The man can actually take the woman’s last name, starting out hyphenated and then moving to her last name.
the woman’s last name? This patriarchal world has conditioned us to abandon our last names when we leave our fathers’ home to be with our husbands. Amidst all the many problems that women have had to deal with in married life since time immemorial, we have chosen not to question that “normality”. But as we embrace modernity, and lots of us have become successful in our professional careers, we find it necessary to keep our last names in order to be recognized by the professional contacts we have made and the good reputations we have worked hard to establish. An author named Katrina Majkut has written in her article “Goodbye Hymen, Hello Hyphen” that the hyphenation of a married woman’s last name has replaced the previously heated debate on keeping a woman’s hymen intact before marriage. She has observed, “The hyphen has become the issue of the hour because it exemplifies the gradual eradication of all things sexist and obsolete in marriage. It
stands precariously in the middle of old conservative ways, new liberal practices and polarized feminist debate.” The 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. Some say that even the contemporary style of hyphenation of married couple’s last names is sexist because the husband’s last name always comes last, implying that the man still has the final say in the relationship. So how about updating things a little bit? The man can actually take the woman’s last name, starting out hyphenated and then moving to her last name. Whoever has the better-sounding last name or whoever uses their name more for business (like an entrepreneur
for example), should be the one that’s used. It’s really pretty simple and there is no law that prohibits married couples from doing that. As for hyphenation? More than a call for gender equality or for occupational reason, I do see hyphenation as a way for women to remain committed to our heritage and origin, while still opting to take the last names of husbands. Joining both surnames through a hyphen is a unification of two lineages. Isn’t that what real compromise means? I would love to keep my last name when I get married because I treasure my heritage. When it comes down to it, I’d also be open to taking my husband’s last name because I want to be identified with him. That is, assuming it’s easy to spell. However, if my would-be husband chooses to deny me the ‘privilege’ of name hyphenation, then I would choose to deny him the ‘privilege’ of my company. www.urbanette.com
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