In the UK and in many other countries, a woman who marries generally takes her husband's surname, losing in the process, the identity she has had since birth.
I find this extremely odd; why in an age of emancipation do we continue with this practice. I guess it had some validity in the back in the days when a wife was just part of her husband's goods and chattels and had no legal rights of her own, but today?
Moving to Belgium some years back brought this home to me as, there, woman do not, as a rule, change their name upon marriage nor do they do so in many other European countries.
Do any of my Prehistoric Elephant friends have a strong view on this?
@Paulos_the_fog Is it "generally" in the UK? - what are the numbers? I am occasionally surprised when I come across someone who actually has done this - it seems that many of my generation and acquaintance don't. Although there are some women who have one name at work (the one under which they'd established their career) and a different name at home ... why??
Yes, I believe it is pretty general. Certainly every woman I know changed their name on marriage and, as I asked them, I can say with some certainty that the idea of keeping their own names never even occurred to them; so accepted is the concept of name change upon marriage!
I was very surprised as my female friends are generally quite feisty characters not people to bow to tradition or to the will of their husbands!
In France it seems to be embedded in the culture, in the law and in the administrative software. Friends of mine from Belgium went down to southern France to live and had some difficulties with the local administration because the wife insisted that she wished to retain her maiden name which is, of course, what all her Belgian identity documents showed. Eventually, with typical French ingenuity, the local 'mairie' put them down as living in 'concubinage' rather than as a married couple! Only that way would their software accept them having different surnames. Problem solved!
