Hillary Weiss
His first angry response, looking into my eyes with confusion, was, “Well, I thought we agreed on changing it. You promised this to me.”
This was my fiancé’s first retort when I told him that I wanted to hyphenate our last names together. Without his knowing, though, this all started a long time ago, when I had my first class freshmen year with Ian Bell. He was the first man I met at Siena Heights who wanted equality for everyone, and it showed in his actions. He created excuses, as some would call them, for Eve. He proved it was okay to be a woman, we’re not all evil, and (even better!) he believed what he was teaching.
This was the point where I identified myself as a feminist (before, I didn’t know what to call myself), men and women being equal, or, as Julieanna Frost’s black-and-pink shirt snidely says, “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.” Yet some think that feminism is a “bad word.”
I’m not much of a bra-burner—for being a petite person, I actually need one desperately—and, believe it or not, I don’t hate men (my fiancé and Ian Bell are okay in my book). I’m honestly more understandings of men because I realize that both genders have faults, and many women are sexist toward men. So, I’m obviously not a crazy man-hater.
Thinking about high school, I realize how far the gap is between self-proclaimed feminists and uneducated teenagers. It’s frightening. Many of the graduates from high school think that women should stay at home, take care of the children and husband, and have dinner on the table when “the man” gets home. And they still use the annoying phrase, “Make me a sandwich, woman!” This is why I didn’t go Jackson Community College, where they all congregate.
Also, claiming to be a feminist isn’t in my family’s traditional values. My paternal grandmother was expected to wait on my grandpa hand and foot. My father gets extremely jealous when my mother talks to a man, even if he’s just handing her a detergent that is too high on the shelf.
So what does my fiancé think of his flourishing feminist fiancée? He’s a very open-minded individual, and he supports me and the equality of all people. If he wasn’t this way, we wouldn’t be together. But when the topic came up about two months after we were engaged about last names, he was thrown for a loop by my response.
Yes, you are still you even if you change your name. But why don’t men change to the woman’s last name? This rarely happens, or it isn’t talked about, at least.
Long ago, women had many expectations. They were to be under their father’s roof until they were married. When they married, the husband was responsible for them. They adopted the husband’s last name because they now owned them[H1] ; the husband and wife were considered “one,” and the “one” was the husband, well into the 1800s. The wife had no rights to own property or enter into legal contracts, unlike her husband.
Today, thankfully, most marriages are based on compatibility and love instead of property and power. Women are seen as equal partners in marriage. Men aren’t responsible to “provide” for their wives. Both can work and contribute to the marriage. Yet women are still changing to the husband’s last name. As Jill Filipovic’s article, “Why Should Married Women Change Their Names? Let Men Change Theirs” says, “When women see our names as temporary or not really ours, and when we understand that part of being a woman is subsuming your own identity into our husband’s, that impacts our perception of ourselves and our role in the world.”
Unlike Filipovic, I am by no means suggesting that men should change their last names to their spouse, even though it may be comical to see how men react to what women have been subjected to for centuries. But I am in favor of hyphenating a name.
Here are some of the responses that I have heard in opposition of my opinion:
I don’t think you respect your fiancé for taking this stance. Whoa. Listen. I love and respect him very much, and I also respect myself. For me, hyphenating my names when I get married means that we are both equal in this relationship; our last names can stand side-by-side, proudly supporting each other.
Well, he needs to stand up to his woman and tell her who is boss. See? This is why I’m not getting married to the person who is thinking this. Communication is arguably the most important thing in a relationship. If a partner doesn’t share what he or she is thinking, this causes mistrust and distance between the two. A partner who does not feel safe discussing an opinion because the other is constantly telling him or her “who is boss” makes for an unfulfilling relationship.
Other arguments for hyphenating last names include business reasons. In the piece “To Have, Hold and Hyphenate: Your Married Name,” Echo Surina states, “Giving up a name might mean losing recognition with clients, readers or patients that they’ve worked hard to establish.” It’s a difficult change. One of my math teachers in high school married, and my brother had her as a teacher. When he referred to her with her married name, I looked at him blankly. “Who’s that?”
I can’t blame my fiancé for his first reaction because it’s, after all, tradition. This has been going on for centuries, and few women have tried to change it. Once I explained this, he understood, reluctantly. “I just don’t like the two last names,” he mumbled. “What are our children going to do if they get married?”
This is another common question. Some people end up using one last name for their child because it’s easier. If the husband has a hyphened last name and the wife doesn’t, the child adopts the mother’s last name. But other married couples actually combine their last names. Not only are they compromising, a sign a healthy marriage, but they have something that’s their own. Each is contributing.
As the topic persists and my fiancé and I finally set a date for our wedding, people are sure to try and talk me out of hyphenating my name or combining our last names. But I’m armed with information and rationale that has a strong foundation, and I know that my fiancé will be at my side, defending our decision.
Tricia • Apr 13, 2013 at 10:01 am
My uncle changed his last name to his wife’s last name because they didn’t have any boys in her family and this way her family name would be able to live on. It caused a lot of fights in our family. I see it as a good gesture though why should it marry who changes their name? The whole point is that the two people are together there is no need to force other rules upon them.