Updating
MARRIED
ANNOUNCEMENT:
I would like my husband to take my last name when I get married.
LAST NAME Y
RULES By SARAH WOODSTOCK
Some men say they don’t welcome the idea of changing their last name. They say that it’s part of the compromise that couples make in marriage: men agree to be monogamous in exchange for their wives taking their last names. What an old-fashioned, out-dated idea! In this modern day and age, what name rights do women expect to get for being monogamous? 64
www.urbanette.com
ou see, I am not a movie star or a CEO. I do not have a famous name to give me the “right” to keep it after getting married. I’m simply a woman with a nice-sounding and easy to spell last name. People may ask “Why would you keep your surname after getting married? Don’t you love your husband enough?” Of course I would love him enough. I wouldn’t choose to spend the rest of my life with him if I didn’t. But sharing a life with him doesn’t make me a lesser person. I had an identity even before meeting my husband. I have a family who shaped me as a person. I’ve had a life of my own long before I have agreed to get married and establish a new family with him. This practice of women always taking the man’s last name is simply sexist. It comes from the idea that the man owns the woman and that he’s the only one with a long-term career. If we are said to have equal rights with men, why can’t married couples compromise on what last name should they take in marriage: the husbands’ or the wives’? Why do some see it as “reasonable” to take the last name of the husband, while it is often barely debatable to take