I took my (now ex!!) husband’s name when we got married, I was relatively young at the time and although I considered myself a feminist, I am also from quite a traditional family background, and had always grown up expecting to change my name when I got married. My ex did ask me if I wanted to keep my own name and I said no because I wanted our children to have the same surname as both of us (I also slightly preferred his surname). Then when we had a baby he wondered about double barrelling the surname (quite progressive thinking for someone who winded up being a perpetrator of domestic abuse in the marriage, come to think of it), but I thought it sounded ridiculous, like some insurance company or estate agent, they just didn’t work well together.
@overrunwithlego I can tell you that it drives him to distraction that I still have “his” name and haven’t changed it back (I struggled with that for ages but ultimately because our child has his surname and both psychologically and for convenience eg at the airport, I decided to stick with it, if I hadn’t had a child I would definitely have changed back to my maiden name). You find it depressing, I find it a fun way of getting revenge as the bitter ex-wife 😂 Genuinely nothing gives me more pleasure than when we are in court and he refers to me as Mrs X and my barrister corrects him to say, ah you mean Mrs Y and the look on his face!
I have occasionally toyed with the idea of making up a totally new surname for myself now I am divorced to emphasise a new stage in my life once my child is 18! And at times I have absolutely regretted changing my name in the first place and not double-barrelling my child’s name, but mostly it’s when admin gets confusing because I can’t remember which name I’ve used for something.
I actually really like the idea of the matriarchal line of names passing down from the mother, it makes a lot of sense! Although I also have some sympathy with the viewpoint of we know we are the mothers and have grown the child inside ofnis, we can throw the fathers the bone of passing on their surname for reassurance and bonding. I find it a little bit sad that (although it totally happened to me!) some people are already thinking about what happens in the event of divorce when getting married or naming their children.
I’m interested to know for all these people who didn’t change their name on marriage, did you walk alone down the aisle like Meghan Markle? Or did you have someone “give you away”? I had my dad walk me down the aisle and give me away, and even though we had rehearsed it, I remember it seemed really jarring and old fashioned to me on the day when the minister asked “which man gives this woman away?”.