The Surname

I find it mildly amusing how often times the thing that finally gets me out of bed in the morning is the fact that after having pressed the snooze button once or twice, my brain very quickly goes through a process similar to a computer's boot-up and I suddenly find myself thinking way too much to be tired. Such was the case today. After getting a wonderful night of sleep (thanks to the fact that I finally got off my butt and went and bought some more of that melatonin supplement that I've been taking), I lay in bed trying to work off the last dredges of grogginess and, as usual, my mind started off on some random tangent.

The subject of the tangent was in regards to the surname. As a little background, a few months back, I had a discussion with a friend that found itself into the purpose and reasoning behind taking on the husband's name after marriage. Now from my perspective this was never really that strange of a concept. On the one hand, it was just what everybody did as far as I was concerned. On the other hand, my being male means that I'll never have to worry about the implications of having my identity 'changed' upon my marriage to my spouse. This friend, however, was not of the same mind as me. She had been through one unsuccessful marriage already and had developed a propensity towards adopting strange counter culture type philosophies and behaviors. For the sake of preserving this friend's anonymity, I'll refrain from going into any more detail about the circumstances that brought her to think differently about the whole last name business. All that is needed to be known is that she no longer felt it necessary or desirable to have her or her present and future children to have to change their identities for the sake of a husband/step father.

I was totally baffled as I listened to her explain her various reasonings. This was stuff that I'd never really put any deep consideration into before. My immediate reaction was my usual polite attentiveness over personal disagreement. This kind of a scenario was not uncommon in our discussions and I had learned quite well how to listen to her talk about something that I may have personally found completely absurd. (For example, she also is in particular disagreement with how society [apparently] imposes bras as a necessary garment for girls and women. Again not being female myself, I can't really vote yea or nay, but logic seems to dictate that women and girls still retain the freedom of choice as to whether or not they buy into the bra-wearing business. I have yet to see any bra police being deployed...) Ultimately, my conclusion to the conversation was along the lines of, "I really don't think it's an issue. I suspect people conform to it because that's just the way we do things. They don't have to if they don't want to."

But back to the present.

The predicament had bubbled back up to the surface of my waking mind this morning and as I still lay in bed, I began to consider what my actual stance on the matter would be. I began with the apparent purpose of the surname in general. It is also known as the 'family name.' In societies that follow this convention, the family name helps to identify and unify a particular group of people that are related to each other by blood or marriage. Everybody within this group generally has the same last name. The first and middle name(s), depending on how many names your parents feel necessary to give you, provide the unique part of your identity.

Alright, so why is it that when a man and woman are married, the woman is the one to drop her last name in favor of her husbands? Many would argue that that particular practice is just further evidence that our society is male-centric and oppresses woman and blah blah blah blah. Perhaps it was at one point, but I don't buy that crap. The changing of the last name signifies the joining of another family. But why only the women? I dunno. That's just the convention that we as a society have been following. It doesn't MEAN anything. You still don't *have* to change your name, so stop whining about it. Besides, you don't lose your identity by taking on another name, you expand it. If you're a Jefferson and you marry into the Rogers family, you're still a Jefferson. You're just also a Rogers. Get it?

Another thing that amuses me (and by amuses I mean makes my mind hurt): Some people would prefer that their children not necessarily have to take on the new last name if they get remarried. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but in the case of someone who has multiple kids from different fathers... What a way to make keeping your family identity in track, right?

But moving right along. The conclusion to my thought process involved how this conundrum could be solved. Well, you could not adopt the new name and just have to deal with the inherent confusion that would come from that. You could be ridiculous and hyphenate your maiden and married names and deal with the appearance that you think way too much of yourself. I suppose that you could get your husband to adopt YOUR last name... But that doesn't really change anything. What if when you got married, both husband and wife adopted a new last name? Aside from making genealogy very difficult, that could satisfy the ninnies that insist on making this a problem.

As for the rest of us, I dare say we'll just shrug and get on with our lives. As it happens, there are far more important things to be worrying about.