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?
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!
@TimWardCam
I believe hitching the two surnames together is growing in popularity; particularly amongst showbiz types (e.g. Victoria Coren Mitchell), but so far as I can make out, the tradition persists in the UK without very many people questioning it!
I was born in 1950 and I was under the impression that my generation generally disparaged marriage as an institution, as I do and that therefore the problem didn't arise. However, I see little evidence of marriage dying out.
Another aspect of the same general area of cultural tradition is the use of Miss and Mrs for single and married women respectively. Why do we or did we change the term of address from Miss to Mrs upon marriage when no such change is made to the term of address for a man? The use of Ms is a welcome update of that tradition but it is still far from universal.
@Paulos_the_fog I knew someone with a combined surname who un-hitched his name from that of his ex wife when he got married again ...
@Paulos_the_fog If any women comment, I'll yield to their perspectives.
I could understand it being called old-fashioned or a reinforcement of sexist gender roles. That being said, a woman getting married can interpret it any way they want. My sister took her husband's name despite both being liberal agnostics.
There are certainly people who are not women that take the spouse's name purely by choice. Gay couples sometimes go with hyphenated names.
It's all okay when it's a personal decision.
@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.
Too much of a cop out!
@Paulos_the_fog Should be the default (liberal) response.
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!
@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 ...
@TimWardCam
There's always one but it's actually as rare or rarer than rocking horse shit!
@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??