Taking DH's surname after 8 years of marriage

[5by5]

I have been mulling over changing my name recently. I didn't change my name when I married for feminist reasons and for weirdness reasons - I found/find the idea of changing your name strange, it must be an odd process to go through.

However, there are a few reasons why I'm thinking of doing it now...

1. I am now NC with my parents and sometimes I don't like this tie I still have to them. I feel much more like DH's family are my family now.

2. We are moving overseas, a fresh start, seems like a good time to do it if I was to do it.

3. My name needs spelling out or people don't get it right. This is trivial.

4. DCs have DH's surname, though my name as a middle name. The more I refer to friends and family groups as 'the So-and-Sos' the more I'd like us to be 'the DHsurnames'. This is also trivial.

Reasons against would be:

1. Moving overseas will be a testing time for our relationship. I fully believe we are strong enough for it to be a great adventure for all of us, but I'd be a fool if I didn't consider the idea that it might all go wrong, and while changing my name back would be a minor point in what I'd be dealing with if it did, it seems like it would be salt in the wound.

2. Still feminist reasons.

What do you think? I haven't mentioned this to DH at all.

Hmm see I don't think there is anything anti-feminist with wanting a family unit to have the same name, for unity and purely for practical reasons!

I can't say it has caused me any practical problems not having the same name.

I do wish I'd used my far more interesting surname for my son than my husband's name , which is one of those names which is so dull and ubiquitous one wonders almost why bother having a surname at all. My son agrees.

My real name and surname when Googled using the exact name produces 742 results including me- my husband's produces 533,000.

My mother never changed her name on either of her marriages and my brother and I use her surname (or for those of you who think women can't have their own names, our maternal grandfather's surname- who it has to be said deserves far more recognition so far as his involvement and influence on us than our fathers )

I'm just not very comfortable with women demanding I keep my name to make a "feminist choice" when it's not something I want to do.

I'm not demanding you do anything. But there are some choices which just aren't feminist. Make them by all means. But you can't call them feminist.

If someone makes a choice, about their own name, that they've thought about and made themselves, I find it pretty patronising for someone to call that anti-feminist.

You choose double barrelled, someone else chooses to ask their husband to take their name, someone else changes theirs, if no one is forcing you to make these decisions then I don't see what's so anti feminist about it.

What about if I want to be a SAHM? That's an old fashioned tradition aswell, is it an anti-feminist choice if it's something I want and have chosen to do? If it's something I like?

Being a SAHM because it's forced upon you, and being a SAHM because you WANT to are two different things. The outcome is the same but the motives are different.

I'm off to eat a mini chocolate muffin. So glad to know it is now a feminist choice!

Lemon- do you think that any choice is a feminist one if a woman makes it?

Good one.

I don't know I find this judgement of people's decisions as either feminist or anti-feminist a bit black and white tbh.

Completely agree Lemon
This is why I feel so conflicted being a feminist on MN. It's only here where I feel like my attempts to be a feminist are inadequate. I make too many anit-feminist choices!

There cannot be equality when 2 people with different surnames have a child because that child needs a name - unless they choose a completely different surname for that child. If you want to use your husband's surname as your family name, that doesn't mean that you are not equal to him. To me it is a symbol of a united family - not essential, but I like it. My husband and children are one unit and we share a surname.
I don't like the pro-feminist options.

There cannot be equality when 2 people with different surnames have a child because that child needs a name

Giving the child both names isn't equality?

"It's only here where I feel like my attempts to be a feminist are inadequate. I make too many anit-feminist choices!" What do you think an anti feminist choice is?

I don't get this - I'm sure I make anti-feminist choices all the time, for various reasons, some more thought out than others. I still call myself a feminist, I don't feel inadequate for doing these things?! No-one's perfect, we all have to actually live.

It's all so weird anyway - in other places it doesn't happen (Spain for example, and they're not exactly known for their pro-feminist stance!), so it's clearly not a requirement to be a family, it's clearly custom, and it's a custom rooted in ownership of women. How can participating in such a thing be a feminist choice, no matter how otherwise feminist the person making that choice is?

I was born with a double barel surname - So was my Father, his Father... His Father... etc.

I find it a shame that some people believe having one is 'tacky'...

I guess all I need to do is find a nice man to marry who only has one surname and change it.......

It's perfectly possible to recognise which is the "more feminist" choice, make the other choice and still be a feminist. No one has said otherwise.

It is incorrect to say that any choice is a feminist choice.

Personally I wouldn't describe surname choice as "anti-feminist", an anti-feminist choice would be something like leafleting an Abortion clinic with baby pictures. But one choice is more feminist than the other - how can that be controversial?

Can we think of any similar anti/non feminist choices we make?

I just think you have to be careful about stamping "anti feminist" on people's decisions and I just find it a little odd to say that the only "feminist choice" is to have a double barrelled name, that's it, that's the only way to really ensure you are not being "anti feminist" about this issue.

I realise taking a husband's name is historically about ownership but I don't think my husband feels like he owns me and nor do I feel owned, I like his name better than mine and if social convention went away I'd still choose his over mine to be our family name.

Sorry if I offended anyone by saying I didn't like double barrelled surnames btw, it's just not something I'm keen on and clearly don't care enough about this particular issue to put up with one, perhaps that's what it boils down to!

"I just think you have to be careful about stamping "anti feminist" on people's decisions and I just find it a little odd to say that the only "feminist choice" is to have a double barrelled name, that's it, that's the only way to really ensure you are not being "anti feminist" about this issue"

I didn't say that!

And I am very careful about saying decisions are anti feminist. But I just don't see any possible feminist reading of giving up your own name and taking a man's. I would love to read one if anyone has one. To me it is simply a propping up of archaic system and giving credibility to the patriarchy. Which is never a good thing.

I changed my surname four years after we got married. I didn't think it would bother me not having the same surname as the DC's but it did, as well as people assuming we weren't married. I'm not NC with my parents but don't get on with them at all, and didn't want to be identified with their family either.

As mentioned upthread, I don't like having a double barrelled surname. It's a pain in the arse and people make so many different assumptions about you.

Inspired by this thread, I asked DH what he thinks about me dropping his surname. His response was that everyone would think I'd left him. I'm sure he's right.

Does it matter what people think?

And if they thought that, they'd surely learn otherwise after 30 seconds of conversation, toast!

Whilst I disagree with BR's use of "anti feminist" in this context, posters stating double barrelled names are "naff" or "tacky" are being just as opinionated.

BR, I guess if a couple both didn't want to double barell (or thought that was just as fraught with "which name first?") and had tossed a coin (no best of threes!) then it would be an equal choice.

People are always keen to tell me what they think so it obviously matters to them.

"Whilst I disagree with BR's use of "anti feminist" in this context,"

Can I ask why?

I guess it's just one of those things that means more to some feminists than others, like the tradition of having your dad walk you down the aisle or something, my dad walked me down the aisle because I wanted him to and even though that historically would've been a man handing over his possession to another man, there's no way in this world my husband, my dad or I feel like that now, it's just one of those things "you do" now.

But many would not consider that very feminist of me either I guess.