Why do children get the father's surname?

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

Where two parents have different surnames, it still seems to be the norm that children are given the man's surname - why is this?

I'm not saying that they should get the mother's surname, but it seems odd that dadsurname is the "default", especially given that if the relationship breaks up, they're far more likely to end up with their mum.

Can anyone shed any light on this?

Totally agree RJ&A. My older brother was very clever at school but more sickeningly importantly incredibly polite ingratiating and well-behaved to the teachers. They all constantly expected me to behave like him, which I did not :)

We have the same surname, but not only did one of us get teased about it and the other not (proving the point that it's not the surname that creates the teasing by itself), but one of us has now changed our name, so we don't have the same surname anyway.

Really I don't think it would be a problem of identity for the kids to have different surnames, especially since their parents do too. Presumably surname-ing just becomes something irrelvant to family identity as it is in other countries.

Hi RJandA and EvilAnts, thanks both of you for your thoughts - some very good points in there!

The sibling comparison thing hadn't occurred to me - as an only child myself, I'm probably thinking more about all the nice aspects of the DCs having a sibling and forgetting that they might not always welcome the link!

They will still be siblings, for better for worse. Plenty of MNers have kids with different surnames etc - maybe start a thread?

If I could have kept my mother's mother's mother's mother's mother's mother's mother's mother's mother's mother's mother's mother's mother's mother's mother's (keep going) name then I would have kept it, it would have really meant something to me, but my family name only goes back on the male line.

I would love to have the surname of my female, possibly Pictish ancestor, but my family name really didn't mean anything to me - my parents are divorced, I know my Grandfather was not a particularly kind man, he was a bully and beat my Grandmother up regularly I want to disassociate myself from the name.

I did think about it and I am sure dh wouldn't care what name I have, I really don't like being called Mrs, why not just call me by my name, and leave out the Mrs/Ms thing altogether. As for my children, well if I don't want my family name then I hardly want them to have it either and I definitely didn't want some huge (7 letters plus 9 letters in dh's) double-barrelled name, my name is long enough already.

I don't quite see why people keep saying it ha anything to do with marriage..that begs another question...why do mos women change their name upon marriage? It's one of my BIGGESTpet peeves...my DC's have both names with a hyphen...they can do what they want when they are 18...keep both or one if they feel the name is too long...though I took care to make sure each has a short first name!

Have told DH that I will take his name the day he takes mine!

I like that idea - a fair swap :)