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"The 2 percent club"
06/14/2003 Entry
Ms. Musings has a post about the tiny percentage of women who keep their name after marriage. Apparently there has been a drop in these numbers in the United States over the past decade or so. Some people argue that it has nothing to do with feminism, rather, it's related to practicalities and individual choice. Frankly, if the system (including government agencies and businesses alike) didn't make it so hard for a married couple to have different names then a lot of these practicalities wouldn't be an issue.
I remember reading an article for a class I took in college on Sex and Gender about the difficulties a man had faced while trying to change his name to his wife's last name. It was a very interesting way to learn about how ill-equipped the system is for something like that.
I found an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer about a couple who did this. I like the reason the husband gave for taking the wife's name: Joseph Ellison, 20, told the Chronicle Telegram that he took his wife's last name because he loves her. I like the reason because it is so often cited by women for taking on their husband's names as though the husbands didn't love their wives enough to take on their names. And note this minor detail: "The Social Security bureau said they would have to do a credit investigation and a criminal investigation to see if he had killed people in other states and was trying to run away" Ms. Ellison said.
I am not advocating that men change their names (I personally prefer people keep their own names), I am just pointing out that individual choice is not the only reason men rarely take on their partner's last name.
A mailing list I'm on has had a thread on this several times already and the stories people tell are fascinating. When couples have different last names, some organizations are simply incapable of getting it right and continue to list couples as Mr. and Mrs. Husbandslastname. People have run into problems while renting cars and selling houses. So when I say the system's not quite equipped to deal with couples who keep their respective names those are the kinds of issues I'm refering to.
Replies: 2 Comments have been posted, click here to see them and add your own
I was thrilled to read your post because of my own experience. Until I made an unconventional choice, I didn't realize the difficulties I'd encounter.
Deciding whether or not to change your name is an intensely personal issue. But the pervasive patriarchal ideology (in the U.S. at least) says that women should continue with a custom that to many of us, just doesn’t make sense anymore.
I included a section on women’s married last name choices in my masters thesis (Married Women’s Resistance to and Support of Patriarchal Ideologies in the U.S. through the Rhetorical Construction of Identity). The women I interviewed made appeals to identity or convention (and sometimes both) when justifying their decision about their last name. It’s amazing that the issue still is so emotionally charged and hotly debated.
When I got married, hyphenating was appealing because I have parents who believe they should influence my decisions, no matter how old I am. I felt keeping my last name, would’ve been a signal to them that I’m still theirs to control.
So I hyphenated my last name (Ecklund) with my husband’s (Johnson). I was happy with my choice until I started encountering societal resistance.
My husband, Eric was surprised and frustrated by the fact that I couldn't get people to use my hyphenated name. So he decided to hyphenate his last name too.
When he went to the DMV to change his name, the man behind the counter refused to help him, saying, “Men do NOT change their last names.” So my husband wrote a letter to the secretary of state. He received a phone call right away, and a letter to bring with him the next time he went in. They were very apologetic and said that he should call from the DMV if it happened again.
The next time he went in, a different person was behind the counter and he handled the request without a word.
What’s interesting about his name change is that nobody leaves off part of “Ecklund-Johnson” when a man’s first name is in front of it. People often assume it is Eric’s given name (like an English hyphenated family name) and they respectfully use the whole thing. He gets a lot of compliments from women too!
Now if I just had a nickel for every time someone said, “When you have children, what will they do if they marry someone else with a hyphenated name?”
Posted by Jennifer Ecklund-Johnson @ 06/25/2003 11:28 AM CST
Can you help me? My soon-to-be ex-husband legally changed his last name and took my maiden name because he didn't like his own. Now I'm divorcing this abusive man and I want my name back. Do you know of any legal way that I can demand he give me my name back?
Posted by grace @ 07/11/2003 07:27 PM CST
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