what’s in a name (part 1)

This will likely be an ongoing topic here….

My mother recently was divorced from her second husband. What was surprising to us both was that she had to file a second set of papers petitioning the court for the right to use her own name (without her former husband’s name as a hyphenate). Let me say that again: she had to ask the court for the right to use her own name.

And she had to pay additional filing fees to do so.

I do not understand the concept of one partner taking the other partner’s name when they are married. Personally, I have yet to see a man change his name, so for the sake of argument, I’ll assume that it is always the woman making this change. Traditionally, a woman adopts her husband’s last name as her own ? e.g., Jane Doe Smith becomes Jane Smith Jones when she marries John Jones. Except that legally ? if my understanding is correct ? her name is Mrs. John Jones; in other words, she is no longer Jane at all.

Customarily, while a woman’s name is structured to immediately reflect her marital status, there is no way to tell from a man’s name whether he is married or not. John Jones is still John Jones, both before and after he signs his marriage license, and both before and after a subsequent divorce. There is no impact on his professional life.

I remember hearing a lawyer talk about her experience of taking her husband’s name after marriage. At the beginning of a trial, the judge asked her to state her full name for the record. She stated her name as “Abigail Louise Taylor” (or whatever her name was, as I’ve now forgotten it). The judge asked her if she were married. When she responded in the affirmative, he asked her again to state her full legal name. To her chagrin, she had to state her name as “Mrs. John Albert Taylor.” Not only had this experience deflated her personal feelings of self-worth, but this not-so-subtle exercise of being put in her place (by a male judge) also placed her at a disadvantage from the very beginning of her case before the court.

Historically, this imposition of surnames implied ownership. The wife belonged to her husband, and so she carried his name to let others know that she was “taken.” Their children also belonged to him, and so carried his name. His slaves belonged to him, and so were similarly given his surname. In the twenty-first century, is it appropriate to continue this custom?

I had a similar conversation with my grandmother about this, perhaps a decade ago. She married my grandfather in the 1930s and took his name without a thought. In response to my perspective, she told me that she was proud of her husband’s name and was happy to become a Willis. I replied that I was also proud to be a Willis, so why should I be expected to give that up simply because I fell in love?

Though an increasing number of women are choosing to retain their own birth names when they marry, I struggle with the concept of this antiquated practice still being utilized in a supposedly “enlightened” society. There are even same-sex couples who choose one partner’s surname over the other. There is great power in a person’s name, and having one partner adopt the name of the other speaks volumes as to the balance ? legal and otherwise ? between spouses; it also implies the negation of the other partner’s family heritage.

Some will argue that a family unit (parents and children) needs not only the social identification of a common name, but also the “belongingness” that a shared name offers. I do not take issue with that, especially for children who often take comfort in belonging to a structured group. Certainly the adoption of a common hyphenate name for everyone would only work for the first generation, as in a few years you’d have Sarah Smith-Jones marrying Fred Doe-Johnson, and I don’t think anyone would want to be Mr. and Mrs. Smith-Jones-Doe-Johnson.

So why not create an entirely new name at the outset of marriage, something that reflects the new union between the spouses? There are cultures in which it is customary to adopt a new name for each stage of life, and certainly the lifelong partnership of marriage would qualify as a significant life event deserving of a new name. I had a professor once who talked about how he and his wife had both considered adopting the surname “Redweather” upon their marriage, rather than having either spouse take the name of the other.

Alternately, the married partners can keep their own legal names and simply create a new surname for their children.

My sister got married nearly two years ago, and she is still dealing with the tedious aftermath of a name change. One government agency will accept the name change, while another one won’t. She has to get a new driver’s license, apply for a “special declaration” in her passport, have new credit cards issued, change her voter registration, have new bank checks printed with her married name, change her e-mail addresses (and update everyone in her address book), change her name on all utility accounts…. and the list goes on. You’d think that a society which largely still demands the subservience of women would make that kind of compliance less of a hassle.

The good news is that the court graciously granted my mother the use of her own name.