Something to consider...

[sweetjasmine]

but I kept my "maiden" name for a variety of personal, familial and professional reasons, and they had nothing to do with any commitment phobia.

 

Yup, and IMO it's pretty insulting to make assumptions about someone's relationship based on how they approached the last name issue. If what people did with their last names was a sign of true commitment and a symbolic start of a new family, everyone would make up their own last name to share.

 

My SO and I haven't really decided, but I'm hesitant to change my name also for personal and professional reasons. And bureaucratic ones. Changing your last name is a bigger deal when you have important records in three different countries. I've witnessed other people deal with nightmare scenarios when trying to use documents from one country to prove identity in another, and that's not something I'll take lightly.

 

I think people often underestimate the professional issues involved. There are careers where your work is closely tied to your name, and it goes beyond just the arts and freelancing: if you publish research under one name and then switch to another, it won't be clear in citations that the same person did the work. That interrupts the continuity of your work and research. I can't think of a single female academic who changed her name, and that's the reason why.

 

There are plenty of cultures with different naming traditions where it's traditional for women to keep their birth name. I think it's presumptuous to say that there's something wrong with someone else's relationship based on which naming tradition they choose to follow, especially in a multicultural country where the people we're all judging come from all across the globe.

[Stung]

No, I'm suggesting your evidence doesn't prove anything one way or the other no matter how adamant you are that it does.

 

 

Perhaps you should reread the thread to recontextualize. I brought up circumstances from my own marriage to anecdotally contest one posters misguided notion that women who don't change their names are commitment-phobes hyperventilating in their wedding dresses at the idea of merging their lives with a true partner. Clearly, I didn't fit that poster's profile of a reluctant-to-merge commitment-phobe.

 

Nowhere did I suggest that me choosing to have a baby with my husband or merge finances, livelihoods, and real estate with him constituted proof that everyone everywhere who has babies or buys houses is steadfastly committed to an eternity of shining love no matter what. Refuting one stereotype is not the same as adamantly proclaiming yourself as evidence that only the exact opposite of the stereotype is true.

 

Yup, and IMO it's pretty insulting to make assumptions about someone's relationship based on how they approached the last name issue. If what people did with their last names was a sign of true commitment and a symbolic start of a new family, everyone would make up their own last name to share.

 

My SO and I haven't really decided, but I'm hesitant to change my name also for personal and professional reasons. And bureaucratic ones. Changing your last name is a bigger deal when you have important records in three different countries. I've witnessed other people deal with nightmare scenarios when trying to use documents from one country to prove identity in another, and that's not something I'll take lightly.

 

I think people often underestimate the professional issues involved. There are careers where your work is closely tied to your name, and it goes beyond just the arts and freelancing: if you publish research under one name and then switch to another, it won't be clear in citations that the same person did the work. That interrupts the continuity of your work and research. I can't think of a single female academic who changed her name, and that's the reason why.

 

There are plenty of cultures with different naming traditions where it's traditional for women to keep their birth name. I think it's presumptuous to say that there's something wrong with someone else's relationship based on which naming tradition they choose to follow, especially in a multicultural country where the people we're all judging come from all across the globe.

 

As often happens, I agree with you completely SJ.

 

I'm not interested in flaming anyone who chose to take their husband's name, many of my friends did just that, as did my mother. I just think it's ridiculous and narrow-minded if they feel perfectly correct in sitting in judgment on the fact that I did not. But, I think I made my opinion on that clear in my very first post on this thread, so whatever.

 

I do, btw, know ONE female academic who took her husband's name, and has regretted it professionally ever since. That's a lot to ask of a person, IMO.

 

For the record, I was the primary caretaker of my two goddaughters for a couple of years. They obviously didn't share my name, as we are in no way blood-related. I introduced myself to their teachers on the first day of school, and that was that. No particular confusion, no fuss, not a big deal.

Edited May 7, 2011 by Stung

[DreamerGirl27]

Well its the tradition so most go along with no problem but if the woman rejects your name then there is a deep-seated issue. It is one of those cases like whether a woman will have sex with you where doing it means nothing but going actively against it speaks volumes.

 

The first image that comes into mind when a woman won't accept her husband's name is Carrie hyperventilating in her wedding dress and desperately tearing it off while breaking into hives. That's not too far from the truth. This is a woman's version of commitment phobia which men are always the one's to be blamed with and it feels some don't want to even accept that it exists.

 

 

I dunno if I'd go to that extreme about it, but I tend to find it weird when a woman doesn't want to take her husband's name. I dream about getting married and being married and I'd be honored to take the man that I love's name. I'd feel more...apart of him. Apart of his family. Like, accepted into his family. I'd wanna carry on his name, too. My name...pfftt...my dad carried our name on, that was his job, my job is to carry on someone else's name. I'm also not a very strong feminist, where everyone has to be equal to everyone in every way. I find that silly. Men and women are equal...but in different ways. Men are good at some things women aren't and vice versa, but regardless, we all need each other and taking my future husband's last name is so sexy to me. I love the differences between men and women and I love tradition.