So since it's been a slow gossip news week I thought I'd abandon my usual Friday post of a gossip recap for a little opinion piece. Yesterday one of the blogs I follow, Barbie Runs, posted her 3 things Thursday and one of the things was about a Facebook friend of hers who took his wife's last name. I read it and thought "interesting" but didn't really give it a second thought until I saw this post on Yahoo. The gist is she's getting married and considering hyphenating her name because she plans to work on her PhD. It's very hard to have multiple names, i.e. maiden and married, once you begin having published works so I thought her thoughts behind hyphenating made sense. Apparently she and I are the only ones that think that! Her husband said that hyphenating means she isn't ready to be a wife and apparently all her Facebook friends agreed. To this I say, WHAT!?!?
OK, here's the thing. I'm all for the 50s way of life. I would love to be the housewife and have the man support me. I really would. I'm a big fan of the 50s/60s way of life. I sometimes think I was born in the wrong era, except you know; I'm black so I'm glad I got to miss all the discrimination. Anyway, the point is I can get on board with the whole you take my last name thing if that's really how you feel BUT not taking it or hyphenating it doesn't make you a bad wife. I mean come on! Does that make any sense? One day I'd like to get my PhD and if I start that process with my original last name I don't really like the idea of ditching that for a man's! Furthermore, like the article says, women are getting married a lot later now. If you establish yourself with one last name why should you have to throw that away? Getting married is awesome but it's not the end all be all to life. You haven't "made it" once you land a husband. If that is how you think what shall you do if the marriage ends?
A reminder that even "perfect" marriages/couples break up.
I honestly would prefer to not have to change my name at all and the older I get the more I lean towards that being the case. I just don't see the point. I mean we live in an age where more and more people are having long term committed relationships without even getting married so why should it be such a big deal for a woman to hyphenate her name or simply not take her husband's name? After reading the Yahoo article I briefly mentioned the subject to my coworker and she told me a cute little story about a friend of hers who took his wife's last name. Apparently the guy didn't really have a family of his own and thought of his wife's family as his own so he took her name. Another coworker told me about a former boss who has a PhD and her own private school and it was too complicated for her to change her name so her husband just changed his. So I guess there are times when it does make a lot of since for the man to do this.
I suppose, my main thing is, I just don't think one should expect anyone to simply give up a very big part of their identity without so much as questioning it. If you want to take your husband's name, great! If your husband wants to take your name then even better!! If you both want to have your name changed to reflect a hyphenated version of both names, well I think that's just the beez neez. And if your future wife decides she'd like to tack your name on at the end of her own name and join them together with a lovely hyphen, that's OK too.
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