Late night thoughts... women changing surnames after marriage

[FatJan]

Not sure if this is the right board as I'm not fully sure where I'm going with this yet! Feels vaguely right, but happy for it to be moved.

Basically, I was scrolling through social media this evening and clicked on a post from a girl I knew at school which had got lots of comments.

As I scrolled down the post, I saw a load of comments from women whose names I didn't recognise.

I thought it was a bit strange I didn't recognise/couldn't remember who they were because the post was about something that happened at the school, and they were all talking as if they'd been there.

Suddenly I realised that I did actually know all of the women - they were all girls from our year.

I hadn't realised because they've all got married and now have their husbands' surnames.

It gave me a weird and not particularly pleasant feeling.

I haven't followed these ladies' lives over the years as they weren't in my close friendship circle, but I remember them well and how they were as children and teenagers.

Something about the fact that the identities they had when they were young no longer exist (on paper anyway) and they all have their husbands' names now made me feel a bit upset, which surprised me.

I'm trying to explore that feeling and I thought writing it down/sharing it might be a good place to start.

Obviously being happily married isn't a bad thing, so I think it's more the (perceived) loss of old identity thing that has given me a jolt, probably linked to the fact that men get to keep theirs.

I think it was also related to the fact it wasn't just one woman with a new name, it was the entire friendship group. It made it seem like the 'thing' to do, and I suppose it is, although I'm not sure how I feel about that. Some of the girls were very outspoken feminist types and to see them all as wives now with their husbands' name was a bit unexpected.

To be honest, I've been very in-my-head with the Sarah and Sabina cases and the ongoing discussions around things women go through that men don't, and this might be impacting the way I responded emotionally to that particular post.

Does the above make sense at all? Has anyone noticed or felt something similar?

I kept my own name on marriage. Mainly because I am a feminist, but also as a doctor working in a hospital where two other doctors already had DH’s surname, it would have added to the confusion for the telephonists, and my research was published in my maiden name.
I found it a real nuisance that most women change their name, when trying to find ex classmates for a school reunion. It was so much easier to track down the boys, than find fifty women with unknown surnames.

Also why do other women feel they have a say or right to tell other women what they are doing is right or wrong.
You wouldn't change your name , great don't but don't put others down who choose to
And to te pp who said about men changing names , yes i know a couple who changed via deed poll before even getting married as hated their name
Some people also hate their family name for various reasons
But how about people get on with their lives and let others do what they want with theirs , without sneering and thinking they are better , because thats clearly how some are coming across

I was only thinking the other day that I wished we had some sort of Icelandic system - taking your mother's first name and adding 'dottir' after it. I took my husband's name (a long time ago!) as I felt swapping from one man's surname to another didn't really make a lot of difference. And, like PPs, I hated my surname, a lot of bullying at school was based on that. Now, I'd do the blending thing (not that I'll ever get married again if this one ended for some reason!).

@BakingOfTheFoodCats
‘ Most people change it so they can have the same name as their kids. (If they have any)’

But why do the kids automatically take the fathers surname? My husband and I really locked horns over that. Why should they have his name not mine? I carried them.

I don't really fix any sort of identity to my surname, we did discuss before we got married what to do about surnames, I wasn't arsed on keeping mine so I changed to his. People in my life I care about know I am married, and know my 'new' name.

Isn’t it odd how lots of women hate their old surname for various reasons and that’s why they changed. Why don’t men ever hate their surname?

@Muttly hiw are they 100% guaranteed to be a parent just because they are a women? Yes they will give birth but women walk away from kids too sometimes maybe not as often as men but it does happen or have them taken of them, or may also pass away etc so there no 100% are always the parent , that is also a bit of an outdated view, fair few single dads around now
What a strange thing to say

@Hottubtimemachine

Isn’t it odd how lots of women hate their old surname for various reasons and that’s why they changed. Why don’t men ever hate their surname?

I know several men who have changed their names both before and upon marriage because they hate their surnames. I find it odd you don't think that it happens.

I won't get married nor will I ever change my name. My son has my name too. I have my own money and home so I dont need a marriage certificate. To be fair I dont like men very much and I'm not in a hurry to be shackled to one. Had I not had a fantastic DS who I love very much Id have lost faith in all men by now.

In Scotland it's actually more traditional not to change your name. It became more common in the 18th century after the Union with England but burials of married women were recorded (maybe still are?) in the Church of Scotland under their original names. You see this on gravestones too.

I believe it was partly because of the importance of kinship networks, especially among powerful families - it was helpful to know that someone's wife was a Gordon for example, so you would know who you were potentially annoying/ingratiating yourself with!

I didn't change my name when I got married because I have a perfectly good one of my own. Still very hard for people to grasp though. A lot of people at work assumed DH's name must be something dreadful and that was maybe why I wasn't using it - confused looks all round when they asked (!) and found out it was also an easy to use name.

Yeah, it's a great name. It's just not mine.

@Shehasadiamondinthesky sad you feel that way when you have a son
I have a marriage certificate and We don't have a house are you a better person because you do ?
I didn't marry my dh for a house and money its a shame you think thats why people do

@Hottubtimemachine they do hence why people change it via deed poll
I know a few men who have done this and children who have as soon as old enough

It never occurred to me to change my name when I got married, and my DC have their Dad's name. Nobody has ever commented on this, though many of my school friends address me as Mrs Husband name in birthday cards. Annoying.

@FuckingFlumps
I know several men who have changed their names both before and upon marriage because they hate their surnames. I find it odd you don't think that it happens. confused

Yet this is the exception not the rule. If you were to ask 100 men and 100 women on the street we both know there would be far more women who changed their name, and give some spurious justification (like oh I wasn’t arsed about my name, or I hated my name) for doing so.

If people hate their surname so much why don't they change it sooner instead of waiting until they get married?

OP I've started a few threads about this and usually they end up with women saying they only changed their names because they preferred their husbands and want kid to have the same name.

We all know that's BS of course, it's another part of the patriarchy showing it's alive and well.

Anyway, couldn't agree more - I hope in my lifetime name change becomes 50/50 with an equal number of men either changing theirs or women refusing to change theirs.

But somehow I think women will keep falling for this bullshit.

It makes me sad

Interesting thread.
Firstly it was tradition for children to always be given the same surname as their mother. However a married woman was assumed to take her husband's surname, illegitimate children were recorded as having their mothers surname, not their fathers. I don't know when the phase for calling children after their father started, it certainly is not tradition.
I would never advise any one to give their child anything other than the mothers surname. Why would you when the chances are that a child born to unmarried parents will not be with those same parents by the time they are 18?
The likelihood is that the mother and father will separate and go on to have kids with other partners, the nr parent will more than likely not be a significant part of the first child's life.
I also don't agree with mothers changing their child's name to some random step parent/boyfriend, it's just wrong to me, they are not their parent.
Back to the original point.
I suppose society and the patriarchy allows men to assume they will keep their name. If more men changed then it would become the norm.
I changed my name when I got married. We did consider double barrelling but my dh who I'm now divorced from, knew his dad would kick off.
Also it was a long time ago, very, very few women I knew did not change their name upon marriage.

In also amazed that any one would choose to give their child a name like Hoare when they have a much, much nicer surname.

Expanding on my previous post - I didn't actually think about it until I was due to get married and as the date approached the more it kept leaving a bad taste and I got sad about the prospect of changing my name and the patricarcy etc so I refused.

Told DH, him and his friends not happy about it, I told them this is the exact reason I'm not changing it because of their attitudes and here I am threee years later with my own name married and happy and reallly glad I didn't change my name. Bollocks to that,

Does anyone know what happens legally if a woman keeps her surname at marriage, but then when registering their child’s name, they can’t agree on the surname ? Dad wants his, mum wants hers.

You get a massive fine for not registering the birth on time 😂

My parents had the same surname, so I was keen to keep mine as it came from each of them, but of course it was from both of my Grandfathers, not my grandmothers. When I married DH and I double barrelled ours to both have the same surname, as he he was also keen to keep his.
Personally I prefer the system in Iceland and other places of daughters taking their mother’s name, sons their father’s.

This issue comes up time and time again on MN and it's always full of PP willfully refusing to engage with the fact that women - well, no one for that matter - makes a 'conscious decision' to do anything in a vacuum. I don't doubt people make a 'conscious decision' to change their name upon marriage but clearly given the much, much, much higher prevalence of women doing this than men, there is patriarchy at play here influencing those 'conscious decisions'. If there weren't, as another PP pointed out, there wouldn't be this huge imbalance in how many men and how many women change their name upon marriage. A lot of women say they didn't feel their surname was part of their identity such that they wanted to keep it, and I find that really interesting - presumably that's partly because we raise girls to feel that way in the first place, readying them for changing their surname once they're married! I would wager boys (in general) DO feel that their surname is a vital part of their identity and are socialised to believe that hence why most of them feel strongly about not wanting to change their name upon marriage.

I always knew I wouldnt take a man's surname upon marriage, but one of my DPs comes from a culture where women do not change their surname upon marriage, although children only get their father's surname. The only acceptable options to me were keep my name as is, or double-barrel with DH. DH also wouldn't have taken my surname alone (although I wouldn't have asked him to). I agreed any future children of ours would have double-barrelled names as we both wanted our names in their names. So I decided to double-barrel too as wanted to have the same surname as any future kids. And DH decided the same so we both double-barrelled upon marriage. We have one child and another on the way, both with/will have the same double-barrelled surname. My maiden name definitely is part of my identity and always has been, it's my name. I can't imagine feeling that your name isn't part of your identity, so alien to me. It's probably particularly important to me though given as I say in my DP's culture women don't change their names upon marriage and also it's a foreign name reflecting part of my (and by extension my children's) heritage that I didn't want to be lost in me or my children.

GoodnightGrandma it is the parents choice. If the mum wants her name then just speak up.
Register alone and then what you say goes, you can choose any surname you want for your child.
I know several people who were registered by their father and he chose a completely different name from the one agreed by the wife.
Think mum and dad chose Chloe dad comes home saying I've registered the name as Susan.
Caused issues between the couple but the child is stuck with the name.

I changed mine to dh surname as I am quite traditional and wanted to at the time. It's nice to have all of us with the same surname.
However now as I get older I have started fo question things eg. The Catholic religion I was brought up with. The taking the man's surname and do think to myself times need to change 100 percent.