Taking someone’s last name in marriage does not make sense, especially in a relationship of equality.
Names represent identity. To say that a woman, who has for example lived a full potential fourth of her life should drop such an identity for the sake of marriage is an absurdity no one questions.
What if she likes her last name? What if she feels like her first and last name truly defines who she is, what she is, and everything she has come to be? And if the argument is that names do not matter, then why change them?
Historically, surnames did not exist until the 11th or 12th century. This is evident in such historical references as The Bible, i.e. Jesus of Nazareth, John the Baptist. Also from the Bible comes the adoption of the husband’s last name in marriage. That’s right, it’s biblical.
Through the scope of marriage, women have ranged from property to second-class citizens. Adopting the man’s last name was first suggested in The Bible to ensure wealth, protection, a new life, and one union under God. Women who lived their lives under one name were honored to take a new name; it was a sign of accomplishment for a women and it meant the fulfilling of her societal role: to begin a new life with a husband and to eventually produce good citizens.
The adopting of the last name also allowed women to more accurately identify with their husbands, who were the workers, landowners, decision-makers, and dominating party. Women then could rightfully claim a secondary ownership to these things based on a name.
Finally, women adopted the man’s last name to make a more complete union under God. How cute.
Why wouldn’t the man take the woman’s name? All societal signs scream, “Duh,” but for the really curious, I will say that since women began as property in marriage, it signifies the passing of property from the father (the man who gave her her original surname) to her new “owner,” her husband.
The question is, in a marriage that is equal, not under God, and when the woman is a real citizen able to make decisions under the protection of law and is able to form a real identity that society can accept under its stigmatizing conditions, why change the description of an identity we can finally cherish as equal?
