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 Anyway what about the missing third option in your poll?
* It's none of my business to tell other people what they should call themselves.
I have asked a similar question on another site that shall be nameless but for the sake of example, we'll call it Twatter!
I noticed that on that site, a good many feathers seemed to be ruffled by me even suggesting that the change of name is a little demeaning for the woman; after all, men never adopt their wife's surname on marriage and stop using their own, do they?
Those with the most ruffled feathers seemed to be women who had just accepted that that's the way it is and didn't like being reminded that it is not an obligation, but most of all men, who believed it was right and proper to force their surname on to their womenfolk! The "we've always done it so don't you dare go questioning what is an appalling skeleton in our misogynist cupboard" brigade!
@TimWardCam
There's always one but it's actually as rare or rarer than rocking horse shit!
@Paulos_the_fog "men never adopt their wife's surname on marriage"
Except for the guy I know who did, and had to change back again when getting re-married after divorce as his new wife didn't want his old wife's name ...