Liesje said:
Like you said, if I were to change my last name to anything, I'd rather change it to my mom's maiden name, or the non-Americanized form of her maiden name. That name fits me far more and speaks far more about who I am than Phil's name. Not that I hate Phil's name, not at all, but it doesn't mean anything to me, and I refuse to change it just because "it's what a woman does."
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I'm perfectly fine with any future children automatically taking Phil's name.
See, I have a hard time understanding this line of thinking. I can certainly understand feeling like your mother's maiden name says more about "who you are", and I can certainly understand not wanting to take your husband's name "just because 'it's what a woman does'," but at the same time I find it hard to wrap my mind around why, if you feel that strongly about both of those, you'd have no problem with your kids "automatically" taking your husband's name. That in itself is a "just because" solution, isn't it? If that legacy or identity you see embodied in your mother's name matters so much to you, why wouldn't you be bothered by not passing it on to your kids? (Not a criticism at all, I just don't understand the distinction.) And doesn't that legacy or identity only "exist" to connect to in the first place because generations of women in her family were dutifully doing the take-the-husband's name thing? I realize you could logically enough answer, "But my kids
will still have a family tree, they'll know where they came from on both sides no matter what their surname is", but then the same is true for you, isn't it?
If a married couple don't have children, then in that specific case I can agree there's no reason for anyone, themselves included, to make a big deal out of all this. If your wife declines to take your name or your husband refuses to hyphenate, well whoop-de-do, get over it, that's their prerogative. In that case, the whole thing really is happening in a kind of generational vacuum where you can afford yourselves the luxury of framing it purely as a matter of individual freedom and personal choice. But it seems to me that the notion of "preserving" a lineage of sorts--which in our culture is organized by surname--still exerts a strong pull on most people's emotions and so when children are involved, things often get a bit more complicated. In a selfish way I like the fact that we've worked out a solution where our kids have both of our surnames (which yes, means our father's names) accounted for in theirs, but obviously if/when they get married and have children, they won't be able to continue that; you can't have people named Mr./Ms. Smith-Patel-Berger-Gomez-Reilly-Phan-etc. And while I wouldn't protest it if it happens (that would be hypocritical, no?), I have to admit I'd feel a bit sad if none of my grandchildren wound up having my last name preserved in theirs somewhere. Which is where I can appreciate the cultural usefulness of a system where it's automatically assumed that a married couple will agree to both take one or the other's surname. It's not for me to know whether, say, your maternal grandmother was pleased to take her husband's last name and thus symbolically assume a place in
his family's history, but if she was then I'd assume she wasn't particularly bothered that none of her children would be carrying on her own maiden name. Or perhaps her thinking was more "Well that's my brothers' job"--but then that in turn assumes their wives would be doing the same.
BonoVoxSupastar said:
It's just a name, I've never put much stock in last names, maybe that has to do with being adopted who knows?
Actually, I can appreciate this perspective too, because in many ways it's the most logical one, once you get into altering the custom to begin with. And likewise having a "blood" family but not being able to trace it back any further than my parents probably gives me a kind of wistfulness about the whole "family legacy" issue that makes it harder for me to accurately imagine how others perceive it.
I'm likely just tying myself in knots over nothing here lol, since the reality is most women will probably keep on automatically taking their husband's name and/or perhaps more men will start taking their wife's name (and ditto for their kids), so no drastic overhaul of how we think about family "lineage" will be required. I just can't help wondering how many people who are all right-on about Do Whatever You Please With Your Surnames have really fully thought through the longterm implications of it. I know I haven't.