“I asked him, but he said no.”
This phrase is more prevalent than it should be in discourse regarding relationships and marriage. Tim and I were talking about this the other day in regards to my latest post on name changes and how people either do not understand the desire not to change my name (or ignore it completely) or think it’s really, really cool but could not do it themselves.
When asked why they could not keep their own names (it seemed pretty easy to me…), most often they say: “Well, I asked my husband if it would be OK if I kept my name, but he said no.”
I guess this just surprises me, because that’s not how the conversation went with me and Tim at all. It went more like this (keep in mind this was about 5 months after we met):
Me: Just so you know, I’m not changing my name when we get married.
Tim: Um…
Me: Is that a problem?
Tim: Well, I don’t know. That’s kind of a bomb to drop right now.
Me: It’s a deal breaker for me. I’m serious. I won’t change my name.
Tim: Why? Because it’s the “feminist thing to do?”
Me: No. Because my name is my name and it’s been my name for 24 years and I don’t want to change it. I don’t want to loose my identity just because I’m getting married. My mom changed her name when she got married and now she’s changed it back and I guess I’ve just never considered it at all.
Tim: What if this is a deal breaker for me?
Me: Well, then, you’d better figure out if it is or not because I’m not changing my name.
We talked about it a lot after that, especially right after we got engaged. I did toss out the idea of hyphenating my name and he offered to hyphenate his so we’d match, but then we decided against it because I’d end up going by my last name anyway (since it’d be Samsa-Roberts, I’d probably just drop the Roberts) and all that paperwork just to be called what I’ve always been called just seemed silly.
Eventually, and quickly, he warmed to the idea of me keeping my name, and is now quite proud of it. When people ask him if he’s OK with it, he always puffs up his feathers a bit and says “Yea! She is who she is and that’s why I love her.”
So why is it that as soon as a man says “no,” all discussion seems to stop? Tim and I were able to have a conversation about it and come to a mutually beneficial situation (even though I won, he likes to think he had something to do with the decision, and like a good wife, I let him think that. 😉 ). I think there are a few possibilities here:
- Women are trained from a young age to make men happy. When the word “no” is uttered, they see that as a finality.
- Women aren’t really allowed to have “deal breakers” late in a relationship, or at least after it’s been decided (albeit tentatively) that there’s a possibility of a long-term.
- If a woman brought up that she wouldn’t change her name and the man dumped her, it would be seen as her fault – a destructive thing for a woman – not his fault for being inflexible or unwilling to talk.
- Women often don’t bring this up early in the relationship, when a discussion could be productive. Rather, they wait until they are engaged and at that point would rather have the marriage than the name.
Think I’m blaming women here? OK, maybe I am. So let me turn the tables a bit:
- Men often aren’t open to discussion on such matters, and that can shoot down any possibility of discussion.
- Men have probably pictured their lives as Mr. and Mrs. Whatever and as soon as an idea is brought up that it may not be that way, their knee-jerk reaction is that that isn’t how it is supposed to be. And that’s what they’re vocalizing.
- I can’t even think of a time that a man has asked a woman if she’d prefer to keep her name. I might do a little jig if I heard that happen.
- Men have something about carrying on their lineage, and if a woman doesn’t take his name, then his family line stops with him. They are also unable to see that children and family lines don’t really enter in to this discussion, because you can name your children whatever you want. If lineage is that important, you could consider the possibility of them having the man’s last name, but I think they probably don’t see that.
Yes, I’m generalizing here, but it seems to me that the overwhelming majority of women I’ve talked to about this situation wanted to keep their names but didn’t because he said no. And it seems that if more people in relationships were willing to have a discussion about it – if men and women were open to that discussion and pushed the issue into discussion – then more people would make informed decisions that worked for both parties.
Just sayin’.
I brought up that I would never change my name as an afterthought, about a year after we started dating but well before we began seriously discussing marriage. He never offered any resistance whatsoever – it was almost like he assumed.
Part of this is because I’ve always been so emphatic about using both my mother and my father’s names – I think it was on our third date that he asked me about my name, I explained it and my feminism, and from then on it was kind of assumed. I’ve brought it up a couple times since, and he’s always been like, “yup, that is what’s happening.”
I have no idea how his family will react. They’re well aware that my mom kept her name, so I doubt it will be surprise/drama. Pretty much everyone who knows me knows I’m a pretty ardent feminist, so I really hope no one will make a fuss about it.
I wasn’t sure how Tim’s family would react as well, but when he told his parents, they were just like “Oh, ok. We figured.” and that was that.
I actually drafted a comment to your last post on the subject of names about this, so this must be a sign that I need to actually post something about this. I’d always planned on keeping my last name, but the boyf and I talked about the possibility of getting married the other day and he told me he wouldn’t marry me if I didn’t take his last name. I asked him why he felt that way, and he gave me a couple of what I think are fair and valid reasons (though I’m still kinda searching my heart about this):
1) he doesn’t have any traditions but wants his name to be one for us to start/have (he has a different last name than the rest of his family because of his mom’s divorce from his bio-dad when he was very young and subsequent marriage to who is now his stepdad);
2) it would be a sign of commitment from me (and his sign of commitment to me would be getting married, as, if we were to divorce and if it got hairy, he would likely get screwed over in divorce court).
We don’t plan on having kids, so family lineage isn’t a concern really. The reason I’m considering it at all is that my name isn’t my identity — I mean, it’s part of me and I like my name, but I’ll still be who I am even if I take his last name. And I can see how sharing a last name instills a sense of unity and we’re-in-this-together-ness that might be a bit harder to see when we’re not linked that way. And I do want to show my commitment in a meaningful and significant way if we’re going to go through with getting married.
At the same time, I’m annoyed with the thought of having to get all my stuff changed: checks, credit cards, name placard on my office door, email address. But then again, this is all little stuff in comparison to making that commitment.
So, anyway, I’m still thinking about it. The alternative is not to get married but to remain in the domestic partnership we already have — which also isn’t terrible. Marriage isn’t a requirement for me, but it would make some things easier. Clearly, it would make some things more difficult and challenging too. So I’m just scratching the very surface of what marriage means to me, why I might want to be married, and what (if anything) I’m willing to give up for that.
(And for the record, none of what I’m thinking about is meant to be a judgment of your choices or reasoning for keeping your last name. There can, obviously, still be unity in a relationship of different names, just like marriages between people who share a last name can be terrible. If it’s not already clear, I fully support people keeping their names when they marry unless they don’t want to.)
Sorry for the long-winded comment. That was the first I’ve written about this and I’m still working through my thinking.
I guess you know your relationship better than anybody, but if my bf gave me that kind of ultimatum, I’m not sure we’d still be in a relationship.
If your bf likes the idea of you guys sharing a last name as a ‘tradition’, why not ‘create’ a new last name from both of yours? That way it would be a commitment from him other than some sort of ‘guaranteed loss’ in divorce court (most divorces don’t even end up in court btw), and he gets to go through the same hassles you do.
I know my post on this topic is going up Monday so I don’t want to say too much, but my bf have discussed this and come to a compromise that consists of more than “If you don’t agree to X then you can’t have Y/I won’t do Y.” I just feel like you guys need to have more of a discussion because even though you may not be opposed to changing your last name, being shut down like that (which is how it comes off to me as an outsider) would cause me to stand my ground on principle (although maybe that isn’t very adult of me).
Maybe check back Monday and you can see how my bf and I have worked this out. Might give you some ideas anyways.
Yeah, I think it says a lot about how much I care about him and our relationship that I didn’t take it as an ultimatum and more as an opportunity to learn more about myself, him, our relationship, and marriage generally. Marriage has never been a guarantee for us, just an option, and until the last year or so, we weren’t even considering marriage. (We bought a house and my insurance is stupid, which is what prompted the talks about just getting married already since we already practically are.) It does appear in the comment I wrote that the ultimatum is all that happened, but it’s not — this is an ongoing conversation and a comment on a blog post simply isn’t the place for a full-on run-down of the conversation and its complexities.
That said, I’m now thinking about how changing my name would be similar to showing EVERY DAY that I’m married and committed to him, so I’m thinking about how he can and should do something that shows the others in his life that he’s married and committed to me. (We also don’t like or want wedding or engagement rings, so this is an added challenge.)
Everything is simply a matter of context.
Hopefully between Ashley’s post today and mine that goes up Monday on the same topic, you can get some ideas and different perspectives that can assist.
I agree with Ashely about discussing things like this early on. My relationship is brand new and we’ve had these discussion. In part because we are confident our relationship will have long-term success, and in part because I see no point in avoiding tough conversations.
Lacey –
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. I think it’s an important thing to talk about in a relationship, and I really appreciate your willingness to share in the comments. Maybe you could write a guest post on this topic? Just a thought. It seems like you’d add a unique perspective.
“Well, I asked my husband if it would be OK if I kept my name, but he said no.”
ExcUUUUUUUUUUse me?
Wow. Call me naive, but in this day and age, I never would have guessed someone would actually come out and say “no” like that.
It happens more than you’d think. In fact, every woman I’ve talked to that isn’t someone I’ve met on Twitter or through this blog is someone whose story has echoed this one. You’d think in 2010, this would no longer be an issue, but it is.
Fact is, there’s plenty of disapprobation to go around no matter what decision the woman makes about her name.
I’m one of what I suspect is a rather small group of women who has been married twice and gone both routes: the first time I was married, I kept my birthname; the second time, I changed my surname to my husband’s. There were lots of reasons for the second decision, none of which are relevant here, but I can tell you that both times, not just the first, I took an enormous amount of shit for my choice. In fact, if anything, I got criticized more harshly the second time, when I did change my name.
The first time, two of my coworkers, both young men (one in his late 20s, one in his early 30s), asked me, in separate conversations, whether I was changing my name. When I said no, each one announced that I was lucky I wasn’t engaged to him, since he would be calling the wedding off if I refused to change my name. (Well, anyway, did I agree that I was lucky not to be engaged to them.) At least a couple of people told me that I should really reconsider, because a women who didn’t change her name “wasn’t really married” and that we “wouldn’t really be a family.” My mother also criticized me, and when all except one of our wedding gifts that were checks came made out to “John and Laura Smith,” as every single person assumed that I had changed my last name, she laughed and said, “See? I told you you’d never get away with that.” The best part was when we were going on our honeymoon and the customs officer asked our relationship and we said, “We just got married.” The officer looked at my passport, looked at me, and said, “You didn’t take his name?” I figure that decking him would land me in the federal pen, so I just smiled through gritted teeth and said no.
Second marriage, I decided to change my name. Despite the fact that I’ve an avowed feminist, a success in a traditionally male field, not to mention the breadwinner in the household — I handle all the finances and out-earn my husband by a multiple of four or five — I was informed outright by many women acquaintances that I had betrayed the cause of feminism and that they were “disappointed” in me. I can’t count how many times people, both men and women, and sometimes people I barely know, have looked at me in apparent shock and said things like, “You changed your name? Wow, why?”
Moral of the story, at least the one I’ve gleaned: as always, women get slagged no matter what decision they make — it’s just another version of the old Madonna/whore complex. That’s pretty disheartening, and in the end, if women want to get anywhere, we’d better start focusing on that damaging dichotomy, rather than on deconstructing the effect of name changes on Feminist Thought 101.
I was with you until your last statement, “if women want to get anywhere, we’d better start focusing on that damaging dichotomy, rather than on deconstructing the effect of name changes on Feminist Thought 101.”
It is only through deconstructing the problem and how other women deal with it and feel about it that we can present a united front against the ‘damaging dichotomy’.
From reading the flak you took, I think my response to inquiries will be “Does it matter?” Because it doesn’t. Not to mention that it isn’t anybody’s damn business! I’ve discussed the kid thing too with my bf and we’re going to wait 3-5 years after getting married. From what I’ve heard, Day 2 we’re gonna get questions about that. Answer: None of your damn business.
Good call on not slugging the customs officer; not sure I’d have had the self-control.
Please can I watch while you do your jig, because it was I who suggested to my wife she kept her name.
I’ve hated the idea of the name change for decades, ever since I read a little booklet about he subject. Of course, intellectually, I agree that one should have the choice to change, if you want to. However, the more I think about it, the less logical it seems to be.
Lacey:
he reason I’m considering it at all is that my name isn’t my identity
Sorry, but I think you’ve misunderstood the definition of the word ‘identity’. Try thinking about a dictionary definition of ‘name’ – that by which you are identified.
Try searching for your old school friends. How would you do it? By using a detailed description of what they look like? No, you’d look up a name in a telephone directory or type in a name into a search engine.
Your name does not define your personality. Nor does it suggest anything about character. However, it is – by definition – your identity.
Cycleboy-
I think you’ll find that we’re all (or a vast majority) feminists here, and the discussion of the name change is an important discussion that we have on this blog quite a bit. You’ll also find that I do not tolerate sarcastic put-downs to other commenters. Lacey’s opinion about her name change and her identity are hers, not yours, and should she choose to change her name because it does not make up as much of her identity as, say, mine does for me, that is her choice.
I also will not tolerate spammy comments on my site, and yours on this post are borderline. Please, in the future, concentrate on adding to the discussion rather than pushing an agenda or talking down to other commenters.
I love this comment I read a while back
I once actually read someone state, in all seriousness, that a man shows his commitment by ‘giving’ the woman his name. Wow, such generosity.
Doesn’t anyone think it rather odd that it’s always down to the woman to show signs of commitment, never the man?
Ashley:
Apologies if they came across that way, they are not intended to be put-downs. In my defence, I often see people equating the word ‘identity’ with ‘definition’; it seems to me that many people seem to forget that a name is a way of identifying someone, but it is not a way of ‘defining’ a person.
Although I frequently challenge reasons some people give for changing names, there are some very sound reasons why someone might change their surname; abusive family, unpleasant sounding name etc. However, all these reasons apply equally to men as they do women, yet it only ever seems to be thought about by women. By making the comment about the word ‘identity’ I hope to get people to think about the real reasons they have to change surnames, not as any sort of put-down.
Lacey has obviously thought about this and made up her mind, so I’d be very surprised if anything I said changed anything. However, it might help others who might be struggling with the issue.