellion against 'the norm' over personal choice.

I changed my name to same as DH because I wanted us all (including the DC) to have the same surname, and also because there was no pride in keeping my fathers name. I was more than happy to no longer be associated with him by name.

Even now, though, your fathers name is sometimes needed for official documents. Why?

So pleased to see comments from so many like minded women - why don't I know any of you in RL???!

Of course it's a personal choice but it makes me sad when an intelligent right-on woman gets married and then gleefully changes her name like she's been waiting her whole life to become the little lady

Yes, that does make me judgmental but then they think I'm a ball breaking feminist, c'est la vie!

Luckily DH would have been very disappointed in me if i'd taken his name, it would not have been what he expected at all

Girlafraid, I kow exactly what you mean. I have been so surprised when so many fiesty, independent friends and colleagues have taken their husbands name on marrying them withou a second thought. And I was really shocked (perhaps naively) how many people were 'funny' about DH and I both changing our names.

bigtillymint - probably just for identity confirmation. Ancestry is generally traced trough the paternal line in this country because most people have traditionally taken the father's name as the family name. If you are Jane Smith nee harris it is likely you will have been known as Jane Harris on other documents or records in the past. It helps identify you as separate from jane smith nee jones etc. Not foolproof but traditionally the 'norm'. I have noticed most forms ask for other names you have been known by rather than father's or maiden name.

YANBU to not want to to be defined by your marital status or surname.

YABVU to imply that women who take their DH's surname or let their DCs have their DH's surname are part of the problem with regards to women's equality.

There are good reasons to take DH's name and there are good reasons not to. This is a personal choice and I find it incredibly annoying when others judge that choice.

Ime (and I appreciate that this depends entirely on the circles in which I move) I find that in RL the women who get judgey about this are more those who have not changed their names and who use Ms. There is a lot of that about, including on this thread and particularly in the OP.

Really, who gives a toss? It's not for anyone else to judge. Make your own decisions based on your own circumstances. No need to convert anyone else to your way of thinking or labelling them responsible for inequality.