Julie Bindel in the Guardian. Marriage can never be feminist.

[MardyBra]

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2016/may/25/women-face-it-marriage-can-never-be-feminist-video

What a load of tosh. Just because traditionally a woman had to be a virgin/get given away/take her husband's name/could be raped legally in marriage, doesn't mean that these things apply now.

She might get married in white because she likes that fashion, get given away because she wants her beloved father to hold her arm. She doesn't have to change her name at all. And rape is marriage is now illegal in this country.

In fact, doesn't marriage offer women protection to family assets in the event of a split in a way that cohabiting doesn't.

And anyway, I don't know anyone who got married to "reclaim" it or as a subversive act.

I'm sorry but I really don't understand this way of thinking. It's your name.

Because we're talking about feminism in marriage and the taking of names. And you're named for your father. Because, historically, you were the property of your father or your husband, hence having either one of their names. So, to me, maiden names are no more inherently feminist than married names. Taking your mother's birth name is taking your maternal grandfather's name, so that's no more inherently feminist either.

I didn't realise this was particularly dramatic.

The thing is though AuntDotsie, both boys and girls tend to be named after their father. But it is only girls who are expected to give up the name they were given at birth when they marry. Boys grow up with the expectation that their name is theirs to keep, theirs to have their wife take, theirs to give as a surname to their children.

Been following this thread with interest. I don't believe that any choice a feminist makes is a feminist choice, many of our decisions are taken within the constraints of misogyny in society. Even if you do away with the giving away, changing names, use of Mrs, society still puts those expectations unequally on women (my DH has never been asked why he didn't change his name on marriage for example).

It would appear that for boys their birth surname is theirs, but that's not the same for girls, it belongs to someone else.

Which makes heaps of sense.

Sorry at the risk of giving Palmer vapours I agree with her. I fail to see the drama here.

And if you truly believe it's not "your name" but your father's name the same must apply to your husband - so why take on your father in law's surname as opposed to keeping your own father's name?

Well, I originally posted about the difficulty of making truly feminist choices when it comes to marriage. Another poster picked up on the name thing. It's not something that I'm wringing my hands about on a daily basis or making a drama out of. I took DH's name because I like it better than my maiden name and the world expects you to do it so it's easy, that's all there is to that in my personal case. As I said above.

The ease of doing it is kind of my point - it's easy to do the traditional thing despite feminist misgivings and guilt, so many people do. Possibly this is a shit point, but there you go. I can't say I know anyone who lives a perfectly feminist lifestyle. I don't even know what that would look like, hence my original question being about what a feminist marriage would even be.

Part of Bindel's argument was that, because marriage was historically oppressive, denoting the passing of property rights from father to husband, this means modern marriage cannot be feminist, right? Following this line, your father's surname is changed to your husband's name to symbolise this change in ownership. So what's so feminist about a maiden name? 'Maiden' itself denoting all that virginity and so on. Keep your maiden name, take your husband's - both around about the same on the not-feminist scale IMO.

So yes, it applies to female children and not male ones, because the female ones are the ones expected to change it for historically oppressive reasons.

I don't think that's dramatic. It's possible that I'm not a very good communicator. It makes sense in my head!

I also object to the term maiden name for those reasons and try to avoid using it, I do think it perpetuates the "woman named after her owner" thing. However it is very easy to avoid using it, just say surname instead, or birth surname if you have changed it.

Plus, if everyone double-barelled, we'd have kids with 8 surnames in a few generations. That's not practical.

Not necessarily. Google Spanish naming traditions.

As for the rest, the fallacy of calling your name your father's but your husband's his own has been addressed, but the 'easy' suggestion hasn't. I appreciate that keeping your own name instead of taking your FILs can be harder in that it exposes you to more stupidity, but set against that is that you don't have to arse about changing it. No ringing everywhere you can think of and sending out marriage certificate copies when you don't change it. Now there's easy. As well as being the more feminist option of the two, of course.

So yes, it applies to female children and not male ones, because the female ones are the ones expected to change it for historically oppressive reasons

So why continue with it?

I've never had a maiden name. I've had a name since whenever my name was registered (which name is, as my mother kept her name and applying the notion women can't own their names, my grandfather's name)

I really don't see why children having more family surnames for their own children when they come to choose them is a problem. It always comes up on threads like this "what happens when two people with double-barrelled surnames have children? Eh, eh, have you thought of that?!". It's fine, they can give their children one, two, three, four or a hundred surnames if they like

Actually I do understand the thing about what is traditional is "easy". Even if not practically easy to deal with, you (for example) avoid the risk of imbecilic discussions with people about why you're so inexplicably attached to a name you've had since birth

If you wear white as a bride in a traditional CofE wedding, no one will pass comment, but they will if you wear red and you may have to justify your choices. You shouldn't have to, but people question things that deviate from what they expect.

Many people get irritated or upset when feminists and others question those things that are traditional, why they have become traditions and why people continue to do them (there are not always bad reasons for this of course)

For reasons that I don't feel any need to go into, I know quite a few people with double barrelled (and in one case triple barrelled) surnames. A fair few of them have got married. Some retained their birth surnames, some took their husband's family name and others chose a combination of surnames from both of their birth surnames.

The world, as far as I'm aware, continues to spin on its axis and no one felt the need to make silly remarks about what happens in the next generation.

Go figure.

"Unless you get into some Icelandic matrilineal naming conventions, I'm not sure keeping your maiden (hah!) name is any more feminist than
changing it to your husband's."

Why not start that?

"if everyone double-barelled, we'd have kids with 8 surnames in a few generations. That's not practical."

No, of course not. Each new generation chooses which surname to carry forward or the boys take the patrilineal one and the girls the matrilineal ones.

I have a lot of respect for women who say "I'm not a feminist" or "I've very traditional", but much less for women who claim to be feminists but make excuses for why they changed their name.

"Google Spanish naming traditions. "

Not a good example at all as it's usually (though not always) the man's surname that gets priority i.e. the one used if only one surname is used and the one passed down to children. Better to let children decide which surname to pass on to their own children or have boys pass on their fathers' and girls their mothers'.

Point being though gwen that it isn't some impossible nightmare, as people often claim when they decry giving children both names. Whenever this subject comes up on MN, there's always someone chiming in with a 'we can't possibly because whatever will happen when those children have children'. As if we don't have centuries old examples of that already.

I have a lot of respect for women who say "I'm not a feminist" or "I've very traditional", but much less for women who claim to be feminists but make excuses for why they changed their name.

D'you know, that upsets me. I am genuinely upset that someone would think less of me because I changed my name.

At least Spanish naming traditions preserve the mother's name to some extent. The name of the future queen of Spain is Leonor de Todos los Santos de Borbón y Ortiz. So why not George Windsor-Middleton?

I'm sorry Aunt, but you knew that when you chose to change your name some feminists would disagree with that. I'm not going to apologise for having an opinion on the matter.

"So why not George Windsor-Middleton?"

Windsor (or Mountbatten Windsor) already being a name carried down the female line I suppose as it went from the queen to Charles. Royals can get away without surnames much of the time though and for me, if you care about equality, then you don't care about royal families.

Personally I try to hate the game not the player. I could do without the tenuous attempts at justification, yes, but there seem to be more worthy targets for my lack of respect than individual women making compromises with patriarchy (ie, all of us).

Yes, but the Mountbatten addition was to preserve a man's name in deference to Prince Philip's outrage that the patriarchal tradition was not being followed with his own children. A bit ironic, considering that Mountbatten came from his mother's side of the family.

I'm sorry Aunt, but you knew that when you chose to change your name some feminists would disagree with that. I'm not going to apologise for having an opinion on the matter.

I'm sorry, what? You were in my head at my wedding? You know what point I was at with feminism at any given point in my life? That's amazing! How do you do that?

And my 'tenuous attempts at justification' were not that, Boner, they were genuine reasons. That was actually what went through my head at the time. We don't all go from naive to fully consciousness-raised feminist in one go.

Bone, I don't hate anybody, but I do feel differently towards women who've had very little contact with feminism and are those who claim to be feminists while making totally unfeminist choices and I should be able to express that opinion. We all make compromises with the patriarchy, yes, but we don't all pretend they're feminist acts. I don't shave my legs because I'm 'empowered', I do it because I've chosen to go along with the majority in this instance. I'm under no illusion about what I'm doing.

Aunt, that's a bit of a drip feed. You didn't say that you weren't a feminist when you got married.

Well, I thought I was. Clearly, though, I am not and was not as much of a feminist as you are.

What I don't remember doing was calling changing my name a feminist act. So how is this different from you and your body hair choices?