The National tribune., 1894-07-26
EDITORS CHAT.

The Individuality There Is In a Name
and Other Things the C. c. Are Thinking
About.
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
Should a married woman retain her OWL
name, OF should she sink it in that Of her hus
band?
This is the question that has come to u:
many times. and still keeps on coming. 1t j:
sometimes called difficult question.
To myself there are no difficulties in the way
Marriage, like any other partnership, requires
q firm name. In the dry goods partnership il
NAV be John Smith & Co.; in the matrimonial
psrtnership, Mr.. aud Mrs. John Smith. Til:
IS simple easy. and convenient.
Yet John Jones, James Brown, and Mich
olas Nichols do not give up their personal
identity when they consent to do business
under the general name Of John Smith q Co.
So neither should Mrs. John Smith give up her
personal name, when, for the sake OF conven-
jence, she consents to be known in society by
the name of the head Of the firm. In law she
is not Mrs Smith, in equity she is not Mary
Smith she is simply Mary Bell, with the Smith
amended or Mary Bell Smith. She does not
change her name; she adds another when she
assumes the marital VOWS. She is still William
Bells daughter, though she has become John
Smiths wife.
by the name society designated her by when
her husband was living. She still uses the
visiting card she used in his lifetime-as, for
instance Mrs Paul Padgett-snd resents the
designation Mrs. Ellen Padgett. This is all
right; it being long-established custom in So
ciety, she naturally breads the change.
But suppose when she began her life she had
retained the name her father gave her, and so
has become Ellen Patterson Psdgett; it would
not be such shock to see her name by birth
right dover in print. Then, should Mrs.
Padgett marry two or three times, as some good
women dc. the transition from Mrs. Paul Pad
gett TO Mrs. Edgar Simmons or Mrs. Elisha
Hanna OF Mrs. Edmund Peppergrass, would
not be so awfuily Sudden. for then it would be
Ellen Patterson Simmons. or Ellen Patterson
Peppergrass, and so the woman would retain
her personal identity through all the partner
ships she might form.
Again shoald she conclude TO break the mat
rim8Rial partnership. as some good women do,
and assume the freedom of single btessedness,
it would be very easy to drop the last name, and
Ellen Padgett would be plain Ellen Patterson
again.
The use of my own name is no new-fangled
idea Of nIine. Ny father was foreign born and
bred, coming from a country where woman
did not give up her personal identity when she
married. He taught me to believe that there
was honor and dignity in the name OF my
DlFtD and mat Wne0 ulaFftcu ulu Hob IT,
nounce my father and mother and the blood
that is thicker than water. He told me but
added a name to my OWN, and be always ad-
dressed me thus as my husband and friends
have done. When he married my mother the
understanding was the same, and she has al
ways borne her own name, save when social
convenience has designated it otherwise.
As write a moss-covered tombstone OF re-
mote ancestor rises before me: Sacred TO the
memory OF James Brownlee and Dame Mar
garet Craig, his wife" This is an even part
neFship, life and death. that suits me and
Dame Margaret Craig" more TO be admired
because she had an individuality of her own;
just as Sarah is nobler character than Mrs.
Abraham would have been, and Queen Fashti
than Mrs. Ahashuerus, or Victoria than Mrs.
Prince Consort. or Lucy Webb Hayes than Mrs.
Rutherford b. Hayes.
VOC WILL NOT BE SORRY.
Whoever penned these thoughts knew what
he was talking about:
You will not be sorry
For being courteous TO all.
For doing good to all men.
For speaking evil Of no one.
For hearing before judging.
For holding an angry tongue
For thinking before speaking.
For being kind 10 the distressed.
For asking pardon for sll wrongs.
Fer being patient toward everybody.
For stopping the ears TO a tale-bearer.
Fer disbrlieving most of the i'll reports.