Until I think about it some more, I mean.
I was trolling the web, looking for stuff to think about (because if I don’t, my brain just sits in idle and I don’t think about anything…right) and I found this, and the comments pretty much summed up the, shall we say, energetic discussion about whether women should change their last names or not when they get married.
Observation: people get pretty hot and bothered over things that don’t relate to them. Seriously, whether I change my name or not at marriage has little to do with you, unless you’re trying to send me a Christmas card. Or, if the use of the term ‘Christmas’ offends, then let’s say ‘holiday.’ Which is just a posting in and of itself, which I conveniently provided last winter. Similarly, whether you change your name to your husband’s or hyphenate or pick a neutral third name matters little to me, my life, or society. Whatever floats your boat.
This is what happened to me: when I was a young woman, I was a card-carrying NOW member. And I really embraced the concept of not changing my name when I married, a concept that I carried into my first marriage. My reasoning followed a lot of what you read in those comments….it’s degrading that my ‘maiden’ name is so much tissue paper, changeable with just the wave of a marriage certificate, while a man’s name change requires a session (albeit a routine one) in court.
I’m also well aware that, for the longest time in our history, women were considered property, first of their fathers and then their husbands. I understand perfectly how a woman might not want to perpetrate a custom that is a hand-me-down from that era, any more than a descendant of slaves would want to perpetrate a custom founded in that practice.
My first husband knew of my proclivities, and went along with them. He fired up one time prior to the wedding and said that I didn’t want to be married if I didn’t want to change my name, and I fired up too and said that if having the same name was so blessed important he was welcome to have mine. Momentarily bless his heart: he considered that, found my reasoning logical, and for a long time in our marriage embraced and championed the idea of two last names.
When I re-married, I kept my name again. Dad, Interrupted was just sad that I couldn’t be called Mrs. Interrupted; I told him that if he changed his name to my ‘maiden’ name, I’d make the KIDS call me Mrs. Maiden Name, instead of ‘mom.’
He declined, and never mentioned it again, and was respectful of my name.
I’m not the kind of person who just sits around without thinking, though. Years went by; five of them, to be precise, and I spent all that time contemplating the end of my first marriage and tried to learn all that I could from its demise. I concluded that the destructive forces I brought to the battlefield had been, among other things, a ‘me-above-all-else’ mentality. In my first marriage, it was all about me protecting my turf, protecting my interests, mememememeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
I knew that my logic in most things was pretty good, and so if I pronounced something good, then it was good. And if I pronounced something bad, well, then, too freaking bad. My way or the highway. (Writing about this, I’m repelled at myself. I’m truly astonished that no one shot me just to shut me and my opinions up. If you ever stopped yourself from taking me out at the knees, thank you for being so patient.)
To my horror, I realized I was doing it again in this, my second marriage. With all my heart, I did not want to be that person ever again. I concluded that my spouse should get what HE wanted sometimes, just because he wanted it, even if I didn’t think it was a good idea. And I wanted to demonstrate to him that I understood exactly that.
So, for our fifth anniversary, I presented Dad, Interrupted with my new social security card, one that replaced my middle name (which I hadn’t dug so much, anyway) with my maiden name (which makes an excellent middle name), and with his last name bringing up the rear.
It didn’t have to be a name change to demonstrate what I’d learned. But it was the fastest, most direct way I had at my disposal. (And it made for an amazingly cost-effective anniversary gift, too!)
I still believe everything I used to believe about name-changing. But in this, I decided that letting DI know that at least sometimes, what he wanted would be more important for me, was the most important thing of all.
© E. Stocking Evans 2010
Mom, Interrupted 
Wow, I’m currently in a fight with my fiance about my last name, but reading this really opened my eyes. I’m exactly the way you stated you were in your first marriage, and reading this blog made me realize how stubborn and one sided I was being. I want to thank you for sharing this… it really has helped me out, and maybe even helped me grow up a little.
Brandie, you don’t say how old you are, but I was 39 before I figured this one out. I’m pleased to report that, no matter how old you are when you learn something important, it’s still wonderful. It’s never too late.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
I had the exact same revelation last weekend. I’m still extremely frustrated that my fiance seemed to be completely unable to see my side of things. And I’m tempted to keep the argument alive just to see if he ever does… but I know that’s not healthy.
I just don’t think it should be assumed that the woman will change her name. I told him I will take his name as a sign of respect to his wishes, but I don’t know if I can let go of the fact that he was so opposed to even consider my perspective. 😦
I guess this is my “welcome to married life” moment… learning how to argue like a grown-up, forgive & forget, and whatnot.
I still think that a man who cannot understand my reasoning on this is not someone who’s going to like being married to me. And it’s not really the kind of thing you can compromise on, unless you go with a hypenated name.
I hope that, when the day comes that *you* want something where there is no compromise, he will remember this and remember that you should sometimes have what you want, just because you want it.
There is another compromise: blending. Ms. Smith marrying Mr. Jones would become Mr. & Ms. Smones (or something like that). Probably an idea hated by genealogists, but if your have names that work, it seems like a nice compromise. Of course, if any potential children are like-minded, it’s probably that only (part of) one name will continue through the next generation after their marriage. Anyway, I like the idea of both partners getting a new name to represent their new family.
mominterrupted,
I think you should be very proud of the personal growth you have attained by using introspection. I find it very disconcerting that many people today refuse to employ this extremely valuable resource that we all have. On the particular issue of name changing, I am in my 3rd serious committed relationship in my life, the first was a somewhat traditional marriage. She took my last name. The second was a long term, nearly 20 year live together thing, she used my last name when it was convenient to her. And now the third relationship, hopefully the last in that I love her and I hope I have got it right this time. LOL. But we have not married yet, we have been engaged for 4 years now, and I can tell you that when we do finally marry, and I do beleive we will one day, I would be most honored for her to take my name. But, if she should choose not to, I wont love her any less. Like you I have spent some time in introspection, and I think there are many more important issues to worry about, and if you are committed to your mate, the issues are the tasks that you share together to grow in your relationship. Thanks for the article above, and good luck in all you do.
Sincerely,
Tom
In my case, taking my husband’s name when we got married was a done deal (our daughter has his last name, and I didn’t want to be left out, I wanted us to be a unit: “The So-and-so’s”); the problem was what to do with my “maiden” name. My husband insisted that I “didn’t need it anymore,” but if I just dropped it, I felt liked I’d be shucking off my heritage, where I came from. And I didn’t want to make it my middle name, because my middle name happens to be part of a family tradition. What did I do? Well now I legally have two middle names 🙂
This is what I’m going to do, but it still makes me a little sad, because really, how many people knew your middle name when you had just one? We’ll get to hold on to the last name we grew into adulthood with, but I think I will miss proudly proclaiming to other that I’m a “LastName”.
I always thought it was VERY important to take the man’s name when you married. I was very excited to when I got married. I even helped a friend convince his fiance, my oldest friend, to take his name when she didn’t want to. She did in the end and then we found out he cheated on her as soon as they got married. Now she’s divorced and I feel guilty that I talked her into changing her name. I’ve learned that while I still believe in taking the man’s last name I would never look at someone who doesn’t in the same way as I used to. I now understand that it isn’t a slap at your husband to keep who you are in the form of your name.