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?

@BakingOfTheFoodCats

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

And the notion that children CAN be given their mothers' names, let alone that they SHOULD, isn't even considered!

@ArblemarchTFruitbat

My maiden name wasn't very likeable so I was happy to adopt my husband's name. If I'd have had a nice maiden name I'd have kept it.

Women always say this and it's rarely true. It's a rationalisation. You don't see men called John Twatt or Paul Bollox changing their names to their wives' nicer ones do you?

@FuckingFlumps

I think it's odd people relate taking their husbands name as a sign that they are not a feminist.

Feminism is about choice and it was my choice to change my name. Yes traditionally it was the way things were done but that doesn't mean that is the reason these women have taken their husbands name.

Feminism isn't about choice

Its very easy to justify i changed my name to go from one of the most common, to one only shared by 2000ish people in the UK. Vut its an excuse really... I did it because of expectation, and because I wanted to.

But I hope my DDs keep their current name to help preserve the rare surname!

I kept my name after marriage in the 90s. It was a lot less common than it is now. For example, I had to give my employers HR a copy of my marriage certificate when they relocated me as they would only relocate you plus partner if married.
Our DCs have my DH name which has caused headaches when travelling alone with the DCs. Always took birth certificates with me to prove I am their mother.
A benefit though is that the schools assumed DH was divorced and I’m a girlfriend/step mum so they always called him first if a DC was sick or something had happened at school. So I never had the common sexism of schools calling the mum.

I had a very unique surname which I liked but my fathers line has divorce at every possible opportunity so it wasn't a name linked with romance. My husbands name is boring and common. He didn't particularly want to change it however I feel I could have forced it but didn't want to.
I wanted the same surname as my future kids and it's easier to share a surname as a family so I changed mine.
I sort of regret it although still happily married and 3 kids later. I miss having a unique name (always get a straightforward email from gmail!). My children would always have taken my name - I would never have given them my husbands surname unless I also shared it.
I find it peculiar that all the women I know who kept their name then went on to give their children their partners/husbands name.

It's about choice, I wouldn't let anyone try and force me to do anything, I wouldn't let women try to make me feel guilt of not being feminist enough for them and doing badly by other women, the same as I wouldn't have my husband tell me I must take his name.

I wanted us to have the same name and preferred his, so that's what we did.

I'm glad women have the choice now and can make the decision either way.

GoodnightGrandma legally the registrar does not care.
If you are married whoever turns up to register chooses, as per my examples. It's that simple.
So if it's that hard for you, go alone and register your kid by whatever name you want.

@thinkbiglittleone

It's about choice, I wouldn't let anyone try and force me to do anything, I wouldn't let women try to make me feel guilt of not being feminist enough for them and doing badly by other women, the same as I wouldn't have my husband tell me I must take his name.

I wanted us to have the same name and preferred his, so that's what we did.

I'm glad women have the choice now and can make the decision either way.

Yes I agree with this. No doubt that societal norms play a part in decision making so it's not 100% impartial; but I don't like the idea that taking your husbands name is intrinsically anti feminist, as surely this is just another way to prescribe how women should act.

Thing is you can't win on here, I double barreled and so did DH so we both have each others' names and DS has something from both of us, but there's a lot of MN that don't like that. We wanted a family identity that included us all having the same name, there are two ways to achieve that taking one person's name or double barreling. People I know from primary school are more likely to take husband's name (working class area of east London) or not be married at all, people I know from work or university are more likely to double barrel, and more commonly the male does too, there are a few that have taken husband's name but there is usually a backstory including a very difficult it no relationship with their own family so they want to move away from that name.

I think some men do dislike their names but changing it causes hurt feelings in their families, since it isn't convention. Parents can take these things quite personally.
I do know a man who changed his name by deed poll because he disliked his birth name and wanted something that wasn't emotionally loaded so chose a name unconnected to parents and step parents.

Something about the fact that the identities they had when they were young no longer exist

Or this time the name is a choice, whereas your birth name is given to you if you want it or not.

I'm the only one in my friendship group who didn't take their husbands surname, he had a double barrelled surname so we switched one to my maiden name and both changed our names.

He very diligently changed all his documentation and in 3 years all I have changed is my bank account so I could pay a cheque in earlier this year...and the lady at the bank couldn't get her head around the fact that the marriage certificate said Mr A-B and Miss C, and I wanted my name changing to Mrs A-C and that my husband was now Mr A-C also. It took another colleague to tell her that I was allowed to do that and didn't need to change my name by deed poll to do it 🙄
Serves me right for not sending off my driving license first, but I still wanted to exist as who I was for a bit and not dissappear all at once as silly as that sounds. Have a DC now so feels right to all have the same surname.

It's very interesting/ telling that lots of times people mention changing to have the same name as potential children. Why is it that children can't take the mum's surname, and then if men feel strongly about it they can switch? Seems a non-sequitur that women must change if they want to match their kids.

My husband was fine with our DC potentially having my name, I chose to go traditional so that DC is not the odd one out at school etc. I was the odd one out growing up and hated it.

Also the children of the tennis player Richard Krajicek have his wifes surname. So it does happen.

@TrampolineForMrKite
Your post has really helped me shift my perception about my own name.

I’m not married and not likely to ever be. I changed my surname from my dads to my mums maiden name when I was a teenager. But she since remarried and changed her surname and anyway I have felt sort of lost about it all for so many years, disconnected from anyone (no other family), I was happy for my children to have their fathers name because of other revelations about my family….

Anyway. What you said about your first name being yours. That really spoke to me. Thank you.

I have a child with my husband. I kept my name because the idea that I would be called something different from the last 30 odd years seemed bizarre to me. Also, my parents and wider family are Irish and changing to an English surname would feel like giving away part of my identity. I feel that even more since older relatives have died. Also, my husband didn't have to consider changing his so I wondered why would I change mine? The only reason I could think of was so as not to potentially upset my in law's but I decided that wasn't a reason enough to do something so drastic.
My son does have his dad's surname though. I didn't make an issue of this because I felt it isn't important to me that we share a surname and it is to his father.

I unquestioningly took my ex h's name when I married him. My parents are very happily married in a very fair and equal marriage and being brought up that way I assumed my marriage would be the same. We were going to be a family unit forever so of course I wanted to share the same name. I did consider double barrel but it would have sounded a real mouthful (on a parr with katerina johnson thompson but even more syllables!)

Sadly my ex turned out not to have the same ideas towards marriage as I did and as he led me to believe, and we got divorced a few years ago. There was no way in hell I was going to keep his name, even though my children have it. I had his name for 14 years so it was weird going back to original name and I considered changing it to something totally different but felt a bit stupid doing that. In the time I was using Exs name my original name became much more well known due to a few celebrities becoming well known, so I no longer get the "sorry? How do you spell that?" from people that I did before I got married.

My kids want to double barrel or change their name to mine now as well.

The dance of name changing is something peculiar to women's lives. Whatever reason women give today for their name change it's rooted in patriarchal oppression and the concept of men's ownership of women. Men rarely if ever change their surname.

The OP made me think of another consequence - isolating women from each other. If you can't find school friend XX without consulting the Births Deaths & Marriage register it creates a barrier to building and maintaining female relationships into adulthood.

It's Possibly less relevant in our much more connected times but still an issue as the OP highlights.

So a woman marries, moves in with H and perhaps start a family. So many issues can arise for her now as documented on mums net particularly on the feminist & relationships boards. At the same time she's potentially cut off from reconnecting with old friends due to her /their name changing. Totally a feminist issue.

@wombatspoopcubes

It's very interesting/ telling that lots of times people mention changing to have the same name as potential children. Why is it that children can't take the mum's surname, and then if men feel strongly about it they can switch? Seems a non-sequitur that women must change if they want to match their kids.

My husband was fine with our DC potentially having my name, I chose to go traditional so that DC is not the odd one out at school etc. I was the odd one out growing up and hated it.

Also the children of the tennis player Richard Krajicek have his wifes surname. So it does happen.

My Dc are 14 and 10. Their friends have no idea about the "status" of their last names & relationships to their parents names. Nor do they know if their friends have the same name as one or both of their parents. I cannot imagine they would draw any inference at all from their names if they did know.

What a strange thing to worry about.

These threads are a regular occurrence on MN.

I think there was a move away from women taking a man's name in the 80s and 90s. But when Victoria Adams (who was the much much bigger star at the time) took David Beckham's name it set a new precedence, even more so as they were the poster girls of 'girl power' which was about as feminist as anyone was in the mainstream in the late 90s.

Women now will do all sorts of cognitive dissonance to justify them doing the same.

Men never say they want to take the woman's name or give up their own for all the reasons women give for doing the same.

When people say we don't live in a patriarchy anymore I point to this as the clearest sign we do.

I’m on holiday at the moment at an all inclusive and it’s booked in my name so when they ask for our name and room number (which they do for every meal etc) dp keeps on having to give my name and is finding it really odd. They have also called him ‘Mr Trisolaris’ a few times.

He’s always understood that I will not be taking his name when we get married on a theoretical basis but I think he understands more about how it feels to lose the name that has always been yours.

@ChiefInspectorParker it's not lazy thinking.

@felulageller
When people say we don't live in a patriarchy anymore I point to this as the clearest sign we do.

With respect, the patrilineal passing down of a family name doesn’t dictate whether the society is a patriarchy or matriarchy. For example, most Native American cultures your clan/family name is matrilineal (from your mother), but the societies are firmly patriarchal. In addition, we have the Musuo who are mostly matri-patri lineal, although some families are patrilineal and others matrilineal, is a matriarchy.

So while there is a correlation of most patriarchies being also patrilineal, it is not the case that patrilineal= patriarchy.

I changed mine and I'm now basically un-Googlabe, which suits me down to the ground. However I was young and thinking solely of practicalities at the time.

If I was doing it now, i would give it more thought, but as I've gotten older my maiden surname has become more entwined with the male side of the family to me, which actually doesn't leave a good taste for me as it's sort of a shorthand for their unpleasant traits.

@thinkbiglittleone

It's about choice, I wouldn't let anyone try and force me to do anything, I wouldn't let women try to make me feel guilt of not being feminist enough for them and doing badly by other women, the same as I wouldn't have my husband tell me I must take his name.

I wanted us to have the same name and preferred his, so that's what we did.

I'm glad women have the choice now and can make the decision either way.

Exactly, it's a personal choice and I'm glad it's slightly easier now not to go with the default, even though that's what I did!