Three Reasons to Pause Before Taking Your Husband's Name

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Thursday, June 26, 2003 | TERRI CULLEN

[presidio9]

Like the first time you hear your new husband call you "my wife," or the first time someone refers to you as "Mrs.," signing your newly acquired married name is something some women look forward to their entire lives.

But there can be drawbacks to adopting your husband's last name, particularly if your hubby-to-be comes to the marriage laden with some unfortunate financial or legal baggage. As women enter marriages later in their lives, often with more established careers and greater assets, they are facing far more complicated financial choices than their moms and grandmoms. The decision to take your husband's name -- once a given -- is one of them.

[Dan from Michigan]

Gov. Jennifer Grandholm of Michigan... she asked her husband to take her last name and he did.

Dan Mulhern took "Granholm" for his middle name. Jennifer Granholm took "Mulhern" for her middle name.

[angcat]

I also think that is odd, I would never keep the name of a man I divorced. I sometimes wish I kept my maiden name because my dad is gone now and I have no brothers to carry the name. So my baby that is due in November will have my maiden name and my husbands last name. I know the in-out laws will love that!

[rabidralph]

"I agree with you, idiots" I am glad you put that comma in there :)

I believe the correct punctuation to avoid the insult should be, "I agree with you--idiots." The way it's written above, he is calling you idiots. It's as if he wrote, "I agree with you, John." But we know he meant no insult.

[Xenalyte]

Where's the Zeta come from, anyway? Is that her maiden name, and was she married to a Jones before? I never did figure that out.

[Xenalyte]

What irritates me the most about Demi is that she was DEmi early on, in General Hospital and Blame It on Rio, and all of a sudden she turned into deMI. Poseur.

[rintense]

That's right. He was at our golf outing last week and tried to explain it. I got very confused (and bored).

[Tamar1973]

And I am not talking about a Las Vegas wedding either, but a religious church wedding. You will find that in almost all religions, it states that a man and women will unite and become one.

Be careful about interjecting your judeo-christian understanding of marriage and family into everything. In Korea, for example, women NEVER change their maiden names. Mr. Kim is married to Mrs. Moon, the children are called Kim, though. Even when women are married they are considered part of their original family. They don't have a concept of "the two become one flesh" in that sense. married women are to some degree outsiders in their husband's family. Blood is thicker than a marriage certificate.

It can be quite confusing at first but I got used to it after a while.

[Xenalyte]

Did you yawn at him? If you make eye contact with someone while you're yawning, you can often get him to yawn too.

Works on cats as well.

(It's about 102 down here, and we gotta amuse ourselves any way we can.)

[mewzilla]

Who values the institution of marriage more: a divorcee who dutifully takes (every) husband's name, or the woman who keeps her maiden name and vows? It's important only to the couples involved, I'd say. If they're alright with it, who are we to argue, or say that the wife's commitment to her wedding vows is any less?

[Dead Dog]

I know one person that changed her name to her step-father's in highschool. It just about tore her biological father apart, it also alienated her from that entire side of the family for years.

[rintense]

Hehehe. No, I didn't yawn. He went on about the changing roles of women- how they've become more masculine, yada yada yada... many of the women bought it. Not me. It's all so subjective.

[Xenalyte]

I know one person that changed her name to her step-father's in highschool. It just about tore her biological father apart, it also alienated her from that entire side of the family for years.

That definitely wasn't an issue for me; my father has a sparse family, most of whom I never even met until his mother's funeral, and he's not the type to care enough about his children's lives to worry about whose name we take.

That's why I refer to him as my father, but to my stepfather as my Dad. My stepfather is one helluva guy. We're good buddies now, not just dad and wicked eldest daughter.

Bacon can back me up on this; he's known Xena's Dad for almost as long as he's known me, and he can attest to his stand-up-guyness.

[Xenalyte]

I think you and I are excellent examples of women who are tough and take no crap without being unfeminine! What a maroon this guy must be.

[Dead Dog]

I've met far too many Hyphen-zeolots that the association makes me cringe.

[mewzilla]

Well, as long as both spouses honor their vows and love each other, I don't care who's named what :) I'm just happy they're happy.

[Freebird Forever]

Where's the Zeta come from, anyway?

Got this from an online bio:

Named after her grandmothers: Catherine Fair on her mother's side, and Zeta Jones on her fathers.

[Dead Dog]

Her stepdad, and both of his brothers married women from failed marriages and took over being "Dad". Her grandfather was a mean SOB, but he must have instilled values in his boys.

[Tamar1973]

I know one person that changed her name to her step-father's in highschool. It just about tore her biological father apart, it also alienated her from that entire side of the family for years.

Well, maybe if the biodad had made more of an effort to be part of his child's life, she wouldn't have felt the need to change her name.

[rintense]

Well, that's pretty much what he said. That women don't need to lose their feminine side. He did say something that was good- quoted from that 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus' book: 'To not be needed is a slow death for a man.'

It was funny though. When he spoke of role reversals in the home with the woman as the main provider, some women in the audience said it happened to them, and that they couldn't stand it that their hubbies bombarded them with their daily activities when they walked through the door. These women said they just wanted to be left alone. What these women failed to realize, is that their husbands were proving that quote right- they just wanted their wives to know that what they did during the day was important, and that they as husbands were still needed.

It was amazing, really.

[tiamat]

LOL!

LOVE " Janet Bosnia-Herzogovenia"!

Seriously, i never met a kid who had one of those "blended" names who wasn't either a spoiled yuppie brat or a complete head-case.

But most of those around here have parents from Ann arbor anyway.

Tia