Posted on 08/10/2004 6:00:00 AM PDT by presidio9
SOMETIME while Hillary Clinton was switching her name from Hillary Rodham to Hillary Clinton and back again and back back again, an important threshold was crossed — people stopped caring. When Hillary initially kept her surname after marrying Bill, it was a blow against the patriarchy and for women’s liberation, but today such surname-keeping has lost its cachet.
In the 1990s the number of women keeping their maiden name upon marriage began to dip, according to a fascinating study published in The Journal of Economic Perspectives. This snapback to taking a husband’s surname is mostly an elite phenomenon, since among most people it never went out of style. Roughly 90 percent of women take their husband’s surname. It is among college-educated women that surname-keeping flowed and is now ebbing.
Surname-keeping took hold in the 1970s. Legal restrictions that forced women to take their husbands’ surnames began to be overturned or ignored. Women began to marry later and get more professional degrees, both of which made them more attached to their surnames. Ms. became popularized as a way to avoid the repression of Mrs. Keeping a surname was considered a way for a woman to keep her identity.
The number of women in The New York Times’ wedding announcements keeping their surnames was 2 percent in 1975 and had reached 20 percent by the mid-1980s, according to the Journal study. Then the trend stalled. Among women in the Harvard class of 1980, 44 percent retained their surname, but in the class of 1990, only 32 percent did. According to Massachusetts records, the percentage of surname-keepers among college graduates in that state was 23 percent in 1990, 20 percent in 1995 and 17 percent in 2000.
Why? The study’s authors write: “Perhaps some women who ‘kept’ their surnames in the 1980s, during the rapid increase in ‘keeping,’ did so because of peer pressure, and their counterparts today are freer to make their own choices. Perhaps surname-keeping seems less salient as a way of publicly supporting equality for women than it did in the late 1970s and 1980s. Perhaps a general drift to more conservative social values has made surname-keeping less attractive.”
Indeed, the decline in sur- name-keeping might mean that marriage is being taken slightly more seriously. “I think it will strengthen marriage,” says University of Virginia professor Steven Rhoads, author of “Taking Sex Differences Seriously.” “It’s a sign that someone intends it to be a unit, that this is a marriage, and it is for the duration.”
It certainly shows that, for whatever reason, younger women are moving beyond old feminist obsessions. Writing in the online magazine Slate, Katie Roiphe argues that “the maiden name is no longer a fraught political issue. These days, no one is shocked when an independent-minded woman takes her husband’s name, any more than one is shocked when she announces that she is staying at home with her kids.”
In the waning of a certain kind of self-conscious feminism, women are freer to make their own choices — including traditional ones.
Finally, there is simply the hassle factor. It can be difficult for a mother who doesn’t share her child’s last name to pick him up from school or travel with him. Hyphenation has its own perils. Writer Frederica Mathewes-Green reports receiving mail for people named Mathwas-Green, Mathers-Crein, Vatherwes-Green and Mebhews-Creen, among others. Her hyphenation won’t be carried on by any of her children, and she doesn’t regret it.
In an essay on the decline of feminism in the City Journal, Kay Hymowitz notes that feminist pioneer Patricia Ireland recently wrote that a woman taking her husband’s name “signifies the loss of her very existence as a person under the law.” Women who want to get on with their lives and with their marriages greet that kind of old-school feminist call-to-arms with a decidedly 21st century “ho-hum.”
What do the gays do?
MRS and MRS?
MR and MR?
LOL. 'UnChristian'? Where is this issue addressed in the Bible?
Yes, it is untraditional and I don't care one bit. And I am certainly not left-wing. And I'm not Christian.
What about the respect that a huisband owes his wife if she wishes to keep her last name? Does that not count?
It was one of several signs I should not have ignored.
One more thing. If a name is so suprficial then why would you disrespect your husband by not taking his name. Instead you keep your own supeficial name because it defines you, and you want it to define you. You know your last name defines you thats why you keep your Dads and not your husbands. If you kept your husbands you would be plain old " first name-husbands name" instead of "first name- my interesting Polish, keeping me special last name".
Respect is not a one-way street.
I agree with your post. I will make an exception though, my cousin has a high profile job on a network, and her maiden name sounded better together than her married name. In her case it was done for professional reasons, not to spite her husband.
I wouldn't marry if she wouldn't take my name; who needs that kind of headache?
I am sure your husband shows obeisience to you in all he does. It is the custom in American culture for the wife to take the husbands name making them one family. You not taking his name shows your disrespect for him because you are the one putting your husband in a tough spot socially not the other way around. Just admit your selfish and you wanted your way.
Fine, I'm selfish, normy. I'll admit it. And I'm not ashamed of that. Being inherently selfish is what makes humans humans. If you weren't selfish, you probably wouldn't be still alive. Selfish is a good thing.
Once again, it is not the name that makes a group of people one family. That's kind of naive, isn't it? And, what kind of tough sopt socially is my husband in? Because me not taking his name shows other men that he has no control over his wife? Well, he doesn't. And I don't have control over him.
Haha... A woman I went to high school with, pretentious, liberal, loyal NEA member - you get the idea - finally found the man of her dreams. He's liberal and an 'educator' himself.
He hyphenated his name to add hers...
Easy there. Far from lunatic, he happened to be one of the most talented musicians ever. That being said he did give his kids wacky names.
I did the very same thing. Legally I had taken my first husband's name upon marriage, but professionally I continued to use my maiden name -- we were both in broadcasting in the same market. When we divorced I legally changed my name back to my maiden name.
Because I was no longer in broadcasting when I remarried there was reason to maintain using my maiden name.
I found your post interesting since I also had a long (11 letters) Polish surname. My sisters and I have gotten quite a few laughs out of people's struggles to pronounce and spell our name.
Taking my husband's last name did not take anything away from who I am. It added a new dimension to my life...a new chapter. I love it! What really bugs me is having to figure out how to address envelopes to couples with different last names. Mr. Jones and Mrs. Smith-Jones or to the family of Mr. and Mrs. Jones/Smith-Jones...whatever!
I've heard of couples creating totally new names from a combination of their surnames.
I know. I have to spell my name at every turn. And it's constantly mispronounced too. The DJ even mispronounced it at my parent's wedding, making for quite a few snickers from the audience. But regardless, I love it.
Mr. "his last name" and Ms. "her last name"
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