Do you think it's acceptable for a woman to keep her last name if she were to get married?

[familyof4]

Interesting thread. Another only female child who married the only son of a family with a somewhat unusual surname. I didn’t change my name right away, but decided to do so after I had our first child, so that the whole nuclear family would share a name.

Now, my mother on the other hand has kept her married name. She and my father were married for 25 years, and in that time she finished her college degree and established a solid career. She has been divorced for 20, but will carry this name for the rest of her life.

I wonder if I would change my name if my husband passed away and I remarried. My grandmother did, after my grandfather passed, and it seems weird in retrospect that there were no shared last names in the family!

 

[Gordon_Sims]

It’s that whole, “your best days are behind you/you’ve got a ball and chain now/happy wife, happy life/'Yes, dear”/‘Honey Do’" nonsense. Even among Catholics. One of our Deacons in our parish actually says a few of these lines himself… and several pre-cana couples, to boot! No joke! It’s bloody pervasive.

I’ve always considered my wedding day as the start of my best days.

As for the whole name thing, I personally don’t find it acceptable for a woman to not take her husband’s name. When my wife and started making plans for our wedding, one of the first things I asked her was, “You’re not one of those women who refuses to take her husband’s name, are you?” Luckily she, wasn’t. However, as I’ve stated elsewhere, her dad insisted that she either keep her name, we both hyphenate, or I take her name. When he made this demand, I walked out, telling him he could keep her and his name.

As far as reasoning goes, in addition to cultural tradition, God views man & wife as one, and the Church teaches that the husband is the head of the family. That being the case, why wouldn’t she take his name? (I’ll admit that my opinions are also somewhat swayed by the fact that the only women I personally know who hyphenate are extremely pretentious, liberal elitists who take every opportunity they can to rub your nose in their hyphens.) From a practical perspective, I believe it builds a better sense of family unity, and it cuts down on the amount of paperwork. My daughters each have several kids in their classes who come from multi-name families. It makes it a real landmine when trying to address parents as Mr. or Mrs. so-and-so.

Even worse is a friend of ours. She’s a single mother of four who married two of her baby daddies but then went back to her maiden name after her second divorce. Each of the kids has their father’s surname. To make matters worse, she moved in with a widower whose teenage stepdaughter has the surname of her absentee-since-birth biological father. Their “family” consists of seven people with seven last names. The stepdaughter tells anyone who calls asking for a Mr. or Mrs. and doesn’t get the last name right that there’s nobody there by that name, while her and our friend both throw away any mail that mixes up the last names. She’ll acknowledge the confusion and realizes it’s detrimental, but if you ever make the mistake of using her last name in conjunction with one of the kids, she’ll viciously correct you.

 

[ChildofGod7]

Thanks for everyone’s replies! I love reading all of the different views on this issue.

I’m not sure if anyone answered this question yet but what if your fiance has a hyphenated last name already the 2nd name being his mum’s maiden name? Would you ask your fiance if you could drop the mom’s name and have yours be the 2nd hyphenated name and have that be the children’s last name as well?

Thanks

 

[Katie966]

Supposing, for example, that a spouse does not honor your birthday - but you did theirs. That is a sign of disrespect. It may be immature to nitpick, but I don’t think it’s immature to point out biased cultural assumptions - in my opinion, that includes both the name change thing and some of the stuff I’ve mentioned previously.

I get what you’re saying, but in a mature couple neither the man nor woman fixates on such things. You’re referring to everything about the wedding day- one day. Yes, it’s fun and a nice day, but any man who is jealous of his bride instead of excited to see her walking down the aisle in a pretty dress is not ready to be married. And a mature bride doesn’t think the day is all about her either, and doesn’t obsess over the value of the ring. Starting out your marriage trying to even the score doesn’t bode well for the future.

Changing your name or not is an entirely different issue- we are talking about a person’s identity forever, not the circumstances surrounding one day out of a couple’s lives.

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

Thanks for everyone’s replies! I love reading all of the different views on this issue.

I’m not sure if anyone answered this question yet but what if your fiance has a hyphenated last name already the 2nd name being his mum’s maiden name? Would you ask your fiance if you could drop the mom’s name and have yours be the 2nd hyphenated name and have that be the children’s last name as well?

Thanks

I would definitely ask. If he has no problem with a hyphenated name to start with, why not make it yours? That would be a nice sign of community imo.

 

[puzzleannie]

it is completely immaterial whether a married woman is identified by her father’s last name or her husband’s. she should follow the cultural norms or her own preference, professional reasons etc. There is no moral or religious issue whatever involved here.

 

[DeniseNY]

Just my opinion, I think that it’s acceptable, but for couples who are planning on having children, it’s best for their to be a common name - whether that’s the husband’s name or a hyphenated form of both.

For me personally, if I were to marry there would not be children involved (I’m NOT telling you how old I am), and I lean towards the thought of keeping my name. It’s been who I am for my whole life. I also think that professionally, it would be better to remain with the same name. I don’t think a hypenated name would work. My surname is Slavic and people find it “complicated”. I guess I would really have to know what my husband would think and take his position into consideration.

 

[rayne89]

I am an only child (well my sister past away before she married). My dad has three other siblings -two never married the other married but never had children. I took my husband’s name when we married. (I still have notebooks where I doodled my first name with his last while I was in high school. ) My dad would most definitely not approved of me keeping his family name. He would have thought I was one of “those feminists.” Recently when my parents were visiting my mom’s side of the family out of state my cousin brought up my facebook page. My dad says to me later, “I saw you used (insert my maiden name here) and your last name.” He sounded like he thought that was oddly curious. I said " Dad I only do that because some of my old high school friends wouldn’t know me by my married name." “Oh, ok.” he says.

If we would have had a son we would have given him my dad’s first name. My dad was named after his dad, and his dad was named after his dad. My sister was given my dad’s mother’s name (who was also named after her mother.) My daughter carries it as her middle name. My mom had(has) an extremely difficult time coping with my sister’s death. Giving our daughter her name as her first name would not been good for my mom mentally and I feared she would project my sister on to my daughter.

So to answer your question, I really don’t care the woman not taking her husband’s name. If she’s well know with her last name already (in business, as an entertainer for example) -then I could see where it would make sense. Other wise, don’t really like it.

 

[EasterJoy]

I think women should change their names. Do they have to? No. But I think it’s one of those things that you do as a gesture to your husband, the same way a guy buys an engagement ring or gets down on one knee for his wife, neither of which is required but both of which make the woman feel loved and cherished. A male friend of mine has a wife who refused to take his name and he felt sort of rejected, even though they do have a happy marriage.

If anyone but her husband cared, though, it would be a moot point. This is something to work out honestly with your spouse.

Sure, it could be a deal-breaker, but whether or not cats should be allowed in a human dwelling can be a deal-breaker.

 

[Luna_Lovecraft]

I wonder if I would change my name if my husband passed away and I remarried. My grandmother did, after my grandfather passed, and it seems weird in retrospect that there were no shared last names in the family!

My mother re-married after my father died, and she took my step-father’s sir name. My half-brother was born a year and a bit later. The result was that I was the odd one out: Mrs. Smith, Mr. Smith, Bobby Smith, and Luna Jones. What? Where did they get that little girl? Who does she belong to?

Seriously, though, it was no big deal. None. Nobody batter an eye about it when I was growing up, and I came of age way back in the historic times.

I think what we’re forgetting is that in the not-too-distant past, people died a lot younger than they do today. It wasn’t at all unusual for a woman, or man for that matter, to outlive two, three, or even four spouses. It wasn’t odd for a woman to have children with more than one husband, so her children could very well have a variety of sir names.

My grandmother’s mother, for example, was widowed three times before she was 45. She had kids with all of her husbands. She and her youngest son were the only ones in the family with their last name. All the other children were with her deceased spouses, so they had their dads’ last names. No one looked askance, and certainly no one thought they were anything less than a complete family. And I knew my great-grandmother well; if someone has suggested she wasn’t part of a “real, complete family,” she would have knocked them on their keister.

Luna

 

[Phemie]

Ok, just to get one thing straight: it’s a very personal decision and I refuse to pass judgement on anyone one way or another.

That said, while convention is beginning to bend on this issue, it does not seem to be bending on the idea that a wedding should be an emasculating process. The name change is one of the few things that the groom “gets”, a sense of satisfaction in passing his name along. But if you look at the other factors of a wedding, they are almost entirely female-centric:

-It is the bride that gets the diamond ring, no equivalent for the groom. (often thousands of $$$$ out of pocket, before any guarantee of marriage)
-Groom has to plan the proposal, bride gets to sit back and pass judgment on whether it was a “good” one or not.
-Bride that gets the “bride-walk”
-The bride that gets the “oohs” and “ahhs”
-The bride now has the bachelorette party to match the groom’s bachelor party, but still gets the “bridal shower” whereas the groom does not.
-The bride is told it’s “her day” and often tells the man what to wear, gets to live out a princess fantasy.
-A recent innovation called the “groom’s cake” involves a small cake made to honor the groom, whereas the substantial cake that everyone actually likes is the “bridal cake.”

-The attendants are the “bridal” party, not the “groom party”
-If you go to any vendor showcases you’ll note that they are called “bridal showcases”, not “groom showcases”, and they cater unashamedly to the bride above all else.
-The bride gets congratulated for getting married, the groom gets scorned and ribbed
-All the trappings of a reception: the centerpieces, the flowers, the sappy music… all female-centric.

…and so on. Just my personal take on the matter. Anyway, the point being, if you intend to keep your own name, I would suggest making a SERIOUS effort not to emasculate the groom as is typically done in the wedding process. For again, the passage of his name is one of the only aspects of a wedding that is “for” the groom.

Since I didn’t want an engagement ring and didn’t have a bridal shower or bachelorette party, never gave a thought to having flowers and centerpieces at the reception (it never even occurred to me that I should decorate the space) nor did I have a colour scheme for the event, does that mean I could have kept my maiden name?

 

[Phemie]

Before I got married I researched this a bit and realised that changing the surname is not a religious issue, but only a cultural one. The church has no rule about this and that fact was important to me, not what the trend of the day is. I never really wanted to change my surname and for the first 2 years of marriage I kept it. But then we had our first child and I started to feel the need to be included in the family name because the baby got my husband’s surname. I decided to add my husband’s surname to my own and now I am hyphenated. I like it this way and my husband has no problem with it.

It should be noted that the Church considers your name to be your maiden name, that’s why your children’s sacramental records are recorded with your maiden name, not your married name. I’ve actually had parents return to the office upset that the baby’s certifcate of baptism had mom’s maiden name: “This makes it look like we’re not married!” "Sorry, but the Church requires that your maiden name be used, see here, where it says “Mother’s maiden name”?

 

[Phemie]

I am an only child (well my sister past away before she married). My dad has three other siblings -two never married the other married but never had children. I took my husband’s name when we married. (I still have notebooks where I doodled my first name with his last while I was in high school. ) My dad would most definitely not approved of me keeping his family name. He would have thought I was one of “those feminists.” Recently when my parents were visiting my mom’s side of the family out of state my cousin brought up my facebook page. My dad says to me later, “I saw you used (insert my maiden name here) and your last name.” He sounded like he thought that was oddly curious. I said " Dad I only do that because some of my old high school friends wouldn’t know me by my married name." “Oh, ok.” he says.

I wish I’d kept my maiden name, because it’s French and I’m the only one who had kids. The line dies with us, my brothers have no children. Like you, I hyphenate on Facebook because my classmates will not know me by my married name. I like the look of it and it would be a simple matter to start hyphenating, after all, legally I’m still Phemie ‘Maiden name’ and I’ve only assumed my husband’s surname. To resume using mine would not require much more than was required to change it to his in the first place.

One woman in my parish changed from married to maiden name so often it became a barometer measurement of how her marriage was doing at the time. I never knew how to address her or how to list her from one day to another. It only settled when she got divorced and then remarried and hyphenated the name.

 

[fgh_123]

It really dosen’t bother me. If I’m completely honest, if I got to the stage in my life where I loved a woman enough to get married, a simple thing like a name change isn’t really that important!

 

[chevalier]

Sure, it could be a deal-breaker, but whether or not cats should be allowed in a human dwelling can be a deal-breaker.

I think you haz it the other way round…

Thanks for everyone’s replies! I love reading all of the different views on this issue.

I’m not sure if anyone answered this question yet but what if your fiance has a hyphenated last name already the 2nd name being his mum’s maiden name? Would you ask your fiance if you could drop the mom’s name and have yours be the 2nd hyphenated name and have that be the children’s last name as well?

Yeah, hyphenated names aren’t really meant to run in the family unchanged, with few exceptions.

It should be noted that the Church considers your name to be your maiden name, that’s why your children’s sacramental records are recorded with your maiden name, not your married name. I’ve actually had parents return to the office upset that the baby’s certifcate of baptism had mom’s maiden name: “This makes it look like we’re not married!” "Sorry, but the Church requires that your maiden name be used, see here, where it says “Mother’s maiden name”?

That’s how things are done in genealogical records too.

 

[VeritasLuxMea]

Since I didn’t want an engagement ring and didn’t have a bridal shower or bachelorette party, never gave a thought to having flowers and centerpieces at the reception (it never even occurred to me that I should decorate the space) nor did I have a colour scheme for the event, does that mean I could have kept my maiden name?

You could keep your maiden name anyway! That’s up to you (and to an extent, husband - because he will decide whether or not that’s a deal breaker).

I was just saying it’s important to be sensitive to the emasculation that males undergo, just as it is important to be sensitive to the female desire for individuality!

 

[garn9173]

I even know one couple who each kept their names, had 2 kids and gave the girl the mom’s surname, and the boy the dad’s surname. It confuses a lot of people.

That’s crazy.

 

[dedo]

Do whatever works for you as a couple.

My wife uses her maiden name because she has an advanced degree.

It is fine with me.

 

[MaryHelene]

Of course it’s acceptable. It’s just a personal preference

 

[Joe_5859]

-The attendants are the “bridal” party, not the “groom party”
-If you go to any vendor showcases you’ll note that they are called “bridal showcases”, not “groom showcases”, and they cater unashamedly to the bride above all else.

Consider, though, that the groom was once more commonly known as the “bridegroom”. So I wouldn’t necessarily interpret the word “bridal” as being a reference only to the bride.

Does anyone have an Oxford English Dictionary?

It is definitely a bride’s market, though. In our wedding planning process, I went to most of the wedding vendors along with my wife and many of them seemed surprised to see me. I think one even made the comment that many times she doesn’t see the groom until the wedding day.