Men, would you take on your wife's surname after marriage?

may hem

may hem

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s.e. qld.
why do so many women still take on their husband's surname after marriage? and i wonder why a woman's birth name is still called a 'maiden' name?


the author of this article claims it is about the assumption of ownership of women.....


“Abuse and oppression of women is entwined with men feeling that they own women.
And I can't think of anything that suggests ownership more than a woman taking her husband's name.”



but the writer does not discuss the 5,000 year tradition of patriarchy and the much later tradition of christian monogamous marriage. so what traditions went on for many, many thousands of years before that?


go back to the very beginning of human beings (whenever that was) and you will find consistently that all tribes/societies were matrilinial. that is, the line of descent went from the mother to her children.


why? because the father was usually unknown but the mother, in most cases, was known. work it out for yourself.


the article continues in present time .....

So rather than asking, "Why are women still changing their surname when they marry?" perhaps instead we should be demanding, "Why aren't men changing theirs?"
Which is why women need to stop caving and placating. They need to shake off the social pressure to "follow tradition" and ask themselves what they really want to do.
But they should also ask their husband if he's keen to change his surname to theirs.
And if he isn't? Well, as Caitlin Moran said, they're likely dealing with "some total f***ing bull****".”



http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-01/why-arent-men-changing-their-name-after-marriage/8226970
 


I know of the line in the Jewish faith coming from the mom..for the reasons you stated. I have a friend who has a Jewish mom and Christian dad. Technically she is Jewish, but she celebrates both faiths.
I have heard of men taking their wife's family name, especially if her family name is not moving on for whatever reason. Basically to keep the name "alive" as it were.
 
I know of many women who use both their last name and their husband's. I also know some women who keep their birth last name and don't add their husband's last name. We have been doing things along patriarchal lines for a long time. I think it makes perfect sense to have the woman's last name for the reasons the OP described. It seems sensible to use both last names to me, too.
 

If I had a surname that was really UGLY, too long or/and difficult to spell etc., I wouldn't hesitate a MINUTE to adopt
my wife's surname ! Too many people hang on to their given surname merely for tradition's sake.

Also, one must take a LOT of thought when thinking about what to name their children. Will it be a name that will cause them
embarrassment while growing up? I also would never add "Jr" to a son. Any subsequent sons would always feel left out because his
brother "Junior" was the "star" of the family. You must also be careful about giving your child a name that would be for a girl AND
a boy. (The name "Lynn" comes to mind.) This adds to the confusion during any correspondence when it takes place.

I wouldn't want my monogram to spell out a dirty word, and neither would your daughter.

You have to think about all these things when deciding on a name. One redeeming factor however; YOU can always change it in a court of law,
providing its reasonable and the judge is having a good day.
 
This tradition makes it so hard to track down females. I'm in the process of trying to find names and addresses of all my cousins. I've found all the boys, but only about half of the girls, because I don't know who their current husband is. I think everyone should just keep their own names.
 
Traditional Icelandic surnames are interesting. A daughter's last name is her father's first name with "sdottir" added on. She doesn't change her name when married. A son's last name is the father's name plus "sson" added. Thus you could have the following family: Thor Sigmundsson is the husband (his father was named Sigmund). Ingrid Ketelsdottir is the wife (her father was named Ketel). Freya Thorsdottir is the daughter and Ingvar Thorsson is the son. I'm not sure what they do when the father is not known.....maybe use the mother's first name or allow the child to have the same last name as the mother?

Of course, like customs all over the world, "familial" last names are creeping into usage, but it is illegal in Iceland to use a last name to which you are not "entitled". I could go down to the courthouse tomorrow, start the process to change my last name to Murgatroyd and a few bucks and a court order later, I'm Jujube Murgatroyd (that has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?) If I was Icelandic, I couldn't.

When I married, I traded in a perfectly nice last name that everyone could pronounce for a last name that is never pronounced correctly and when I say it, is never spelled correctly. In fact, one of my late husband's brothers actually started pronouncing the name the way it's spelled after six years in the Marines when he was told by countless Jarhead sergeants "IF I SAY YOUR NAME IS ________ THEN YOUR NAME IS _______, MAGGOT! DO YOU HAVE THAT, MAGGOT???" (Apparently if everyone would just change their names to "Maggot" before they head off for boot camp, it would make things much simpler for the drill sergeants and, in turn, for everyone.) After all this time, I just answer to anything that bears a mild resemblance to my name. And don't even get me started on my first name and middle name. There have been times when I've wanted to stick my face right up to my mother and scream, "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, WOMAN???"

Names........ I'm changing my name to "Hey, You!"
 
My daughter used to operate a home daycare and one of her kiddos dad took his wife`s name when they married. He came from a very,very dysfunctional family and didn`t want to be associated with them in any way. Or have his kids associated with them.
 
No, there's no need.

The reason women took their husband's name was to give them a bit of status.

Women never had much status anyway, but single women had none at all. A married woman, mistress of a household , had spending power.

That's also why butlers and housekeepers, though servants, were persons of status.
 
If you go to most graveyards here and look at the headstones for women, you will see that they are engraved with the person's maiden name eg..
Jane Smith, wife of John Brown.
You can adopt any name that you like and I had a colleague who married and both of them changed their surname. I think that they used the wife's mother's maiden name.
 
Falcon said:
You have to think about all these things when deciding on a name. One redeeming factor however; YOU can always change it in a court of law,
providing its reasonable and the judge is having a good day.
Click to expand...

When we picked names for our 6 children, we did not realize it at the time, but all of us including me and the wife, have a double letter within our names!! (Kenneth) This was not planned we discovered this until we picked the last one!
 
I guess children are property too. My last name was changed to my step father's when I was about 7. Never legally, just started using the name. We were never asked. I hate my name. First and last. Don't like to say it, see it or write it. I look at mail and wonder "who is that person" The hassle of changing it would be too much.
 
A friend divorced her husband when their daughter was 4 or 5. He was never an involved father, even when they were still married. When the daughter was 7 , her mom remarried. Step dad always a better and more loving father to her. When mom and step dad adopted a little boy, the girl wanted to change her name to her stepdad's name, so they would all have the same last name. Mom and stepdad were OK...bio dad was not. Now, the girl was not asking stepdad to adopt her, just wanted to take his name. So, she waited until she was of age, and did not need permission to change her name. BTW, she has barely spoken to or seen her dad since she was 18. Now she is 23. She is getting married this year, and stepdad giving her away. Bio-dad knows she is getting married, and has made no effort to contact her still.
This is a bit off topic from OP, but the whole conversation reminded me of it.
 
NancyNGA said:
This tradition makes it so hard to track down females. I'm in the process of trying to find names and addresses of all my cousins. I've found all the boys, but only about half of the girls, because I don't know who their current husband is. I think everyone should just keep their own names.
Click to expand...


you're right nancy. another reason for ditching a woman's birth name after marriage is to break up the matrilinial clans. these had much power in ancient days. now, as you say, it is difficult to trace a woman's ancestry but much easier to trace a man's.
 

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