Sustainable Nomenclature

[trinityvixen]

What could we do about the marriage practice of changing one spouse's last name (usually the wife's) to the other's that would make the practice a) entirely gender-independent and b) practical for multiple generations?

The best I can figure is that both partners have to change their name in some fashion. Either they would do it upon marrying--John Doe and Jane Smith would pick or be given third, new name, say "Brown"--or they would keep their names but give any children a new one.

That would certainly fulfill requirement a), but I'm still not sure that it's an attractive solution to the problem of b). Unless the parents took the new name and passed that on, having children with a different name from the parents is awkward and inelegant.

What do you all think?

Oh, and please, bear in mind that issues of being able to track genealogy are lesser concerns to me. We live in an age with adequate resources for tracking down that sort of information if you want to build family trees. I don't think "being able to trace/link back to our ancestors" is an effective argument against adopting a new system of nomenclature. Issues of how couples would choose new names are fair game though. I imagine we'd get plenty of crank names as the internet generations get married, to say nothing about the few folk who would expose their ignorance and/or bigotry by appropriating names from cultures not their own (or enhancing their link to diluted bloodlines with usurpation of old names).

Comments

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

I think it's fine the way it is. I think some women like changing it, and anyone who has a problem can take it on a case-by-case basis.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

My question is, why does there need to be an overall change? I understand the system is biased, but it seems like a bias that on the whole doesn't bother people. Even if you enacted a new system, I bet more than 75% of the world would just continue with the status quo, and even if there wasn't an overall change, you could still object to it on a personal level in your own marriage.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

Additionally, for the record, I as a man feel no pressure whatsoever on this issue, which is the main reason why I wonder why you think it should change. It seems like there would be, but I really don't know that I agree with that. I would say, only when there's something in tandem with general tradition (like, say, a religion) that there would be any sort of pressure.

[ahab99.livejournal.com]

I think that's exactly why? Because women, when they get married, always have to choose and bear some consequences either way, but it's such an unquestioned system that most men never think about it at all. That's an imbalance that I've never appreciated. It's yet another way women are the marked gender and men the unmarked, and it would be nice to get to a place where that's not the case.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

You don't feel pressure to change your name or you wouldn't feel pressured not to if you wanted to when you got married? There's a difference, and I just want to understand what you mean.

Why do I think it should change? Because I see no reason why it should be that women automatically give up their name in marriage. If the goal of society is to move toward equality, we can't default to some older practices. As bigscary points out above, the practice of taking a husband's name has a signifier of him owning the wife as property. That's literally where it came from, and that's rather unenlightened for a better, humanist world. We should be working on figuring out either how to bring the ratio of name changes to 50-50 or to find a way that such changes are unnecessary.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

I feel no pressure to either situation. And my feeling is that at this point in the world, anyone who wants to object to the tradition can do so easily, so any way in which it isn't 50-50 is being determined by the couples of America and not any pressure from anyone. I mean, I've never tried to get married, but I would have a really hard time believing any of the couples that I know would have any trouble picking one way or another.

In short, it's not that I feel it's wrong to care about changing this, or easier to ignore than to do the work, but I think you're trying to balance an equation that will just naturally remain imbalanced even if everyone in the world knew they had a choice.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

There's a difference between "having a choice" and making one. Technically, you have a choice when it comes to lots of things, but it becomes an issue of what is convenient, a, and what you can afford, b, and what is considered "acceptable" or not. Right now, with our defaulting to old ways of name-taking, there is "a choice" not to, but those who want to do it differently from the norm have a hard time doing so. They still can but it takes a lot more effort. That barrier, that inertia, to freedom of choice removes the "freedom" part.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

Well, like I said, that's the other part I don't really see as true either. I think a considerable portion of people stick with tradition because they like it, not because it's easier or they have a hard time doing otherwise. Several girls I know are going to choose to take their husband's name because they feel it's a romantic part of getting married, even though I know they're against gender inequality and would otherwise put up a fight. I think you're underestimating the number of people out there who actually appreciate the tradition the way it is.

[ahab99.livejournal.com]

And you really think it's coincidence that it's always the woman who happens to think it's romantic to take her partner's name and that it's always the man who never even considers whether he should consider changing his name instead?

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

I don't think guys care at all. I know I don't. If I was getting married and my fiancee asked me to change to her name, that'd be fine with me.

[ahab99.livejournal.com]

Aaaaaand it's precisely that ability to not worry at all about the issue and have no inherent consequences that is part of the privilege.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

That's only half true. I don't think there are any consequences if women don't worry about it.

[ahab99.livejournal.com]

We aren't just *inventing* the social pressure in this situation. Women face a choice, and both options carry a social meaning that isn't there for men. You can change to your husband's name, thus giving up your own. Even if you contend that most people just accept this without worry, the fact is that it comes from a very property-based ownership system and that *has meaning* (apathy about meanings that exist is not the same thing as those meanings not existing at all). Or you can keep your name, which means, in all likelihood, having a different name than your children, constantly being called the wrong name anyway (because everyone will default to Mrs. [Husband]), and always carrying a mark that you've *bucked the norm*. I've even had people try to analyze it - "Why would she keep her name? She must have had a special connection to her father's family or be a raging man-hating feminist or something!" No, she just wanted to do what men take for granted every day - not having to be judged in maintaining one's own name, regardless of one's marital state.

I think you're missing out what I was saying about privilege, though - you're having trouble seeing what the meaning and power at play here is precisely because you seem to be in a position to not have to deal with it. It's the same thing with "Ms." and "Mrs." - they each have a meaning, and there's no equivalent to "Mr." which carries no specific information at all. I have to choose explicitly between marking that I'm married or marking that I'm rejecting the default state, which in some circles *still* has a negative connotation (and in any circle it still carries that extra information because women are supposed to make it obvious whether they're available or not). This may seem like a little issue in the grand scheme, but it connects to exactly the same gendered power dynamics that cause problems in other. It does actually matter.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

I mentioned in another post, I think these things are generally a lot more likely when there's more than one factor involved, such as a religion that might make it twice as traditional to go with the husband's name. But, I'm 23, and I presume you are too, and I'd be shocked that the average person within our own age group, man or woman within the same age group, whether you were familiar with them or not, would react negatively to taking your husband's name, keeping your own, or devising a compromise. I'm just saying I don't think there's any pressure from anywhere amongst my friends and people within my age group over this issue, that for this generation, the "norm" would be making an independent choice about it regardless of tradition.

In any case, anyone who really IS going to put up a stink that someone didn't do it the old way is going to put up a stink whether the rules are changed or not, and I really doubt they're going to do more than that: put up a stink. I would be pretty surprised to get hit with actual, serious discrimination over it, but I'm more than willing to admit that I probably don't know the extent of it. In any case, if I did take my wife's name and faced any sort of prejudice over it, I think I'd probably just wear it even more as a badge of honor. It just seems like a lot more worry over what other people think about it rather than what it means to you. Fuck 'em if they don't like it.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

A bias that doesn't bother people or one that is too annoyingly difficult to overcome if you don't want to just go with the flow? I see that it doesn't "bother" some people, and that's fine. But if it doesn't matter overly what name people take...why do people default to taking the man's name? Shouldn't it be 50-50?

I see the skew from that to evidence that we've kept it socially and legally complicated to have the name choice be a totally individual one, which is not right.

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

It's the default simply because it always has been. As you said above, it's inertia. To most people, "becaue that's just what's done" is reason enough to do anything. Heck, not just to do it, but to WANT to do it.

That said, those who do want to go against the grain technically can. And yes, they'll have some hassles, as does anyone who goes against the grain in anything. But those hassles are minor. If a guy wants to take his bride's name, but doesn't because his guy friends will tease him, or a woman wants to keep her name but doesn't because she might occsionally have to correct people who address her by her husband's name...well, people who care more about something that minor must not care very much about what they do with their name.

So, yeah, it's socially complicated - slightly - to make a totally individual choice. But that's life in society, and it applies to damn near everything. (How many times have we had to be annoyed because all our friends play WoW and we don't?) I don't see how it's legally complicated, though, except in that your choices of "automatic" name change at marriage are limited to either spouse's name or some combination thereof (not a totally new name).