A reader writes:
My sister is getting married this summer. She is thinking about keeping our last name instead of taking her husbands name or hyphenation of the two names. I am not sure how I feel about this except that if it is ok with her future husband and her it’s probably ok.
My wife and I talked about it before marrying – my wife changed her maiden name into a second middle name (my family has a two middle name tradition). I might be old fashioned; I would have had a problem with my wife completely rejecting my name and hanging on to hers.
Where does the name change tradition come from? Is there a reason besides tradition to take the grooms last name?
Different cultures handle this issue differently. Not all cultures even have last names, much less do they all have women taking them at marriage.
As a result, there is no in principle reason why your sister could not keep her last name.
That being said, there is a reason why the custom exists in our culture. The basic reason is that our culture (a) does have family names and (b) it is a patrilineal culture.
What the second thing means is that we trace our ancestry, at least dominantly, by the male line (hence: patri- lineal = "by the father’s line"). Not all cultures do this. Some are matrilineal, meaning that they trace descent primarily by the female line (hence: matri- lineal = "by the mother’s line").
The cultures from which ours descended, including not only the major western cultures but also biblical Judaism, were patrilineal. That’s why, even though they didn’t have last names in biblical times, you have Peter being named Simon bar-Jonah (bar- is Aramaic for "son of").
In patrilineal cultures when a marriage occurs the wife becomes part of her husband’s family, and if you have family names in such a culture, it becomes natural for the wife to take her husband’s family name.
There may be a sense in such cultures that both the husband and wife are really part of each other’s families now, but since descent is reckoned by the male line, there is a greater sense that the wife is part of the husband’s family rather than visa versa.
These are the reasons that the custom exists anthropologically, but the origins of the custom tended to be obscured in the minds of many.
When radical feminism came along, it wanted to radically tinker with the sexual status quo, to smash traditional gender roles, and even to call into question the institution of the nuclear family. (I’m talking about radical feminism, mind you, not moderate feminism that merely wanted better treatment for women.)
Doing away with the historical naming conventions would serve those goals (as well as making it harder to keep track of who is related to whom, thus undermining the family), and so not taking the husband’s name became a symbol of defiance against traditional values.
That reason is enough for a traditional minded person to be suspicious of the practice.
It’s not that there’s anything wrong with a woman keeping her own name in principle. It’s done that way in many cultures. But to reject the practice of taking the husband’s name in our culture signifies a rejection of how our culture handles marriage, and that is rightly regarded by many as a danger signal.
Personally, my instincts on such matters are traditional, and I think that we are biblically required to maintain certain elements of the husband-wife relationship as it has been historically understood in Christian culture.
As St. Paul says in Ephesians 5:
21: Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.
22: Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord.
23: For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church, his body, and is himself its Savior.
24: As the Church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands.
25: Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her,
26: that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
27: that he might present the Church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
28: Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
29: For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church,
30: because we are members of his body.
31: "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."
32: This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church;
33: however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
This passage reflects a unity-in-diversity between husbands and wives. Their roles in marriage are not simply interchangeable, but neither may one side take advantage of the other. Both must be treated with equal dignity, even if their roles and obligations are not identical (note: a husband is required to sacrifice himself for his wife in a way that is not true in reverse).
My late wife–Renee–was also traditional in this matter. She wanted to
be called Mrs. Akin. In fact, she loved being called Mrs. James Akin (James being my legal name at the time),
and I felt proud to have her want to share not just one but both of my
names.
I understand the suspicion that many men would have upon learning that a prospective marriage partner wanted to keep her own last name. The question that would immediately come to mind is: "If she rejects this aspect of marriage as it is traditionally handled in our culture, what else about traditional marriage does she reject?"
Should I marry again (as I hope to), I would definitely start asking myself that question if a prospective marriage partner told me that she wanted to keep her own name.
Hope this helps!
