Emily Heist Moss wonders if it still makes sense for a woman to take the last name of her husband.
Emily and Eric Chase-Sosnoff just got married. While her newly hyphenated name doesn’t attract much attention, his draws more than a few raised eyebrows. “We know that we want to have children, and it seems unfair to me that most women who keep their last names end up giving their children their husbands’ names only. I want our whole family to have one last name, but it’s not fair to just choose one.” For the Chase-Sosnoffs, it was a question of equality, “I don’t really see the point in hyphenating if the woman is the only person to do it. It’s still unequal, and you don’t have a single family name.”
I’m impressed. With all my internal wrestling about this very hypothetical, currently non-existent problem, the Chase-Sosnoff solution is one I hadn’t imagined. Despite having met progressive men devoted to equality, it never occurred to me that I might meet a man who would be willing to buck tradition in favor of fairness. Requesting that he change the name he’s lived with his entire life, the name his parents gave him, the name he’s attached to professional and personal accomplishments, seemed a gigantic and unreasonable thing to ask. And yet, this gigantic thing is something convention dictates women do without batting an eyelash.
♦◊♦
For a lot of couples, sharing a name is an important symbol of familial unity. The paper trail it creates both mimics emotional ties and serves the pragmatic purpose of clarifying relationships to the world at large. As a product of parents with different names, I absolutely see the practical value. What I can’t wrap my head around, however, is the default position that the female partner should be one the to cede her name. Jacqueline described the predicament like this, “As long as it is still common for women to automatically give up their names for their husbands, I will never feel comfortable doing so.” The action isn’t the problem—after all, people change their names for a huge array of reasons—but the gendered assumption is.
Ben, a married 30-year-old, was “thrilled” his wife kept her name, “I would feel like she was giving up her identity to take on mine, which has a lot of echoes of coverture I’m not comfortable with.” Harry, 44 and married, views it a little differently. He was “flattered and floored” when his wife adopted his surname. “It seemed like a huge sign of trust… The willingness of this strong and independent woman to take my name as hers was a public and unmistakable sign of her belief in me and in us.” He’s right; altering something so fundamental for a partner is an incredible leap of faith on anyone’s part. What I don’t understand is why this particular sign of trust shouldn’t be reciprocal.
Let me make clear that I have zero qualms about individual couples’ decisions on who takes whose name and what they call their kids. That’s your own business. On a macro scale, however, I have deep reservations about the pervasive and often unchallenged adoption of such an antiquated and sexist tradition. Historically, the practice is rooted in the legal doctrine of coverture, when a woman’s identity was incorporated into her husband’s. Even though most couples now approach marriage as a partnership between equals, this pesky naming tradition remains.
Not everyone is willing to forsake the convenience of a married name to bolster the cause of gender equality, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t frustrated when my peers, who advocate progressive values in all other realms, seem to nonchalantly accept this custom. My frustration is echoed by 30-year-old Virginia who writes, “There is a teensy part of me that always thinks, ‘Why did you forget what we fought for?’” Bryn, 20, is especially “judge-y” when female friends who she respects and admires change their names, “What is the point? Is it to further solidify your union with your partner? Because if so, ew. There are so many icky implications of ownership and dominance that accompany that choice.”
The convenience of a shared name is not lost on me, or unappreciated. But what are the alternatives to the one-sided standard we have now? There’s the Icelandic tradition of boys taking their father’s first name plus “son” (i.e. Johannsson) and the girl’s get the mother’s first name plus “daughter” (i.e. Karinsdottir). There’s the melding option, as displayed by Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, whose name is derived from his (Villar) and his wife’s (Raigosa) and is shared by their children.
There’s accepting and celebrating the notion that names don’t necessarily have much to do with family unity after all. Ben pointed out that, in this day and age, “There are so many families out there with kids from previous relationships or from unmarried parents that anyone who can’t handle having to deal with kids and parents with different last names needs to suck it up and join the 21st century.” Twenty-three-year-old Christopher finds the family unity argument old-fashioned and insulting, “How could you pay attention to the wide variety of families and still feel like the only way to make your family cohesive is to take your husband’s name? It feels like a very close-minded, privileged understanding of families.” Bryn builds on her earlier criticism, “The decision to relinquish one’s own name and substitute someone else’s regardless of gender is, like so many traditions associated with marriage, bizarrely transactional.”
And then there’s hyphenation, like the Chase-Sosnoffs. But what happens when Jenny Chase-Sosnoff marries Bobby Smith-Jones or Johnny Chase-Sosnoff marries Beverly Johnson-Brown? No parent is cruel enough to saddle a child with Chase-Sosnoff-Smith-Jones or Chase-Sosnoff-Johnson-Brown. Emily has an answer for that. Imagine a world where everyone is hyphenated and the women bring the maternal name to the table and the men bring the paternal. Jenny and Bobby become the Chase-Joneses; Johnny and Beverly become the Johnson-Sosnoffs. Of course there’s a downside, as Emily explains, “Critics complain that this model is bad because female children erase the male family name and male children erase the female family name. But in the status quo, the female lineage is always extinguished. At least with this model the maternal and paternal lines are extinguished with equal frequency (and, of course, maintained with equal frequency.)” Maybe in a few years we’ll embed ancestry chips in our forearms to store generations of names and the whole question will be moot. Who knows!
♦◊♦
I’m not advocating a particular solution for any couple or family, because, as most of my survey respondents affirmed, it is a very personal decision. Some women wrote about feeling disconnected from an absent father and resenting his name. Others wrote about wanting to honor a particular heritage by adopting an old family name instead of a husband’s. I’m learning that the reasons to change or not change your name, for men and women, run deep and are never simple.
Whatever personal, historical, religious, cultural, practical and emotional considerations go into this choice, all I’m asking is that “tradition” not be the primary rationale, and that gender not be the definitive criteria for decision-making. If sharing a name with your spouse is important to you, for whichever reason, it’s only fair that you be willing to give as much as you get.
—
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project, please join like-minded individuals in The Good Men Project Premium Community.
◊♦◊
◊♦◊
Get the best stories from The Good Men Project delivered straight to your inbox, here.
◊♦◊
◊♦◊
Sign up for our Writing Prompts email to receive writing inspiration in your inbox twice per week.
♦◊♦
We have pioneered the largest worldwide conversation about what it means to be a good man in the 21st century. Your support of our work is inspiring and invaluable.
The Good Men Project is an Amazon.com affiliate. If you shop via THIS LINK, we will get a small commission and you will be supporting our Mission while still getting the quality products you would have purchased, anyway! Thank you for your continued support!
This story has been republished to Medium.
—Photo jack dorsey/Flickr (Creative Commons 2.0)
Jess, your comment is patently racist.
Hyphenated last names seem so bourgeois. I’ve never met a woman with a double last name who wasn’t extremely snobby and rude. Iceland’s naming system is cool, but I think it works better with a sparsely populated country (like Iceland). The Latino tradition of combined surnames could be a real problem when it comes to combining last names from different cultures (ex. Guang and Tina Greenxi? Malcolm and Rosalita O’Connordiaz? No. Just no.) I think whoever’s last name sounds better with both first names should be the one to go with. I prefer my fiance’s English surname to my German… Read more »
Give me the Icelandic naming system anyday, I’m not keen on double barrel surnames but I hate the tradition of name changing. The guys I grew up with didn’t even realise it was a legal option. I was astounded. My married friends all changed their names and I dislike it because it represents ownership for me. The assumption that she should do so is so patronising. I used to hate my surname but now I won’t change it if I get married because although its a common name, it’s part of me and why should I change that? I think… Read more »
Emily; fantastic article! I really enjoyed it (and shared it on facebook with just about everyone I could). I’m glad someone was able to mirror my own sentiments so well.
What my partner and I have decided to do is we both keep our own names as neither of us feel that we want to lose any of our own identities. As for naming our children…any females will take my last name and any males will take his. We get to choose the first name of the opposite sex, though. I think it’s a good compromise, personally.
I was surprised that the idea of a man and wife both changing their last names was such a novelty. It seems to me that some American men started doing that 30+ years ago.
I changed my name to my husbands and I’ve always been glad I did. I like his name and it’s easier to have the same last name.
In the end, I think it’s a highly personal decision and not worth judging other people over. People should be able to have the name they want without someone saying “ick.”
Great article. I come from a family with an incredibly strong, independent mother who kept her maiden name when she married, and passed it to me and my brother as our middle names. I get questions all the time about where my middle name came from, but it opens a door to a conversation with I enjoy having with as many people as possible. One thing you didn’t touch on though, instead of a chip implanted in our arms that read our lineage, why not do what many tribal cultures do and adopt the practice of tattooing our lineage on… Read more »
Great post. Completely tied to the viewpoint that male offspring are somehow superior, since they can pass along the family name.
Great article Emily! I thought it was direct, well thought, and made me think about something I so innocently assumed to be harmless before. I totally think the merging name idea is great, but I just don’t know how my grandparents would take it. Not sure how I would feel if my last name were rosambria or coimilia (rosamilia and coiumbra) though.
Loved the article. I think it would also be interesting for you to investigate how these practices vary from country to country. Here in Brasil, the child is given the mother’s name, followed by the father’s name. Therefore, my name is Juliana Britto (my mom’s) Schwartz (my dad’s). No hyphens. In the U.S., everyone interprets Britto as my middle name, but I think when I marry, I will probably drop Schwartz, keep Britto and then either take my partner’s name, or work out some sort of combination. I love the idea of making a new name altogether, yet there really… Read more »
My husband and I changed our last name to his mother’s maiden name (he is estranged from his father) and we changed our middle names to my maiden name. Our son’s middle name is also my maiden name.
The best part of this: “Despite having met progressive men devoted to equality, it never occurred to me that I might meet a man who would be willing to buck tradition in favor of fairness. Requesting that he change the name he’s lived with his entire life, the name his parents gave him, the name he’s attached to professional and personal accomplishments, seemed a gigantic and unreasonable thing to ask. And yet, this gigantic thing is something convention dictates women do without batting an eyelash…” There’s the rub eh…? For me I would *never* change my name–ever. I have a… Read more »
Im actually surprised it’s such a surprise a man would chance his name. Why not? How many men (or women) really have some big achievement attached to their name by the time they marry? I can understand if you have a highly unusual last name, but most of us have pretty common names.
No – if men are reluctant to change their name, it’s rarely for those reasons. It’s either simply being attached to your name and family history (fair enough) or the awkwardness of going against the norm. My guess it it’s mostly the latter.
Taking a spouse’s name (whether hyphenated or not) and wedding rings (especially the engagement ring) are all symbols of ownership. Some people like that feeling; others rejects it. But, if that is the objection, the rings should go along with the name.
Seems to me the height of egalitarian marriage is for the spouses to decide together collectively, or at least let each spouse decide for himself/herself whether to change names.
Or, do what Eleanor Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt did — marry someone with the same last name. No muss, no fuss. : – )
I kept my last name; the hubs kept his. Makes sense since I’m a first-generation immigrant, and the paperwork to get the name changed on the naturalization certificate with DOHA is simply INSANE. Our little daughter got a hyphenated last name, so she knows she’s mommy’s and daddy’s fabulous spawn.
I married a Spaniard and went with the Spanish tradition of keeping my name. When we had kids we followed the Spanish tradition again. My kids have their father’s paternal last name and my last name. If they continue the tradition with their children, then their kids will have their father’s paternal last name and my children’s father’s paternal last name. The maternal last names do eventually get wiped out but at least there’s some record of us.
I’m divorced now but have no plans to ever marry again much less take someone else’s name.
And then there are men I know who have taken their wife’s name; if two people desire one name to represent unity, cool; but then it would be nice to have that be a choice all couples could make between their names; not to always assume you take the man’s. But good topic, Tom.
My husband and I struggled with the last name change. I didn’t want to change to Thayer, for a number of reasons. I had been married previously and changing my name back to Lovell was such a pain. Heck, I still get mail with “Meredith Daniels” printed on it. Also, we are the last of our line, my sisters and I. My husband considered changing his name to Lovell but his family had a fit. My in laws and I already have issues and this was going to make things worse. So when we got married they announced us as… Read more »
There is another option that is not mentioned here, probably because it’s so rare and carries the same issues as the status quo…the man taking the woman’s name. I have a friend who did that. His wife’s family name was very important to her, and he did not have the same level of attachment to his, and wanted to make a positive gesture towards his wife and all women. At first I thought it was really weird, but I quickly came to admire the decision. It was too bad that this man’s mother was so distraught at his “abandonment” of… Read more »
Thanks for your thoughts, Lori! Men taking women’s names did come up, but it was exactly as you said. Eventually it becomes the same kind of inequality that we have now. No good for anyone!
I disagree. If people pick the man’s or the woman’s last name according to what they like best, then eventually it should balance out – i.e., picking either 50/50. It’s the having a system or a rule for what to pick that destroys the balance. i have male friends who have picked their wife’s name, couples who have invented a new name, those who have combinations, hyphens, and the man’s name. Eventually, I would hope it didn’t matter – thought we’re still a long way from that. The first step is to get away from “the automatic choice” and instead… Read more »
I secretly like the melding option, too! Although… if you had done that with my parents’ names (Heist and Moss), you get “Moist” or “Hess,” neither of which is as fun as Wardegus.
Bwahahaha! We’re the Moist family, it’s a family name. That’d be hilarious!
My dad is Adams and my mom is Conover, so lots of friends call us the AdCons… but my parents think it’s much more hilarious to refer to our family as the ConDams.
I love this topic. My screen name, email address and twitter handle are my last name and my husband’s last name. Legally, I never changed my name. I get mail addressed to me with my married name, with my legal name and my husband gets mail sent to him with my last name as well. I think I may have purposefully made knowing my actual name as complicated as possible. When I got married at 24, I had no desire to deal with the hoops I would have had to jump through to change my name and I definitely didn’t… Read more »
“But what happens when Jenny Chase-Sosnoff marries Bobby Smith-Jones or Johnny Chase-Sosnoff marries Beverly Johnson-Brown? No parent is cruel enough to saddle a child with Chase-Sosnoff-Smith-Jones or Chase-Sosnoff-Johnson-Brown.” It’s not cruel as Latinos already do a version of this. My boyfriend’s last name was a combination of his mother and father’s name and he states them all when stating his name. It meant he had a first, middle and three last names. That said, I really enjoyed this article (and have had the convo many times over the years with friends). One of friends hyphenated his last name too, and… Read more »
Great point! We only thing it’s cumbersome because we’re not used to it, but some cultures have been doing that forever!
Well – the Spanish / Spanish America tradition is that a child will have two last names – one from the father, then one from the mother. However, since the parents will also have two last names, the tradition is to pick the first one to pass one. In other words, while the child will have a name from father and mother, two generations down the mothers names is gone.
Being a writer I decided long ago that I would be willing to take on my husbands name legally, but I would not change my name professionally. The name-changing thing can be a huge headache, but as sappy as it sounds, I’d like to see our mail come with the same last name on it.