oh so definitely the one in which i criticize other women and feel bad about it.
i think that people should have the right to change their name whenever and however they want.
i also think that currently, the choice of a woman to change her name when she gets married is not one that happens in a vacuum, that is uninfluenced.
my decision to keep my last name when i got married wasn't uninfluenced either. part of it is that i like my last name. part of it was that his last name was even harder to spell than mine. and part of it was probably reactionary.
Yeah, but Houdini didn't have these hips.: Gender Traitor - The Name Thing
The one in which I criticize other women and feel bad about it.
On a one-on-one basis, I get the name thing. I get the desire to have a single, simple family identity embodied in a name. I get the desire to lose the name of an abusive father or a despised ex-husband. I get it. I'm sympathetic.
5 Comments:
I'm about to (I hope) publish a book under what has heretofore been my social name only, so I understand how the changes you don't intend to be reflected in your professional life kind of creep in anyway.
My OH and I both changed our names. Boy did our parents find that 'interesting'.
Nice discussion...thanks for the link.
I could see liking to hyphenate my name for social/personal use. I also once proposed the use a hyphenated family name for references to us collectively ("the K-B's"), without any changes to individual names.
I have a hard time seeing using any name but the one I've got now professionally.
And you're right; none of his happens in a vacuum. I'm very much attached to the cultural notion of "family names," which is much of why I wouldn't want to give up my own family's name and also much of why I might want to add my partner's. Were I a man, I suspect it's not unlikely that my sense of "family name" would revolve around my family members having *my* name, instead of my having *theirs*.
I think I'm happy I got married as young as I did -- I don't have to worry about changing my workplace name.
I like my name so much and am very happy that changing it was never really a possibility.
I am a little bristly when people who hyphenated their last names refer to us by our hyphenated last names. When people use his last name for my own, I get *really* bristly. References to me as Mrs. (his first name and last name) would probably result in physical assault.
I am curious what will happen if we gain any new family members, I have this sad part of me that feels like I will be the only S in a group of Ws. Ah well, the cat will still have my last name.
wired: ah! good point. that was sneaky of you!
xat: the kids could have s for a last name. waaaaay easier to spell than w. trust me on this one. signed, your friend, the spelling genius, who always has to think real hard about that w name...
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