The BBC asks that question in a long article examining the history and current practice surrounding marriage, and women changing their surnames to that of their husband.
In the US, most women adopt their husband’s family name when they get hitched – around 70%, according to one of the largest data analyses in recent years. For British women, the figure is almost 90%, according to a 2016 survey, with around 85% of those aged between 18 and 30 still following the practice. Although these figures are lower than they were a generation ago, it’s clear it remains a strong cultural norm in large parts of the western world, despite today’s more individualistic and gender-aware era. While definitions of feminism vary, 68% of women under 30 describe themselves as feminists in the US and around 60% in the UK.
“It is quite surprising… [so many women adopt the man’s name] since it comes from patriarchal history, from the idea that a woman, on marriage, became one of the man’s possessions,” says Simon Duncan, a professor in family life at the University of Bradford, UK, who has been researching the practice of male name-taking. He describes the tradition as “entrenched” in most English-speaking countries, even though the concept of “owning” wives was scrapped more than a century ago in Britain, and there is currently no legal requirement to take a man’s name.
Much of western Europe also follows the same pattern (notable exceptions include Spain and Iceland, where women tend to keep their birth names when they marry, and Greece, which has made it a legal requirement for wives to retain their names for life since 1983). Even in Norway, which is regularly ranked one of the top countries for gender equality and has a less overtly patriarchal history, the majority of married women still take their husband’s name. There, however, around half of name-takers keep their maiden name as a middle name, which functions as a secondary surname.
“The question remains… is this just a harmless tradition, or is there some sort of meaning leaking from those times to now?” asks Duncan, who recently teamed up with academics at the University of Oslo and the University of the West of England to delve into the reasons for its persistence.
There’s more at the link.
I’ve often asked myself the same question. I agree that a woman changing her name to that of her husband is largely a patriarchal tradition. It probably stems from the Biblical perspective that the husband is the boss:
“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”
That passage doesn’t go down very well with modern, “liberated” women! Many people fail to put it in perspective. It was written in a patriarchal society, where women had few (if any) rights of their own. They were basically possessions, first of their fathers, then of their husbands. It’s not surprising that the patriarchally-minded men who wrote about faith would see life from that perspective. It’s still that way in many traditional tribal societies, particular in Africa.
Nowadays, we understand that men and women are equal as human beings, both in the sight of God and in their personal interactions. They have different roles, sure, but those roles don’t confer superiority or inferiority. They’re just roles. They don’t define the humanity of the person involved.
I see no reason, in modern society, why a woman should have to change her surname to that of her husband. If she wants to, sure, why not? However, if she doesn’t want to, equally, why not? For that matter, what if the husband wants to change his name to that of his wife? I can’t think of any reason why that should be forbidden when it’s so common the other way around. If there’s no name change, there are a few practical issues – for example, what surname would the kids use? – but those can be dealt with.
What do you think, readers? Let us know in Comments.
Peter
I've heard a couple of reasons given.
1st is that traditionally the woman leaves her family and joins the groom's, so she takes his family name to demonstrate the shift in family allegiance.
2nd is that a married couple is/was often considered legally to "1 person," so the formatting of the name as "Mr. and Mrs. Peter Grant" demonstrates the "1 person, 2 names and bodies" idea. With the male being given pride of place since patriarchal society.
And of course since it's been going on so long, it's "just what people do."
I think another issue needs to be included here – lower overall rates of marriage.
In the west, a significant number of couples have children without marrying; those who do marry tend to on the more conservative side, at least in respect to relationship customs.
I wonder what the percentages would look like when you included cohabiting couples or couples who share children. I suspect that if you did include them, the percent who have taken their husband's name would drop precipitously.
In the interest of fairness, the study should have also taken a look at how many husbands take their wife's last name!
It could be because the man is usually the money-earner. Both my wives took my last name (I'm suing to get them back)(that's a joke, son, I say, that there's a JOKE).
The concept of 'professional name' also comes in to play, even outside of Hollywood. My sister-in-law is an academic with a decent publication history so at work she is Dr. MaidenName, but socially she is Mrs. FamilyName.
I did have one co-worker and his new wife *both* change to YetAnotherName since neither especially liked their birth surnames or them hyphenated. We just shrugged our shoulders and moved on when Matt F became Matt M…
My fiancee is a liberated leftist but she wants to take my name and have us be one family. I didn't ask her why, I was just grateful she didn't want a hyphenated double last name.
One alternative would be to use the amalgamation technique outlined by David Weber in The Armageddon Inheritance.
That would freak out both the garde and avant-garde.
People still get married today? According to the media all we have are single mothers with multiple children from multiple men who are no longer involved with the mother or their children.
the media would never lie about anything
'Scientist', and I use that term loosely, digging for something 'relevant'… Who cares? That is between the couple, and none of anyone else's business, unless they want to leverage one or the other to advance some agenda.
Amy Kass offered an explanation in this article published long ago in First Things: https://www.firstthings.com/article/1995/11/whats-your-name
Married almost 50 years here – it was the thing to do back then plus my husband’s name is honorable. I don’t know if I would change my name these days or not.
I didn't change my name because at the time we got married I was still pursuing a professional career and I wanted people to be able to find my publications and, for that matter, find me. The idea of keeping my name professionally while changing it socially didn't occur to me. For that matter, I'm not sure it would have worked back then.
40 years on, and for 37 of them it's no longer an issue, but I've been too lazy to change it.
But that's been 40 years of explaining to people that yes, we are married but we use different last names. If I'd really thought about that issue I would definitely have taken his name.
As the Church is the Bride of Christ and the members take on His name*, so ought the bride in a worldly marriage, in which two " . . .become one flesh", take on the name of her husband. Not so much, at least in these days, to signify a 'change of ownership' as to make a declaration of allegiance to the new thing which has been made.
* Puts a different perspective on 'taking the Lord's name in vain'. It's not just uttering his name inappropriately.
Oh, for pete's sake!
there are far more important things to be thinking about.
Sam – when my brother divorced his ex he told the judge he didn't care what last name his ex used but she was not worthy of our family name. I think, he was pissed.
Since all the hoops a married woman has to go through these days to prove who she is: a birth certificate, marriage licenses, divorce papers, SSN, utility bills, ad infinitum. My suggestion to my daughter is NOT to change her surname from what is on her birth certificate.
I seriously considered when I remarried 32 years ago not taking Hubby's surname but social convention and possible legal hassles had me go ahead.
Women keeping their last names is nothing new. There's the (possibly apocryphal) old tale of Miss Pine marrying Mr Coffin and they changed their names to the Pine-Coffins. 🙂
And here in the UK the Registrars have the last say: you can't have anything rude.
It's to show a family unity. Not the man owns me. For Pete's sake.
I was married 43(eek!) years ago, and changed my name, it was the thing to do at the time. No way I'd change my name again, unless back to original, and wish I hadn't then. Do you know how much of a PITA ID rules can be if your name doesn't match your birth certificate or on finance things like beneficiaries? Heaven help those women who have multiple marriages and don't keep original copies of every marriage/divorce certificate. I know some of those rules are supposed to be for national security, ID theft or finance fraud prevention, etc but I can still gripe when those rules cost me $$ to prove who I am, *especially* when they don't prevent anyone from stealing your ID.
I did know of one husband who changed his name to his wife's. I don't recall the reason though. It may have been because her name was more common? Easier to spell or pronounce? She was already a well established name in her career? He had lots of brothers, she was only child or had only sisters and her family really wanted the name to continue? No matter the reason, it drew quite a few comments both for and against it.
As for kids – give the girls one parent's surname, the boys the other. Hyphenated names are fine, but what happens in the next generations? When little Suzie Smith-Jones marries Bobby Johnsen-Clark, will their kids be Smith-Jones-Johnsen-Clark?
When my wife and I married, she tried the hyphenated thing, but it was a bother–all the paperwork changes. Since she was just beginning a career under her family name, she reverted to it. This all was never an issue to me; I was just happy to have her.
What I have noticed is that hyphenated surnames for women — and sometimes men — have lingered in academia to some extent. It's like a kind of occupational marker.
True story, very abbreviated to extreme since no need to talk about specifics: maiden Loveless, married and took husband's last name, Loving, they divorced and changed back to her maiden name.
If wife keeps last name because of patriarchy. Now the battle is as to their children's last name will be or, in the case of Hispanics, which last name will be first, her or his?
Change for the sake of change is probably not a good thing. We need to understand the why the change is required and what will be the consequences of the change.
Breaking with this tradition will make it harder to maintain that familial historical links, like the ease of travel/movement that eroded the close ties with family and kin erodes.
We are British, married no kids. We decide to hyphenate, so we are now Mr & Mrs myname-hisname. For no other reason than it sounded much better than Mr & Mrs hisname-myname.
Men and women are different. Women get pregnant. A woman might be able to get by on their own, but life is easier if you have a partner. Selecting a worthwhile partner is a high stakes gamble. If it makes him happy to take his name, it's a small price to pay for the security it brings. Having a wife entails protecting her. If she wants protection, she should obey, at least in those matters pertaining to security. Men operate in the physical world, women operate in the biological one. Completely different set of rules and values. If you have a system that works, it's not a good idea to mess with it unless you have good reason.
"I can't think of any reason why that should be forbidden…"
I don't know why you think the husband taking the the surname of the wife is "forbidden". It's nothing of the sort. Whatever the couple decides or agrees on is what they do. There is no law limiting this, and in these modern times, there really is no custom which forbids it either. I have personally known 2 married couples where the husband took his wife's surname. And I've lost count of the number where the wife kept her own surname or used a hyphenated version. I even know one couple where both the husband and wife changed their surname to a hyphenated version.
Whatever, it's nobody else's business but theirs.
I am surprised at your view. Though you are correct about the Biblical definition of the man being the head you seem to overlook that the two become one in marriage for it was not good for man to be alone he needed "help mate'. Marriage is designed to be forever and because of our hardness of heart it is not. Later, since men decided to abuse the head of house position, we are commanded to protect and cherish our help mate. She was never to viewed as property. The woman taking the man's name shows she has left her father's house and is now in her own family and the taking of her husband's name is a proclamation of this new status. There is nothing wrong with patriarchal design if man realizes his responsibility to his wife is above his desires.
Just sayin': he has to put up with her @#$+ he should at least have naming rights 😈
I kept my maiden name for "professional" reasons. Two years later, I decided to take his name by deed change as a way to reassure my husband that I have no intentions of ever leaving him. The court process is a hassle, and I wish I'd just taken his name from the get go.
Honestly? I am a young man who is not yet married, I'd have second thoughts about a woman if she told me that she wouldn't take my name.
If she doesn't want my name because it's a relic of the patriarchy, I don't care to find out what else she considers to be a relic of the patriarchy, like monogamy or disciplining the kids or allowing little girls to wear pink dresses.
If she wants to retain her name because she wants to retain some sort of independence, I have doubts about how committed she is to the marriage. Two become one in flesh and all that.
Smart man. These days, a woman who wants to keep her maiden name is to be avoided.
My 2nd wife didn’t take her first husband’s name, for professional reasons. Then they hyphenated the kids last names (which, honestly, I consider pretentious).
When we married I didn’t give it a second thought, assuming she’d keep her maiden name again, for professional reasons. Plus, I figured it could create ID issues for the kids when she’s Mrs. X and they’re kids Y-Z.
When she asked me about taking my name I told her that. She got p*ssed!
There’s just no figuring them out.
Her sister and her husband did something completely different and combined their last names into something completely different.
Back when my wife and I married, we needed to apply for a US green card for her. Our immigration lawyer strongly advised that she take my family name to make the process go smoother. Since we had one immigration official accuse us of having a sham marriage and drag the process out an additional six months, I’m glad we took our lawyer’s advice – not changing would have given him more ammo.
I’m sitting next to her now. I’ve got to say – at almost 40 years it’s been a very convincing sham.
Just read somewhere today or yesterday someone mention "permanent last names" as a way to keep track of who was who by the powers that be, and a way to tax and control…
wish I could find the reference. It was one of those sentences that opens doors to new thoughts…
n
As CS Lewis pointed out, the simple logic is that if you have an organizational unit of 2, for it to operate someone must have the deciding vote in matters.
Now whether that should be the husband or wife… you can debate – but someone must have it nonetheless. (Though I am sure since the time of Adam, even the husband who had it still did heavy consulting of the wife – even Proverbs warns about sharing a house with a contentious woman.)
In Japan it is not uncommon for husbands to take the wife's name, particularly in cases where the husband has brothers and the wife doesn't so the wife's family name would die out. That's not the only reason it happens, but it seems to be the most common.
Well, speaking about out-dated customs, one could equally throw the whole concept of marriage into the mix. And add alimony for good measure. Then again, how about that archaic custom of "women and children first" and "men go down with the ship?" How about children first, and men and women can toss a coin for it.
Civilizations rise and civilizations fall. But only patriarchies rise to become empires. And empires that abandon patriarchy are already falling.
Patriarchy is an absolute requirement to generate the degree of social cohesion that allows a civilization to reach the top. Female independence creates too much sexual competition (both between men and between women) to stay at the top. Men lose motivation and the women stop nurturing. Historically, every time a civilization rose to become an empire, the rise was characterized by strict sexual morality and the secure rights of men to their families. There are no exceptions to this rule.