From: kapa@cbnewsc.cb.att.com (k.a.perkins)
Subject: Re: A Question...
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 16:43:24 GMT
Keywords: last names

In article <106120@netnews.upenn.edu>, pezzillo@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Amy J. Pezzillo) writes:
> Here's a question that I'd like people's opinions on:  What do you
> think about the practice of a woman taking the man's last name when
> they get married?

As with all things, people should do what they want to and what seems
right to them, however ...

When I got married in my 20's, both my husband and I regarded this
as a silly custom.  Thus, we continue with the names we were born
with.  I still think, 10 years later, that it is a silly custom, and
it still surprises me when people do it, particularly the professional
women with whom I work.
> 
> Personally, I think that it's a good idea for a married couple to
> share a last name, both for the sake of convinience
As a married couple, I have never found it inconvenient to us to
have different names.  Sometimes it is inconvenient to salespeople,
and that seems like another advantage to me.
As a parent, it is sometimes inconvenient to me to have a different
last name than my children, but not inconvenient enough to make us
change either their name or mine.

and because I
> think it is a clear reminder that they are family to each other.
If you need a reminder, you're in trouble.  Symbols mean different
things to folks, and all it would remind me of is that I changed
my name.
 
Sometimes it seems to other people that I kept my own name in
preparation for getting divorced, no matter that people with the
same last names get divorced all of the time.  These are not quite
the exact same group that thinks women continue their careers as
preparation for divorce, but there is some overlap.

Time, as they say, changes things, and if I had it to do over again,
knowing what I know now, I would push for our each changing our name
to a mutually agreed upon third name.  We would then have a common
name for everyone in our family, and it would be a name that was
just ours, which I would also like.  The big factor that caused me
to rethink this was having children.  We gave them my husband's
last name, for a variety of reasons, mostly having to do with what
would make life easiest for them, so now the 3 of them have the
same name and I have a different one.  That is kind of odd at times,
but so it goes.  I suppose I could change mine now, but I've had it
for 36 years, and I feel like this is who I am and I'm too old to
change now.

> *However,* I really object to the idea that it must be the woman who
> gives up her name to take the man's name.  In "the bad old days" this
> was symbolic of the fact that she was his legal property, and, in the
> eyes of the law, they were one person -- him.  But why do we still
> need to do this?  What's wrong with both of them taking her last name,
> or a totally new one?  Or some combination of the two?  

People should do what suits them best.  I never liked the  idea that
it was always the woman who changed.  I knew 2 men who changed their
names.  One couple made up a new name and both took it and still use
it.  One couple hyphenated their names and both used it for a time.
Now he uses his birth last name, and I think she does, too.  Both
couples had bureaucratic hassles associated with changing their i.d.,
but fortunately both stood up to it, and the threat of a sexual
discrimination lawsuit made the government bureaucrats come around
quite quickly.
> 
> It seems like a lot of couples I know have gone the route of having
> the woman either keep her own last name or having the woman take hers
> hyphenated with his.  Rarely does the man take a hyphenate name.  Does
> it seem strange or unfair to anyone else that the woman is expected to
> make the change, but never the man? 
No, but it does put the lie to the men who go on about the importance
of a common family name and then when push comes to shove, they're not
willing to give up anything for that belief.  It doesn't seem strange
to me because it doesn't seem unusual  in the context of American
culture that there would be a custom designed to convenience men and
inconvenience women, and that both men and women would go along with it.

Kate Perkins
> 


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