Wow… I have no response to a person that rates tragedy, and lets others know where their tragedy stacks against others they don’t experience.
You certainly have a colourful turn of phrase if little else. It was certainly not my intention to trivialise your and your family’s suffering, and I am sorry that you chose to characterise me as doing so. I would rather not go into the details of what happened in our family, but trust me, it was worse.
I have amply done so and will reiterate: because I will not be such a kind person as to help uphold the fiction that the name a woman got on his birth doesn’t involve the fact that her mother took her husband’s name on marriage and that husband’s name was given to the children. This is an obvious and unassailable fact about the origin of the legal surname most women in the western culture have. I refuse even for a moment to take seriously a fiction-based arguing position that pretends it’s otherwise.
Yes but that stereotype is part of a larger thing. Note how one-side the arguments in this thread are: a man is petty if he won’t take his bride’s name on her mere whim when she wants to make a statement of her own affirmation at the cost of requesting him to do something that would be emasculating for generations of his ancestors, while a woman is supposedly not being petty when she acts on such a motivation! Because ‘patriarchal oppression’ is bad but grrrl power is good.
I am distrustful of such studies because studies show women married to belligerent, mouthy women live longer than those married to peaceful, kind ones.I would certainly like to see any studies, if they existThere are studies that show that married men are less likely to drink, be depressed, and commit suicide and studies that show that married men are SIGNIFICANTLY happier and live SIGNIFICANTLY longer than their unmarried counterparts.
I realise the question wasn’t addressed to me and it was asked a longer while ago but I’d like to use it as a basis to elaborate. First of all, I do think it’s quite out of place for a man to demand that his bride take his name. You just don’t do such things. You can actually not marry her if the difference of opinions is too large but you don’t enforce your will like a bulldozer. On the other hand, the same goes for a woman. It’s not true that a man is a pig when he prefers a woman to go with old tradition and take his name while a woman is supposedly perfectly all right to want him to take hers (despite centuries of tradition and despite how emasculating that would seem to the typical man).
I have been trying to convey the same argument for many pages of this thread. There is a visible double standard here, totally excusing all sorts of motiviations on the part of a woman while exaggerating and vilifying even reasonable qualms of a man. Again: grrrl power is cool and men need to suck it up and live with it (my way or highway), while a man as much as expecting to rely on a centuries old-tradition and being reluctant to do something potentially emasculating in the perception of many people, is a pig for merely entertaining the thought. As opposed to doing his job as a man and caving in to every demand of his woman without as much as a single thought given to whether it is reasonable or right for her to ask that! ‘Keep the wife happy and you’ll be happy,’ anyone?
True that though (in general, not when a John changes his legal name to Jane or a psycho decides to call himself George Washington by deed poll).
And what about the fiancee who will not marry you unless you change your name to hers or agree that she will keep her name without adding yours with a hyphen? I see plenty of focusing on the man supposedly being petty here but rarely even as much as a single thought, from the female side of the debate, to the reasonability or rightfulness or some other ethical colour of the woman’s wishes and requests.
Perhaps because this is an emotional subject. Many good men would love to keep their wives (and fiancees etc.) happy, even at the cost of making a sacrifice and giving in to a number of flighty requests, some of which would be understandable more in a child than an adult. This can be done for a variety of reasons. On the other hand, it’s quite devastating when someone who’s supposed to love you and be on the same page with you is putting you through things in order to make a political statement (or prove some kind of self-affirmation).
Just because you can’t find a direct, immediate moral rule (within religious morality at that) doesn’t mean that everything goes.Certainly but is the opposite of such behavior immediately immoral??? I should think morality is far more indepth then social norms for politeness.
In theory I believe I would have noticed that and even well before an engagement could take place. But in practice you never know. People sometimes have some aspects of their personality that aren’t so easily noticed until the right (or wrong) trigger pops up.
Perhaps I’ll disappoint you but I wouldn’t consider her reasons legitimate just because I were in love with her. Nor even because I respected her (I’d never get engaged to someone who had not earned my respect). I would not leave it up to her judgement if she wanted me to take her name, only if she wanted to avoid adding my name after hers with a hyphen for some reasons that didn’t resemble a feminist statement. (Because, as I said, hyphenating is okay by me.)
Per se, on its own, it does not. True. But the motivation matters here, the reasons why this or that thing (which is completely neutral on its own) is done, why we choose to do it.
There is nothing ludicrous about following an old custom, although we might disagree with the merit of that custom. At any rate, one should at least, generally, be willing to admit that one finds a certain social tradition to be wrong, unreasonable or yeah, ludicrous, rather than pretending that such a tradition does not exist. Not saying you pretend that but I’ve seen some posters here act like we’re starting from a clean slate, which we are not.
Agree. This is why motivation should be examined by the traditional man. If he finds the motivation on the part of the woman is nothing more than an “in your face!” defiance, then he may have good reason not to want to marry such a contrary person. However, if her motivation is as simple as “I like my name”, or “my name has always been my identity”, it wouldn’t be fair for him to assume she is the type of woman who would always try to “get one over him” in marriage.
I remember the first time I met the sister of a woman who married a family member. She is one of the stereotypical militant feminists (I’m sure we can all get an image in our heads - short hair, domineering, a bit of attitude), and when we were making introductions at the engagement party, someone asked the man next to her if he was her husband. She immediately cut in, “He is my partner. The word “husband” denotes ownership and dominance, etc. etc.”. I believe *this *is the type of woman you’re talking about. Her husband (err, excuse me, her “partner”) just stood there while she went off.
Many men would probably do well to avoid marriage with those types of women, unless they are very subservient by nature.
But again, what’s happening here is that the pro name-change crowd is placing all dissenters into the militant feminist box.No, nothing wrong with following some old customs, if they are deemed to be beneficial. In fact, it is wise to conserve traditions which benefit society at large. But the fact remains that there is nothing beneficial (from what I can see) about a woman taking her husband’s name, therefore I don’t see a reason *why *she should have to show where the tradition is wrong if she wants to change it.
Now see, this seems even more complicated to me. I personally don’t care about starting from a clean slate simply to justify a standpoint of consistency. I don’t think many women who keep their name are even thinking about having to defend their positions. The idea of consistency doesn’t even factor in - they just don’t want to change their names and don’t see a necessary imperative to do so.
Do you disagree with the bolded? Are you saying that tradition should be based upon emotional, rather than logical, appeal?
Again, are we examining this subject from the emotional aspect of the man? If so, why do his emotions override the emotions and/or sentimentality of the woman?
I reluctantly agree with you, although I wouldn’t be inclined to leave the bolded rationales entirely unquestioned. Especially the latter one. I can understand the notion on its face. On the other hand, while we should probably take it at face value, it can still easily be connected with some kind of reluctance to accept changes in life which are connected with marriage. I would be hesitant to jump to such a forward conclusion but I can understand why a man would have fear whether the woman in question is ready for marriage and the changes it brings.
To me, “partner” implies co-ownership of a business venture. But anyway, yes, that is one example of a person I wouldn’t like to marry and would probably discourage any man from marrying. Instead of her openly militant reaction, you could, however, find all sorts of knee jerk, passive-aggressive and other sort of reactions that don’t fit the standard cliché of a verbally violent militant feminist.I remember the first time I met the sister of a woman who married a family member. She is one of the stereotypical militant feminists (I’m sure we can all get an image in our heads - short hair, domineering, a bit of attitude), and when we were making introductions at the engagement party, someone asked the man next to her if he was her husband. She immediately cut in, “He is my partner. The word “husband” denotes ownership and dominance, etc. etc.”. I believe *this *is the type of woman you’re talking about. Her husband (err, excuse me, her “partner”) just stood there while she went off.
My contention is that she isn’t offering anything better if she sticks with the name her mum took from her dad instead. She’s then still following the old custom, just taking it one generation back and trying to soothe herself with that half-measure.No, nothing wrong with following some old customs, if they are deemed to be beneficial. In fact, it is wise to conserve traditions which benefit society at large. But the fact remains that there is nothing beneficial (from what I can see) about a woman taking her husband’s name, therefore I don’t see a reason *why *she should have to show where the tradition is wrong if she wants to change it.
Well, they could use some logic then. It is a good thing to examine one’s own outlooks from time to time from the perspective of logic, especially when one makes requests of others, considers requests of others, makes or changes decisions and at other such defining points.
I can actually understand the notion of not seeing a necessary imperative to perform a certain action. Still, you need to admit that a man could say that he doesn’t see a necessary imperative to go against a custom.
There is both logical and emotional appeal in naming the sons and heirs of a female heiress after the mother’s family when it is threatened with extinction. Especially if the mother’s surname is higher-ranking and more prestigious than the father’s.
They do not. In fact, I am contending here that most posters focus on the emotionality of the woman and ignore the man’s feelings. So I iterate the man’s possible feelings here in opposition to that neglect.
Doesn’t, traditionally, a woman’s identity include changing her name from her birth family to her husband’s? Mitigated by hyphenation perhaps? For decades, maybe centuries, there has not been a problem with that, now there is one?
Your answer is in the first sentence. Thousands, not dozens. And someone has to test the waters, not everybody. I am somewhat fed up with people doing silly things to their children’s names and their own. When in a village full of Tom Carpenters and Joe Farriers, you suddenly start having Xavier Benedict Maximus Carpenter-Farriers coupled with families where the girls are Carpenters and the boys are Farriers. And so on and so forth. I don’t really care what one or another isolated rare person does, even if there is one or two in every village. But it’s tiring when everybody is questioning everything and everybody else has to live with it, and with all the self-assertion that comes with it. This is a little related to the courts inventing all sorts of rights that sane people have never dreamt about. I’d appreciate some normalcy already.
Lack of a right to vote is a different thing. Or racial discrimination.
Dare I suggest that perhaps plain words have failed because you’re trying to rationalize this from an objective point of view, when in fact it has been an emotionally biased point of view all along? (Where’s the hiding-behind-the-couch emoticon?) I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with this, not at all. I just think that sometimes men consider “feelings” to be a dirty word (much in the way women react to the word “submission”), when in fact *all *humans operate on emotion. Sometimes a man might try too hard to deny that a desire of his is based upon emotion (maybe because he thinks it somehow emasculates him?
) and so he attempts to present his case from an objective standpoint, even when it’s not objective at all. In fact, I would hazard a guess that men might have a better chance of bringing a woman to their side if they appealed to her desire to please them. When women hear “it’s tradition”, they’ll think “So what?”. I think they would be more likely to support it if you said from the get-go “Honey, it would make me feel really proud if you honored me by taking my name.”It doesn’t have to be a problem, unless someone makes it a problem. The problem arises when men get offended over this, and assume it is done out of spite. But again, they are the ones that have the luxury of not having to change their legal identities. Their stance merits less consideration IMO, **not **because their opinions/feelings are worth less in general, but because in this case they are asking women to sacrifice what they themselves do not have to give up.
This addresses the illogicy of the entire custom. Before DNA testing, there was never a certainty of paternity. Why, for all logical intents and purposes, would geneaology attempt to be proven along the male line? This makes no sense to me, especially for royal families whose sole claim to thrones and legitimacy depended on bloodline, bloodline, bloodline? They passed down the father’s name as a mark of lineage when in actuality their royal “sons” could have been the sons of the peasant stableboy, for all they knew. There is actually more logic in handing down the mother’s name, because we know for sure that the child belongs to the mother. Therefore, the tradition of passing down the male name is not logical, but emotional. I don’t think we should switch things around, but if we’re talking about whether or not a tradition is intellectually logical…
I don’t care all that much either - whatever people choose to do is fine with me. I’ve come across many of your posts since I’ve been a member, even on threads in which I haven’t contributed, and you seem like a fine gentleman, Chevalier. No personal attack - I just enjoy a good debate.
Sadly, this may be a reality for some unfortunate woman!Johann Gambolputty. That’s all I’m saying.
Can you imagine, going from a name like Kelly Afton, to Kelly Gambolputty?? ORI am very glad to hear this. You definately have a more pesimistic outlook as to what subconsious reasons underlie such statements in general than I do, but it shows that you do in fact agree with and recognize the importance of a woman’s feelings in this matter and that her name is indeed her own even though it comes to her from her father.I realize you don’t like speaking about it that way because you don’t want overly-feminist types to take that assertion and beat you over the head with it to try and force women to stop taking their husbands names or something, but it doesn’t change the truth of statement.
I would just like to speak up for my part that while I may have come across that way I in no way intended to imply that the feelings of the man should be neglected. What happened was one poster made a comment that seemed as though he was completely unwilling to consider the feelings of his hypothetical future wife on this matter, so I responded in defense of the fact that it is, in fact, important to pay attention to and listen to the women’s feelings on this matter. (and yes I realize you are not just talking about me, but it is quite possible that the others were motivated by the same reason into posting, and so, it is quite possible that while it came across as if people were denying the importance of the man’s feeling in this case, all they were doing was responding to someone who sounded as though they were denying the importance of a womans feelings on thiss matter. In other words, their silence on the matter of men’s feelings quite likely has nothing to do with a denial of the importance of said feelings and instead everything to do with the fact that that subjecct had nothing to do with the point they were trying to make. Just my :twocents:
You are making this about something it may not be about. The woman may simply like her name, Or has used her name for business purposes, etc.
The custom has no inherent moral legitimacy in the first place. It can be discarded with no immoral effect. Couples on an individual level do not need to justify their departures from it.
In 1903, Otto Weininger noted in his influential, if insane, Sex and Character that the fact that women acquiesced to changing their name and thus identity in marriage proved they had a character defect, making them irrational, chaotic, and protean.
You just opened a *big *can of worms there!!:bigyikes:In 1903, Otto Weininger noted in his influential, if insane, Sex and Character that the fact that women acquiesced to changing their name and thus identity in marriage proved they had a character defect, making them irrational, chaotic, and protean.
I’ve spinned public prosecutors on the dancing floor, I could probably make a feminist cry too if I set myself to it.As long as you don’t cry on her shoulder when you make your case
And again you miss the starting point because you fall into the error of thinking you’re starting from a clean slate. Historically, women have changed names, men have worked for the families, not everybody did the same. Equality does not mean replicability. We’re not reinventing the wheel.
Because ultimately if you really need to look at it that way, the man is the head of the family.
There was huge emphasis on the queen’s fidelity and hefty penalties for adultery. When suspicion arose, the son’s succession was in trouble. Those people were not living in a fiction.
Absolutely not. First, they minded whom they married. Second, walls had ears in the middle ages. Everybody lived in a crowded environment and there was much less privacy.
Firstly, you fall into the error of pars pro toto. Just because you have found one supposed problem doesn’t meant you’ve examined it all.
So stop doing it!
I generally don’t care much either but I find your openness disturbing. Just because it’s their choice doesn’t mean it’s a good one.
Thank you. :tiphat: I trust I’ve provided the flak you were looking for?I’ve come across many of your posts since I’ve been a member, even on threads in which I haven’t contributed, and you seem like a fine gentleman, Chevalier. No personal attack - I just enjoy a good debate.
Sadly, this may be a reality for some unfortunate woman!
I once had a woman laugh at my surname. Wasn’t exactly romantic. As much as I don’t really feel beholden to it for genealogical reasons most of modern 60 year olds wouldn’t understand. Anyway. Due to my own lack of excessively caring, I did avoid the humiliation but it wasn’t exactly pleasant, nor did it do well to my opinion of her, not like she cared, at least initially. Anyway, men have feelings do. Incidentally, first thing a man thinks in such a situation is, “what’s wrong with my surname?” I know what exactly is wrong with mine (and it’s not just one thing nor exactly one surname either) but for most men this is different. What would one do if his name were Coward?