Should We Throw The Marriage Name Taking Custom To The Wind?

by timmack | March 23, 2007 at 05:47 pm

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I don't really know. That's why I'm asking the question. I never gave the marriage surname question much thought. And I'm only thinking about it now because I noticed this USA Today article about some guys that are taking their wife's names.

If women can be Doctors and even Presidents of some countries, then perhaps they should have complete equality with men as far as who takes who's name is concerned. But, I say perhaps, because I'm not sure if it's really worth the expense of the legal hassle.

Recently, I was married twice to the same woman, and author of "How To Please Your Man," once in May, in a civil ceremony, and once on Halloween day, in church, so my wife could go to communion. She took my name in marriage, but she wasn't sure if she should change her author name.

I simply told her that I had no problem at all if she decided to keep writing stories under her maiden name, and that I would always respect her wishes. Anyway, where is it written that a woman has to take her husband's name?

So far, it is legal to get married and take your wife's name in seven states. And legislation is now ongoing in California to make taking your wife's name legal. And if the legislation goes through in the very popular state of California, then I would imagine that taking your wife's name may become the norm.

But for now, the legal ramifications of taking your wife's name can be quite expensive. And it may not be worth all the bother unless it's really very important to the both of you.

I think it's an interesting question - I thought about it a lot when I got married but ended up on side with Quebec. In Quebec, if you want to change your name to your husband's name when you get married, you have to go through a legal name change process. In other words, the default position is that the name stays the same. The option is there to change it if you want, but you can also change your name to Lenora Badminton if you want to. This is what I think is the best in terms of policy. Imagining this policy in widespread use, it wouldn't be a legal issue about whether you could change your last name as a man to your wife's last name - you could do this or anything else, but would have to go through the legal process that everyone does if changing their name upon marriage.

There is always the notion as well of common usage, as in - you can become known informally and in the context of children's activities (or any specific activity) as Mrs or Ms 'your husband's name' but when you do this you haven't made a legal change and none of your identification is affected. Pen names or professional names are the same thing. That's my view anyway...

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