Posted on 04/19/2006 11:07:59 AM PDT by Millee
Feminists worked their butts off to declare their independence from their husbands. Today however, research reveals more of us are content with taking on our partner's last names. So what are the rules for the modern girl?
Here's a quick question for the girls: would you keep your own last name if you got married? Or are you happy to become a Mrs. so and so? How important is your independence to you?
It certainly doesn't seem too high on the list of priorities for ex-Dawson's Creek star Katie Holmes. After taking on fiance Tom Cruise's religion and having his baby, she has now declared she'll be changing her name to Katie Cruise. (Perhaps she hopes to differentiate herself from Cruise's past wives who kept their own last names.)
So I ask you fellow femmes, what are the modern rules for us to follow on this one?
It seems that despite all the rapacious red-lipped modern women who shun men and claim they aren't really necessary, many of us are still keen to leave behind our identity in favor of taking on our man's name.
Startling as it may seem, this has been proved by new research that has stunned the media world. Harvard economics professor, Claudia Goldin, found that 44 per cent of women in the Harvard class of 1980 who married within 10 years of graduation kept their birth names, while in the class of '90 it was down to 32 per cent.
In 1990, 23 percent of college-educated women kept their own names after marriage, while a decade later the number had fallen to 17 per cent.
Time magazine reported similar statistics, citing an informal poll taken by The Knot, a popular wedding portal. The poll found that 81 per cent of respondents took their spouse's last name, an increase from 71 per cent in 2000. The number of women with hyphenated surnames fell from 21 per cent to 8 per cent.
So why is this so? Aren't we supposed to be rampant with less-conservative attitudes to marriage, sex and men? Why have we not demanded to keep our identities instead of being happy to adhere to a life as an "anonymous biological robots in a docile mass," as described by Betty Friedan in The Feminine Mystique?
"It's a return to romance, a desire to make marriage work," remarks Goldin. Yet have we shunned all that feminists once worked so hard to achieve? (In 1986 The Times finally agreed to switch from Mrs. to Ms. in its news pages, after much hectoring by feminists like Gloria Steinem.)
But do modern women really care anymore? Miss Holmes certainly doesn't.
Not planning on getting married anytime soon, however, if it happens I will be keeping my own name. Furthermore my children will also have my name.
If my partner feels that it is important for kids to have the same name as thier father, he is free to change his.
* Posted by: kate at April 19, 2006 10:41 P.M.
ping!
what's in a name?
David Bowie
You change your name, that's how it has worked for forever. I HATE that hyphenated crap people do to.
Basic rule of thumb: Run - do not walk - from any gal with a hyphenated last name.
You, young lady, have it totally together.
I'll change my name (should I ever get married!)
I have known a few couples where the guy took the girls last name - mainly because the guy's name was horrible or he was foreign and wanted a more "American" last name.
LOL Millee...
I don't think Kate has to woryy about having a name problem with children with the latent hostility she displays here.
Yes, I realize that there are always gay donors... A self-correcting irritation.
I'm going to be Mrs. Petronski. I had to send an invitation where the lady wanted it address to Mrs. her name-maiden name and I didn't. I put her husband's name *lol*
- = independence ??
Why, thank you!
It's not too late for counseling! :)
worse yet are the guys with hyphenated names
retaining a woman's maiden name is so 70's
People should do what they feel comfortable with. But, since the custom is the woman to take the husband's last name, anybody who hyphenates their name or keeps her maiden name is making a social / political statement.
LOL - you're right. She should go ahead & start looking into her own nursing home!
I knew a couple that did that...but the guy wasn't foreign, he was just a weenie...
Good for you!
My hubby has a friend who is married to a tree hugger. She has the hyphen thing, which annoys the crap out of me. I never know how to address the correspondence to them. Do I put (fake names) Tom and Jane Smith-Johnson, Tom Smith and Jane Smith-Johnson (too much writing), Mr. and Mrs. Smith-Johnson (his name isn't Johnson). It's all too confusing. I always put Tom and Jane Smith and I don't care if it p!sses her off! That's what she gets for making it hard on the rest of us!
I'd never marry a weenie.
Unless it's, like, Robert Baden-Powell.
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