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 This is evident in such historical references as The Bible, i.e. Jesus of Nazareth, John the Baptist.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?
The main thing that I think men feel when their Bride takes their surname is that there is a feeling of family, cohesion. For generations, men have grown up in a society that defines their role as providers, leaders, immovable objects.
But guess what, we twist in the wind just like you.
It means a lot to a man to be able to have that commitment that a woman is so in love with him and wants so much to be a part of his life that she wants to create a family and therefore, make the change.
It’s all part of the entire foundation of marriage (Holy Matrimony). You’re 100% correct, it’s all biblical. And very sacred to many. It’s disheartening that so many women divorce or hyphenate their names or don’t take a surname to make divorce a snap. In fact, it tends to reflect to me (as a man) that women in general are getting fed up with the marriage concept, and therefore are throwing commitment out with the bathwater.
Marriage = commitment. Commitment to loving and caring equally for each other FOREVER. So without the surname, it casts a lot of doubt on things. Not to mention I know a lot of kids that grew up in homes where everyone had a different last name, and they were all screwed up broken homes. Not that there aren’t screwed up “traditional” families (PALIN *COUGH* PALIN*), just not nearly as many.
Kids like knowing they have a family, security. Take their security away, and they go crazy. Hordes of adopted kids can attest to this.
Man taking the woman’s name? I suppose if I had no attachment to my surname, I would have no qualms about doing it. I suppose your surname is only as good as you make it, but the bottom line here is that in Marriage, you have to have some form of unity. And Ms. X and Mr. Y will pretty much spell disaster for any Marriage, because their will always be some lingering resentment that their names weren’t unified.