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I do, to you and your name
Pop star Ashlee Simpson, who married Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz earlier this month, is making what many in the entertainment world consider a surprise move: She’s taking her new husband’s last name.
“I think that that’s something that a woman should do when they’re marrying a man,” the pop star lil’ sis of Jessica Simpson told [People] magazine. “It’s a tradition that I think is a great tradition.”
While traditionally the wife assumes her husband’s name after marriage, these days women often choose to keep their maiden name or hyphenate the two–as Simpson plans to do in professional circles. (She’ll go by Ashlee Wentz privately.) What are your thoughts on the long-standing tradition: Is it old-fashioned, or do you agree with Simpson that it’s just something the wife should do?
back to top39 Comments to “I do, to you and your name”
If she’s only taking her husband’s last name publicly but not privately, is she really taking his last name?
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My wife and I had several friends who said we should hyphenate our last names…
Not only was that impractical since hers was 8 and mine is 9 letters long, but I was (at least privately) strongly against it. I insisted on rings, a traditional ceremony, and that she took my last name. Dunno why exactly, but I did. For some reason it was important to me.
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I had my middle name changed to my maiden. However, I looked at it later and realized that it doesn’t go well with my new married name, so now i just go by my middle initial.
At my old job they used to give newly married women, transitional business cards with the hyphened name on them. This gave their business contacts a chance to get used to the new name before they switched to married name only cards if they wanted to.
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Outkast, not sure you read that post right. She is hyphenating publicly and dropping her maiden name and using his privately.
When we marry, we marry into families. I think it is important to my brood that we all have the same last name. It does put the woman at a slight disadvantage in business and at reunions. I like the transitional business card idea.
When I married I went from a multisyllabic Scottish name with a silent letter and a s pronounced like a z, to a two syllable name that is spelled exactly as it sounds. I thought this would be so nice, but people who try hard still mispronounce it.
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But KBells, women aren’t supposed to have careers, certainly not the kind of careers where they need business cards. That’s part of the same tradition.
I think it should be a matter of the couple’s preference. The tradition of the woman taking the man’s name, deny though I know many of you will, comes from the patriarchial mindset under which the woman is essentially property … first of her father and then of her husband.
Granted, I realize there are a lot of people who see nothing wrong with that.
If the woman wants to take her husband’s name, I have no problem with it. If she chooses not to or to hyphenate, I have no problem with that either. If she doesn’t want to and he insists she must, then there might be a problem.
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SteveG,
While what you say about the tradition is true, I think there are probably onle three people in the country left who might make that choise based on the patriarchial mindset.
I too think it is a matter of the couple’s preference.
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I heard of a couple once in which the husband took the wife’s middle name. Apparently his family was well-known as a disreputable one, and he wanted to leave that association behind him at marriage.
I don’t have a problem with it.
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Not middle name. Last name.
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My first name doesn’t go terribly well with my husband’s last name (both two syllables and they sound very similar unless enunciated VERY clearly), so at his suggestion I hyphenated, and I use my hyphenated name in legal and formal situations.
Informally, though, I mostly just use my husband’s last name. Our boys are not hyphenated; they have my husband’s last name.
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My wife had no middle name. So, she took her maiden name for a middle name. Before marriage, she only had to spell her first name for everyone. Now she has to spell both.
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The patriarchal mindset was not that the woman was property, but that it was the man’s job to provide and protect for the women in his family.
I had no problem taking my husband’s last name. We believe we became one when we married. I did not feel diminished in the least.
I can understand where someone who has already been in the public eye may want to keep that name. There have always been stage names, so I don’t see a problem with that either.
I think hyphenated names become overwhelming when the next generation gets married.
Many people never become one today. They are more partners than married. Everything is separate and they mostly live separate lives. The degree of time spent together and the combining of property etc. does vary, but if couples spend all their time trying to be apart, why bother marrying in the first place?
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Christians falsely try to construe taking the husband’s name as one aspect of becoming one flesh. But it’s purely a cultural phenomenon. In many countries (Spain, for instance), there is no tradition of the woman taking the man’s name.
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In Quebec, a wife cannot take her husband’s name. If I remember correctly, this law was passed to save money by reducing the huge amount of government paperwork required to change them back when so many folks were getting divorced. I believe that you can legally change your name to his, but via the same procedure (and with associated costs) as anyone who just wants to change their name.
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I laughed about being a hyphenated name when I got married. I was Kimberley Black I married George Cotten…gives you a vision of black fuzzy stuff growing in a field…After our divorce I briefly thought of going back to Black but by that time all my legal papers etc said Cotten. It is my daughters last name and now I have been a Cotten almost as long as I was a Black. I am not looking to change it any time soon.
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Taking the husband’s name is cultural. Nevertheless, it was done with the assumption the man was to provide and protect his wife. To only talk about partriarchy in the negative is not very honest.
In many cultures there were no last names or they changed with occupation or location. Such is the case with many Finnish people, whose last name corresponded to where they lived. It makes it difficult to research family lines. Adding to that, many changed their names when they came into this country.
I know one man who took his wife’s last name. He also has a stage name.
My aunt changed her name after a divorce. She kept a variation of her first name and just picked a last name she liked.
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The tradition of the woman taking the man’s name, deny though I know many of you will, comes from the patriarchial mindset under which the woman is essentially property … first of her father and then of her husband.
Well gosh darn, then, I guess it’s time for my daughters to drop their father’s name and come up with something they choose to express their own unique identities.
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It was good for me to take my husband’s last name, it helped correct superior attitude problems in my mind.
When we were living in Italy, the police came to visit as they could not fathom my documentation. They did not understand the concept of changing one’s name upon marriage and my name on the lease and doorbell did not match my birth certificate. I thought I would be carted away as an illegal, but I explained in my very limited Italian that it was the American way and I was an American. He shrugged and went on down the stairs.
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I was happy to take my husband’s name, because I was looking forward to thinking of myself as part of his family instead of the one I’d grown up in. I don’t know how I’d have felt if I had felt more positively about the family I came from.
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Pauline, I can oh so relate. My mother had done some notorious things around town in her alcoholism. Very few people who know me today even know what my mother’s first name was. I remember once seeing an attorney at a local deli and introducing myself to him. I reminded him how I knew him from when I was a teenager and admitted who my mother was. I still remember the stunned look on his face. He stumbled for a moment and said you’re nothing like her. He couldn’t have imagined what a compliment that was. Even now twenty some odd years after she was gone I still am not comfortable when I am told I look just like her. The one way my father can get under my skin and really un-nerve me to to tell me I am acting just like my mother. It really is sad to so strongly react to half of yourself.
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As an author, I understand authors who use their maiden names in the middle, in a transitional way (Joni Eareckson Tada); without doing that, you’ll lose your readership. If I were to get married, I’d do that if my publisher wanted me to and my husband was OK with it. But as a legal matter, I’d change to his name. (And I wouldn’t replace my middle name with my maiden name, since my middle name is my mom’s name.)
Hyphenated names have always seemed unnecessarily bulky and not ideal. I’m glad that trend seems to have weakened. I do rather like the Mexican system, though, and other systems where both family names are included in a person’s full name. (My sister once said that was feminism for them to do that, until I reminded her how very patriarchal Mexican culture is.)
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In some parts of south India, the wife and children take the husband’s first name for their last name. So, if Mary Jones marries John Smith, she becomes Mary John and the kids will be Bobby and Susie John while the husband will remain John Smith.
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I know a woman named Lee. She married a man whose last name is Lew (I don’t know his first name.) So her name is Lee Lew.
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This is so silly. A woman HAS to take the husband’s last name, otherwise, you wind up sending Christmas cards (and bills!) to Mr. George Jones and Mrs. Tammy Wynette-Jones. It’s too long.
And what name do the kids use? Jones? Wynette-Jones? Do they have a choice? What if the woman gets divorced? Does she become Ms. Tammy Wynette again with litte Jimmy George Wynette-Jones? Or is it Jones-Wynette?
What about future genealogists? They’ll be so confused! C’mon, have a heart. It’s a big price to pay for all those huge female egos!
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Good point RRBar. I made a comment, but deleted and didn’t post about that this morning.
My wife used to work in data processing in a high school. Some teachers continued to use married names, but maiden names professionally, or hyphenated names. And they were upset if someone misused it. My wife had to point out that the computer doesn’t care what name they use, but they have to be consistent. Liz Taylor, or Zha Zha, for instance, need to retain their names forever. My wife, OTOH, made a permanent change.
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A woman has to take her husband’s name because of the biblical concept of coverture. The wife and the husband belong one to another and the husband is the head of the wife. I don’t know why feministers think they’re making a statement by keeping their fathers’ names when it’s still a patriarchal name.
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Bianca,
Good point about it being their fathers’ names. I actually think a good thing would be for women to retain their maiden name, and for sons to take their father’s last name, and daughters to take their mother’s last name. That would preserve matrilineal and patrilineal lines of descent on an even basis.
Something like that is done, I think, in Finnland or Iceland – can’t recall which. My son’s last name would be “Tomsson” and my daughters would be “Tomsdottir”. But it could just as well be “Janesdottir”
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Thomas,
The suffix “nen” denotes “son of” in Finnish. I should know–my maiden name was unpronounceably Finnish!
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Ki at #11: The patriarchal mindset was not that the woman was property, but that it was the man’s job to provide and protect for the women in his family.
… because they are property.
Ki, the idea that women should choose whom they marry is a relatively recent idea. It wasn’t so many generations back that fathers arranged marriages for their daughters, often for political or economic reasons. The woman then took the husband’s name, signifying moving from one household to the other.
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SteveG,
If this concept is such a recent idea, why does Paul talk to young lovers about getting married or NOT getting married?
These cautions that he gives are ONLY relevant if, in that culture, the lovers themselves are the ones deciding when and who to marry.
That culture seems a pretty far cry from “relatively recent.”
Also, the idea of males being protectors and providers in no way indicates that women are the property of their husbands. Men have roles to fill in the family, such as provider and protector. Women have equally important, yet DIFFERENT roles in the family, such as nurturer and supporter.
Although it seems totally impossible to modern indoctrinated liberals, women and men are designed differently, mentally, emotionally, and physically.
Paul’s letters to the men and women of the church at the end of (I believe) first Corinthians is indicative of this kind of relationship.
He calls the wife to be submissive and supportive. He calls the husband to love his wife as he loves himself and put her hearts’ desires above his own.
There’s more to it (a whole chapter), but when put together, it works out pretty evenly, and my close FEMALE peers agree that it is the most fulfilling relationship model they have heard.
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The main reason why I am against hyphenating last names:
I know people whose mothers decided to keep or hyphenate their last name, and so they end up with a hyphenated last name. Now suppose two people with hyphenated last names choose to get married. What do they do for their children’s last names? Do the children end up with doubly hyphenated last names, so we end up with someone with a last name of Smith-Jones-Johnson-Anderson? Personally I think its just too confusing.
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Tombob,
Right on with your last post! I believe the passage is 1 Cor. 11. You can also check out Eph. 5 and Col. 3 for similar passages.
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29 – Amen. It’s heaven on earth.
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Able and Baker become Able-Baker.
Casey and Decker become Casey-Decker.
Their kids join to become Able-Baker-Casey-Decker.
Their kids end up being Able-Baker-Casey-Decker-Evans-Fisher-Galloway-Higgins.
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TomBob:
“I wish you all could be single like I am, but since most of you aren’t capable of that, it’s better to marry than to burn with lust.” That’s Paul’s so-uplifting advice to “young lovers.”
Although it seems totally impossible to modern indoctrinated liberals, women and men are designed differently, mentally, emotionally, and physically.
Why do you assume that’s so “impossible” for us “modern indoctrinated liberals” to believe? Of COURSE men and women are different. It’s obvious. But that doesn’t mean women are by nature subservient.
I do agree that Paul’s model of marital devotion is a good one, in that it reminds men that their role is a self-sacrificial one and both that marriage is a two-way street.
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KRM: Obviously hyphenation can’t go on forever. But as long as there is flexibility in married names, Joe Able-Baker and Sue Casey-Decker can become Joe and Sue Able-Decker, or Joe and Sue Baker-Casey or Joe and Sue Johnson.
The same flexibility that makes hyphenation possible in the first place also prevents it from becoming too extreme.
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Genesis 5
1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;
2 male and female created he them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.
I recall having a conversation with my mom about this issue of taking a man’s name and this is the verse she quoted. Seemed to fit the bill.
God called THEM Adam. They were joined by his name. Not Adam-Eve.
She also mentioned the idea that even if you keep your maiden name, it belonged to a man, not your husband, but your father, which someone has mentioned. I would rather identify myself with my husband than my father as a married woman- the idea is to leave your home and cleave to another.
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36 – That’s right. When a wife refuses to take her husband’s name she is ultimately rebelling against the created order, the scriptures and the Creator Himself. God named Adam and Adam named his wife. Mankind did not name himself.
Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is He that hath made us and not we ourselves; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Psalm 100:3, AV
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I did a Bible Study on the whole concept of covenant, which marriage is. Part of the covenant relationship is the exchange of identities. When the wife takes her husband’s name, she is symbolically taking on his identity – she is identified with him. Personally, I like it.
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“If Shirley Jones married Tom Ewell, then Johnny Rotten, then Nathan Hale, she’d be Shirley Ewell-Rotten-Hale.”
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