by Tammyjo Eckhart

Created on: June 15, 2008

I have never, ever understood why a woman takes the husband's last name - and I'm a historian! To me, it is illogical but the option isn't just should she keep her own surname but what can't he take hers? Let's see... what are the arguments for a woman taking a man's name? They all seem to revolve around two issues.

The first is tradition, the idea that that's how things have always been done. First, that is a very modern European, western European in fact, model. Traditionally husbands and wives kept their original surnames to help keep track family connections. Then as wealth built up in humanity, the surname became a sign of social power so the "family" name could easily be the wives if her family had more wealth or social/political power.

How then did we get to the period where we think it is traditional for the wife to take the husband's name? It was likely a slow process re-enforced by the expansion of universal male suffrage at the expense of upper class women's authority and power. It was probably so slow that no one was consciously aware of the fact it was happening. In fact, in the USA there are no state or federal laws that dictate that either spouse must change their surname upon marriage. There are, however, laws about offspring's surname and that leads up to the second big reason people say the wife should take the husband's family name.

The children need a clear single family identity, that argument claims so obviously the wife must change her name. Why is that obvious? Who is carrying and then having said baby after all? I think that's the woman not the man. In fact how can you be sure he is the father unless you do genetic testing? You can't but you can be pretty sure it is her baby.

Given that biological fact, why then shouldn't the husband take the wife's name? Can anyone give me a good, solid, not tied up in preserving patriarchy argument? I have yet to see such an argument be made probably it is ultimately about denying one sex's rights to increase the power and authority of the other sex thus opening up the correct charge of either misandry or misogyny.

Of course if there won't be children what does it matter then if there is one or two or variations of the husband's or wife's original family name? I think it only matters to people who are so afraid of anyone doing something different from them that they feel the need to dictate such personal matters to others. How about we left each couple, each family, decide what what works best for them and get out of their private matters?

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