Hello! My Name is … Does Getting Married Mean Losing Your Identity?
By: Cynthia Cavendish-Carey
Up until the Women’s Movement of the 1970s, marrying women were expected to assume their husband’s names. Our fore-mothers had a message for men and women during this revolution, though … you know what they say when you “assume.” The freedom for females getting married resulted in the door being thrown wide open to all trends and combinations of keeping her birth name, hyphenation or combining his and her names into a new one. As families were formed, dissolved and recombined into blended family situations, the era of his, hers and theirs was born with last names often helping to keep things straight.
Identity is personal and it’s important. Women have many excellent reasons for keeping their names, changing them, recreating them and hyphenating them. Every reason is unique to her and her situation – ALL are equally valid and should be respected as such. Here are just a few, offering food for thought in a variety of situations.
Carrying on The Family Name
“The thought of changing my name wasn’t a serious consideration at all. My husband was very supportive of me keeping my name, I had already started my career as a lawyer and I had no brothers to carry on the family name. The choice was a no-brainer for me. The biggest downside to not taking my husband’s name, was that his uncle didn’t speak to me for a year, which as a whole, wasn’t such a bad thing.”
~ Beth Slagle, Attorney, Meyer, Unkovic & Scott & Founder, BizChicks
Preserving Professional Identity
“I always knew I would keep my last name for professional reasons, then hyphenate my last name with my husband’s last name once we started a family. My husband has always been supportive of this approach (even taking “Mr. Cairns” in stride on occasion), as he knew the time, effort, education and hard work I put into building my professional, athletic and community reputation. The decision to hyphenate once our little one arrives should help to avoid hassles with schools and healthcare providers. I cannot even begin to tell you the headaches that have been caused by virtue of me having a different last name than my husband…darn lawyers and their impact on privacy laws!”
~ Jennifer Cairns, Partner, McGuire Woods
Consider the Babes (and Tradition)
“This decision is something I have battled with since my husband and I got engaged. Being of Filipino heritage, we gave our kids’ my maiden name as their middle names, according to tradition and to instill something of my identity in them as well. To me, this is more than a name. I often use my maiden name as a middle name as well because of my heritage. My husband’s name is Irish, so Leah Shannon evokes an image in people’s heads that looks nothing like me. Yet, my maiden name (Lizarondo) can prove something of a pronunciation challenge. My struggle continues and perhaps it’s because I know who I am! I just am not sure how to label myself.”
~Leah Lizarondo Shannon, Entrepreneur
Statistical Avoidance
“When we were planning to get married, we weighed the fact that the national divorce rate was 50% – were we somehow going to be exempt from becoming a statistic? On the other hand, married mothers advised me of the hassle and confusion of having a different name than your children (schools, doctors, etc). So, I decided to keep my maiden name as my middle name. If we get divorced someday, I’ll simply drop “Smith” and return to “Eyler.” Given that “Eyler” is on my business cards and other correspondence, I think it would be an easy transition. BTW – after 20 years of marriage I learned that the divorce rate for college-educated couples who marry more than 4 years after graduation (as is the case with us) have a 20% divorce rate. Go figure!”
~Bernadette Eyler Smith, Senior Portfolio Manager, Fifth Third Wealth Management
I faced this choice – not once, but twice. The first time was a week after graduating from college. I was in love, twenty-three and didn’t mind distancing myself from my birth name. The second time around, though, I had a son to consider. My husband and I knew that we would get “Mr. and Mrs. Cavendish” at little league games and from my son’s school friends. Plus, we thought we wanted to have children. It was important to me that my son should not be the only Cavendish in the house; and, everyone knew me by that name professionally. The solution was to hyphenate both married names. Perhaps an odd choice under the circumstances, but it worked for us. (As you might image, this didn’t sit well with my son’s father, but you can’t please everyone. We all have our priorities.)
If you’re contemplating marriage and considering your choices, congratulations! Except for a few very brave women in history – Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mary Baker Eddy and others – women who married lost themselves in their husbands’ lives. Those who bucked tradition were considered scandalous.
And, for women who choose to keep their birth names? Let’s face it! If it doesn’t work out, that’s one less thing to worry about in the divorce.
We’ve come a long way, baby! Think about it … the freedom we have as women to preserve our identities is greater than ever before. We stand on the shoulders of those women who burned their bras so that we could be ourselves and know who we truly are … name and all.
Cynthia Cavendish-Carey is a business and marketing consultant. She is working on her first novel, “Kachina and the Butterfly Maiden,” which is a young girl’s journey to find her own divine feminine.
My husband took my last name. I was fine with us having our respective last names post-marriage. I have a business in my name, books, degrees, etc… and I was determined that IF I was to have a child s/he would carry my family name on. I also had a legal name change many years ago, claiming my family name (a messy family issue gave me a different last name at birth). So, it was a lot for someone to be open to. Luckily, he was. After our wedding he surprised me by doing the legal paperwork to change his last name to mine. I had no idea he was considering it. He decided that it was important to him that we share the same last name and he respected how much keeping my own name meant to me. So, he’s a Spahr. And, I’m honored.
I would never ask anyone to take my name. And, I’m delighted this wasn’t a deal breaker for him that I didn’t take his.
So you’re “honored” that your husband took your last name? How do you honor him? How is it there are no complaints about him losing his identity as there are when women take their husbands name? You were determined that your child carry your name on, but what about your husband’s name? It’s not carried on even by himself?
You chose wisely, Lisa. He sounds like a truly special person. Well done, you!
I kept my own name when I got married and never even considered taking my husband’s name. It seemed so silly to me to change my name. I was already writing and wanted my material to be “by Diana Fletcher.” Though my husband is not sexist in the least, I know it threw him a little at the time. (1985) It was traditional, etc. etc. When our first child was born, I made the decision to have my last name as the middle name for him and any future children. All three of them have gone through the “how embarrassing” stage, but I hope that in the future, as they mature, they will understand. My sisters followed suit with their children and I have visions of all the cousins getting together someday and saying, “What the hell was that all about?”
One other thing: It has been a hassle sometimes with two different names but never enough of one that I regret my decision.
There’s a lot about society I don’t understand and probably never will.
It amazes me that so many women, in an effort to keep their identify, be progressive, and ‘politically correct’, have selected to keep part of their maiden name when they marry as a sort of middle name while accepting their spouse’s family name at the end of their own.
How is changing a name so deliberately (and completely) any less subservient than arranged marriages over the ages have been (and still are) which were designed to tie one house to another as a political maneuver or ‘correctness’. Many women claim that this is a way to preserve themselves while paying respect to their husband and their husband’s lineage. Then I have to question that as well since the female’s lineage is equally important (often from a more impressionable lineage) yet this suggests that all daughters somehow don’t carry quite the same credible DNA as the sons might.
But all that aside, it’s also a questionable practice since each new bride must now contact a variety of agencies including Social Security with their new name which sometimes entangles problems when a divorce occurs and she must copntact them again or take the chance of losing benefits when she retires unless she can prove she is the same person she was when her own mother gave birth to her……………
Other countries have different ideas about this too. In Korea the wife keeps her maiden name but the children take their father’s family name. Then there are countries which honor Matrilineal surnames or mother-line surnames as well.
I’m beginning to wonder though about all this family stuff since it seems to me that people get married, divorce, marry, divorce and many don’t bother getting married at all but have children from multiple fathers. This all gets further tangled up when legal issues arise and all the various aliases must be listed and these include all married names, or implied married names etc. Believe me, for a lot of people and this really means women (since men don’t typically change their name or take an implied married name) that can get really tedious.
Just keeping your birth name is really the easiest route, believe me, I should know. Don’t give your name up for anyone. It may be the only thing in the end you get to hold onto that’s really yours and no one can take away from you (unless you, like an idiot, let them).
You’ve got great insights about getting married, keep up the good work!