Well, so here am I. A thirtyish single man, on the one hand very conservative in some matters, on the other hand without trying to turn the course of time backwards, and with short patience for obstructive societal conventions with poor rationale.
So firstly, yeah, the man’s the head of the family. This is responsibility and not an entitlement. In fact, if you are the leader, you have a conflict of interest when you need to choose between what you want and what a person in your charge wants. And you will often end up not getting what you want simply
because you’re the leader, not despite it. A woman can throw all her charms and tantrums and play unfair all she wants to sway the decision her way, but you can’t put your foot down and make what you want the law. You can only do it when it’s the better choice but not one more pleasing to you. For example, if you can only order one dish which comes in a size for two (e.g. they don’t have small pizza and they won’t cut it, just for the sake of argument), it would be totally lame and abusive (and unmanly at that!) to “force” your way with the choice of topping. More likely, you will be “forcing”
her favourite topping over
her objections that you should take yours!
Same way, a man will generally be letting the woman have her way with plenty of other things, including those that affect him daily, even if they will be bought for his money on top of it. Curtains and wallpapers come to mind but there’s probably much more and more important things.
The above were just examples about the practice of male leadership in a household. Generally leadership should not be understood in the light of supposedly being able to do whatever you want, let alone having others do whatever you want, and is not about the pleasure of giving orders. In fact, it is service. This was exemplified to some extent in Disney’s Lion King when Mufasa (then king) told Simba (his son), “there’s much more to being a king than being able to do what you want to do,” (or similar.)
On the other hand, some women fear any semblance of doing what a man said or suggested. So in order to avoid that “slavery”, they will instead choose the more real slavery of doing the opposite thing to what a man suggested or asked for, on a compulsion and out of fear. This is a sad thing. It may be caused by some very unhappy experiences from childhood, I guess. Anyway, I would be extremely guarded and somewhat afraid of starting a relationship with a lady who had this sort of a problem. It’s kinda childish. As a man I have no problem “taking orders” from a woman or even a youngster who happens to be better at whatever we’re doing together than I do, or have spontaneously taken on some organisational responsibility.
It can be similar with the surnames but only depending on the actual motivation for refusing to change. I cannot not see the inconsistency of a man’s surname (father’s, that mum took, and, by the way, children are somehow not considered possessions just because they carry parents’ names) being good when a husband’s surname is not good for the reason that it’s a man’s. Basically, she ends up with a man’s surname anyway and while it may sting for personal reasons, a mark of maturity is to come to terms with reality. An eternal rebel may be hard to live with in a married relationship and may have a tiring personality. And a person with inconsistent patterns of thought may be hard to live with too. Not to mention a person who can’t compromise.
I say this in full knowledge that surnames are a tricky thing and a cultural one (how they formed, how they are different from culture to culture, how sometimes men have taken wives’ surnames etc.). Myself, I carry a double-barrelled one being a man. I’m related by blood to both parts of it, although I was only born with one. And I’m not emotionally vested in either in the sense of continuing a family line (as befitting someone who has a surname nobody else on the planet carries), to the point it feels frustrating at times when I think of a wife and children and surname issues at that point (BTW, one hyphen is max in my jurisdiction). And heck, I certainly would understand if a lady were attached to a surname handed down the family line. However, some of the reasons for not so much keeping existing names but refusing to take the husbands’ (this perspective matters), would worry me on the point of being ready for a relationship with a man, especially a married relationship.
