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Why should married women change their names? Let men change theirs698518224500HYPERLINK ""Jill FilipovicYour name is your identity. The reasons women give for changing their names after marrying don't make much sOver 90% of women change their names when they get married. Photograph: Mode Images Limited / Alamy/AlamyHYPERLINK ""@JillFilipovicThursday 7 March 2013 16.19?GMTFirst published on Thursday 7 March 2013 16.19?GMTExcuse me while I play the cranky feminist for a minute, but I'm disheartened every time I sign into Facebook and see a list of female names I don't recognize. You got married, congratulations! But why, in 2013, does getting married mean giving up the most basic marker of your identity? And if family unity is so important, why don't men ever change their names?On one level, I get it: people are really hard on married women who don't change their names. Ten percent of the American public still thinks that keeping your name means you aren't dedicated to your marriage. And a full 50% of Americans think you should be legally required to take your husband's name. Somewhere upwards of 90% of women do change their names when they get married. I understand, given the social judgment of a sexist culture, why some women would decide that a name change is the path of least resistance.But that's not what you usually hear. Instead, the defense of the name change is something like, "We want our family to share a name" or "His last name was better" or "My last name was just my dad's anyway" – all reasons that make no sense. If your last name is really your dad's, then no one, including your dad, has a last name that's actually theirs.It may be the case that in your marriage, he did have a better last name. But if that's really a gender-neutral reason for a name change, you'd think that men with unfortunate last names would change theirs as often as women do. Given that men almost never change their names upon marriage, either there's something weird going on where it just so happens that women got all of the bad last names, or "I changed my name because his is better" is just a convenient and ultimately unconvincing excuse.Not that I'm unsympathetic to the women out there who have difficult or unfortunate last names. My last name is "Filipovic." People can't spell it or pronounce it, which is a liability when your job includes writing articles under your difficult-to-spell last name, and occasionally doing television or radio hits where the host cannot figure out what to call you. It's weird, and it's "ethnic," and it makes me way too easily Google-able. But Jill Filipovic is my name and my identity. Jill Smith is a different person.That is fundamentally why I oppose changing your name (and why I look forward to the wider legalization of same-sex marriage, which in addition to just being good and right, will challenge the idea that there are naturally different roles for men and women within the marital unit). Identities matter, and the words we put on things are part of how we make them real. There's a power in naming that feminists and social justice activists have long highlighted. Putting a word to the most obvious social dynamics is the first step toward ending inequality. Words like "sexism" and "racism" make clear that different treatment based on sex or race is something other than the natural state of things; the invention of the term "Ms" shed light on the fact that men simply existed in the world while women were identified based on their marital status.Your name is your identity. The term for you is what situates you in the world. The cultural assumption that women will change their names upon marriage – the assumption that we'll even think about it, and be in a position where we make a "choice" of whether to keep our names or take our husbands' – cannot be without consequence. Part of how our brains function and make sense of a vast and confusing universe is by naming and categorizing. When women see our names as temporary or not really ours, and when we understand that part of being a woman is subsuming your own identity into our husband's, that impacts our perception of ourselves and our role in the world. It lessens the belief that our existence is valuable unto itself, and that as individuals we are already whole. It disassociates us from ourselves, and feeds into a female understanding of self as relational – we are not simply who we are, we are defined by our role as someone's wife or mother or daughter or sister.Men rarely define themselves relationally. And men don't tend to change their names, or even let the thought cross their mind. Men, too, seem to realize that changing one's name has personal and professional consequences. In the internet age, all the work you did under your previous name isn't going to show up in a Google search. A name change means a new driver's license, passport, professional documentation, the works. It means someone trying to track you down – a former client, an old classmate, a co-worker from a few years back with an opportunity you may be interested in – is going to have a tough time finding you. It means lost opportunities personally and professionally.Of course, there's also power in a name change. Changing your name if, for example, you change your gender presentation makes sense – a new, more authentic name to match the new, more authentic you. But outside of the gender transition context, marriage has long meant a woman giving up her identity, and along with it, her basic rights. Under coverture laws, a woman's legal existence was merged with her husband's: "husband and wife are one," and the one was the husband. Married women had no right to own property or enter into legal contracts. It's only very recently that married women could get their own credit cards. Marital rape remained legal in many states through the 1980s. The idea that a woman retains her own separate identity from her husband, and that a husband doesn't have virtually unlimited power over a woman he marries, is a very new one.Fortunately, feminists succeeded in shifting the law and the culture of marriage. Today marriages are typically based on love instead of economics. Even conservative couples who still believe a husband should be the head of the household have more egalitarian marriages than previous generations, and are less likely than their parents or grandparents to see things like domestic violence as a private matter or a normal part family life.Unfortunately, despite all of these gains, the marital name change remains. Even the small number of women who do keep their names after marriage tend to give their children the husband's name. At best there's hyphenation. That's a fair solution, but after many centuries of servitude and inequality, allow me to suggest some gender push-back: Give the kids the woman's last name.Allow me to suggest an even stronger push: If it's important to you that your family all share a last name, make it the wife's. Yes, men, that means taking your wife's name. Or do what this guy did and invent a new name with your wife. And women, if the man you're set to marry extols the virtues of sharing a family name but won't consider taking yours? Perhaps ask yourself if you should be marrying someone who thinks your identity is fundamentally inferior to his own.The suggestion that men change their names may sound unfair given everything I just wrote about the value of your name and identity, and the psychological impact of growing up in a world where your own name for yourself is impermanent. But men don't grow up with that sense of psychological impermanence. They don't grow up under the shadow of several thousand years of gender-based discrimination. So if you'd rather your family all shared a name, it actually makes much more sense to make it the woman's. Or we can embrace a modern vision of family where individuals form social and legal bonds out of love and loyalty, instead of defining family as a group coalesced under one male figurehead and a singular name.At the very least, everyone keeping their own name will make Facebook less confusing.Should I take my girlfriend's surname when we marry?Instead of expecting their partners to follow tradition, more and more men are taking their wife's surname or merging the two when they get married, reports Sam Rowe876309080500Both parties double-barreling their name is becoming a popular choice?Photo: AlamyHYPERLINK ""By Sam Rowe8:25AM BST 23 May 2014When it comes to the marital name change, what’s a man to do?Like many a 21st century male, I’d class myself as a feminist (though I’d argue modern feminism is far less a movement nowadays, more a factory setting for civilised humanity, save the occasional Clarkson or Farage).By no means do I profess a right to inflict my surname upon my girlfriend of seven years, purely on the basis that my genitalia hangs on the outside of my body.What’s more, given the murky history of coverture – an old English law that surrendered a woman’s name and legal rights to her husband in marriage – the oft-wielded argument of "tradition" is more than a little stale. Traditions die out when they're past their sell-by date and rightly so.844556032500And yet, if and when we decide to marry and my long-suffering missus decides against becoming "Mrs Rowe", how will that make me feel? Will I celebrate the fact that, this being an equal partnership, she shouldn't have to give up anything, let alone something as important as a name, as soon as I put a ring on her finger? Or will it, in fact, leave me feeling somewhat emasculated. Truth be told, a bit of both.Statistics suggest I'm not the only man in this predicament. We no longer take it for granted that our bride will uncomplainingly forego her family name the minute we've got her over the threshold, but what's the alternative? Sam Taylor-Wood and Aaron Taylor-Johnson married in 2012Both parties double-barreling their name is a popular choice, and not just for the meek and weedy. If it’s good enough for John Lennon, Kick-Ass star Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Jay-Z, who all incorporated their wives’ surnames with their own, it should be good enough for anyone. And the trend’s not merely the preserve of attention-seeking celebrities, either.“I’ve already changed my name by Deed Poll,” explains 25-year-old Grant Miles-Wilson, a supermarket supervisor who is due to marry his fiancée Claire in August. “It was a joint decision, because Claire and her older sister are the last in her family line – after that the Miles family would be no longer. I did it out of respect.“People make a bigger deal of it than it is, but it’s just a name. The way I see it, I’m the only Miles-Wilson in the world, so it’s unique.”But an increasing number of men are going further than that. Along with the rise of double-barreling, recent years have seen a growing trend for newly married men shedding their own surnames entirely.“We are noticing an increase in men taking their wife's surname,” says Louise Bowers, officer at the UK Deed Poll Service – issuer of over 60,000 Deed Polls a year. “Particularly if the man has a name that is not particularly nice - such as Bogg, Pratt, Willey, Smelly, the women refuses to take his name so he changes to hers.”But, even in these times of equality, can a man take his wife's name without being mocked by other males? It’s all right for famous musicians like Jack White (née Gillis), but what of the everyman? Over to you, the Internet.“If you do this, you are no longer a man. You are a sissy,” said a recent messageboard poster on . “Why don’t you get a sex change while you’re at it?” offered another.One user did at least put forward a counter-argument: “Yes, but it takes a confident, self-secure man to make such a decision.” The comment was met with more bilious scorn.For many couples, the fairest approach is to "mesh" the two names together (Mr Fox and Miss Stockton become the Foxtons, for example) – with over 800 couples doing this annually – or invent an entirely new surname, like a create-your-own pizza of holy matrimony.Aside from the gender debate, one of the chief reasons why neither sex may wish to part with their surname is that, in our technological age, a name can be so intrinsically linked to your identity and career. With prospective employers more likely to browse Google or social media to vet an applicant than call their references, a name-change could conceivably erase an entire career.“I’ll be honest, Matt Caley probably sounds like a cooler name,” says Matthew Parkinson, a 24-year-old technical director, who’s due to wed fiancée Helen next month. “But due to work my name is out there in a lot of places. I’d be at serious risk of losing the brand if I changed it.“Saying that, there’s already a Matt Parkinson at Microsoft, and apparently I’m associate professor at Penn State University, work at a computer laboratory… oh, and I was an actor in Babe 2: Pig in the City.” Who knows, give it another decade and we may well find celeb couples altering their name in line with their latest endorsement, switching their middle name to “in association with” for good measure.Perhaps us men have got it all wrong, after all. Maybe a name change isn’t a handover of your manhood, but a shrewd business opportunity instead.Men taking their wife's name, double-barrelled 1016028702000surnames and even meshed versions are all the rage as traditional marriages go out of fashionIncreasing number of husbands taking their wives names when they marryOften men with 'embarrassing' names don't want to pass it on to children'Meshing' - creating a new surname by combing both names - also popularBy HANNAH PARRY FOR MAILONLINEPUBLISHED: 10:34, 13 June 2015 | UPDATED: 14:57, 13 June 2015Men are choosing to take take their wife's name or even 'mesh' their surnames as centuries of tradition go out of?fashion.The numbers of women who refuse to give up their maiden name when they marry has soared over recent years.?1524054546500Now it appears to be men who are willing to compromise over their surnames after Guardians of the Galaxy star Zoe Saldana revealed that her husband Marco Perego had chosen to take her name after they married.??Guardians of the Galaxy star Zoe Saldana revealed that her husband Marco Perego had chosen to take her name after they married.Experts believe that the move away from traditional marriages could be down to a rise in feminism.?Louise Bowers of the UK Deed Poll Service told The Times: I suppose it's a sign of the times. We no longer expect women to stay at home and look after the house when they get married, I don't think we expect them automatically to take?their?husband's name either.Other factors could be men who consider their surname to be?embarrassing, such as Dick or Bogey, who don't want to pass them onto their children, she added.-5969023241000At the same time, numbers of men going double-barrelled or meshing their surname - where the family names of both wive and husband are combined to create a new one - has also increased.Meshing originally became popular in the US and has now caught on with couples over here.Statistics show that hundreds of Brits are now fusing their surnames, such as Mr Pugh and Miss Griffin who famously became Mr and Mrs presenter Dawn Porter also chose to mesh her surname with her husband, actor Chris O’Dowd when they married in 2012, by taking the 'O' to become Dawn O'Porter.?Dawn Porter chose to take the 'O' from her husband Chris O'Dowd's surname when the pair married while?Jay Z (real name Shawn Carter) combined his name with wife Beyonce's to become Shawn Knowles-Carter.Claudia Duncan, an officer with the Deed Poll, said: 'Meshing has changed from once being a rare novelty to now being noted as being one of the main reasons couples may use a Deed Poll to change their names.?'It allows couples the freedom of reinvention - meshing their names as a symbolic reflection of their union with a completely new start without any history being tied to their surname.'She added: 'Many couples feel meshing is more romantic than double-barreling their surname, while we did have one very honest client who said they could not decide whose name should come first, so blending their names was the obvious solution.'Other examples of names created by deed poll include Miss Harley and Mr Gatts who became the Hatts, Miss Price and Mr Nightingale who are now the Prightingales and Miss Clifton and Mr Mole now known as the Moltons.?Double-barrelling still remains a popular choice and is currently more in demand than meshing with Kick-Ass star Aaron Taylor-Johnson incorporating their wives’ surnames with their own.Famously, rapper Jay Z (real name Shawn Carter) combined his name with wife Beyonce's to become Shawn Knowles-Carter."What does the Bible say about a wife changing her last name at marriage?"The tradition of a wife taking her husband’s last name at marriage is not found in the Bible. In Bible times, most people did not even have last names. Women were often identified by where they lived (e.g., Mary Magdalene, Luke 8:2), by their children (e.g., Mary the mother of James and Joseph, Matthew 27:56), or by their husband (e.g., Mary the wife of Clopas, John 19:25).In Western culture, it has been a common tradition for a wife to change her last name to that of her husband. The vast majority of married women in the West still follow that tradition. There is nothing explicitly biblical about doing this, since the Bible issues no command to do so. Thus, there is nothing explicitly unbiblical about a wife keeping her maiden name or opting for a hyphenated hybrid.Some women who legally change their last names after marriage are simply following cultural conventions. Many others, however, are consciously choosing to illustrate a couple of biblical principles, namely, the headship of the man and the fact that marriage is the union of two people into “one flesh.” Jesus taught that, when a man and a woman are married, “they are no longer two, but one flesh” (Mark 10:8). A common ritual during wedding ceremonies is the lighting of the unity candle, which illustrates Genesis 2:24, “A man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” The husband, as the head of the home and the nurturer of his wife (Ephesians 5:23), shares his name with her, rather than vice versa.Other cultures may have different traditions regarding a woman changing or keeping her last name after marriage. Again, since the Bible does not specifically address the issue, the matter should be decided based on prayer, cultural considerations, and the wishes of the husband and the wife.14 Men React To The Idea Of Taking Their Wife’s Last Name After?MarriageMélanie Berliet? “I run the house—handle the cleaning, make the money, plan the vacations, arrange most meals, etc. My wife is a chill ass woman, so a lot of that is just informed by our different personality types. But since I’m the one doing all the work, I think I’ve earned the right to have her take my name.”?— Oscar, 31“I’m totally open to it. As long as my DNA is in my child’s blood, I don’t care what our last name is. I suggested to my girlfriend that we should hyphenate our names when we’re married, but she doesn’t want that!” — Stephen, 22“If hoards of men started taking their wives’ surnames, it would be an unfortunate and perhaps irreversible step towards a matriarchal goddess culture, which blows for guys because those cultures used to routinely kill male infants and treat males like slaves. In a world where there are already very few incentives for men to get legally shackled, this is one slippery slope I wouldn’t want to slide down.”?— Ricky, 27“There’s something so emasculating about the notion of a man washing away his name altogether. The thought makes me uncomfortable, and kind of angry.” — Edgar, 25“I would never do it. I’m not someone who pushes boundaries. I don’t like to call attention to myself, and taking my wife’s name would make me feel like I was on display—like I was trying to make some kind of statement, and that’s not me. For the same reason, I would never combine names, or hyphenate. It’s archaic, I know, but if my fiancée and I weren’t planning on keeping our own separate names, I would only agree to the woman-changes-her-name thing.”?— Luke, 26“My advice? Don’t get married on Opposite Day. Duh.”?— Sawyer, 28“No way. Rationale? It’s half a biological impulse, and half a contextual thing. Biologically, the word ‘domain’ keeps popping into my head. That sounds misogynistic, I know. But at my core, when all is said and done, I believe that the family is my domain. For instance, in any hypothetical state of emergency, I’m going be the one to sacrifice my life to save my wife and children. I should be the one whose name lives on.”?— Raul, 29“I guess if it was her number one sticking point, I’d be down. But I do quite like my last name. You can be president with a name like mine.”?— William, 24“My sense is that on a genetic level women want to marry up and part of marrying up is that they’re buying into a certain kind of—for lack of a better word—dynasty and that means taking a man’s name. For a man to change his name to her name would be to reverse a longstanding sociological phenomenon and I just don’t think a lot of women let alone men actually want that.”?— Kyle, 27“For me personally, it would never happen. I’m somewhat traditional in this regard and as the only male child in my family, I think it’s my duty to keep my family name and to pass it along to my children. That said, I would fully support any of my guy friends who wanted to take their wife’s last name. Why not? Seems silly that only men should have that honor.”?— Alexandre, 36“Listen, I’m a feminist. But we have to draw the line somewhere. Equal rights shouldn’t come at the cost of upending all established conventions. Why get married at all if you don’t want to embrace the related traditions?”?— Elijah, 27“I can’t even dignify this question with an answer. Whatever.”?— Sebastian, 26“I have some friends out west who’ve done the combo last name thing for the baby, and that seems fair. Starting a new lineage is kind of cool. But taking her name? That’s not fair. That’s just lame. No thanks.”?— Ethan, 30“My wife’s maiden name is really common, and my last name is very unique. So she was as eager to take my surname as I was to keep it. I guess I’m lucky things worked out the way they did, because this is a heavy question I’d rather not deal with.” — Mitchell, 31 ................
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