"A whopping 70% of the respondents in a new study feel that women should take their husbands' last name, and 50% say that it should be a legal requirement for a woman to take her spouse's last name. The Center for Survey Research at Indiana University presented these surprising findings this week, reports USA Today and the Daily News.
Why did these people feel this way? "They said that women should lose their own identity when they marry and become a part of the man and his family," said Laura Hamilton, a Indiana University associate professor and the author of the study. Other people said women should change their names because of religious reasons, or "they said the mailman would get confused" if women didn't change their names, says Hamilton."
So what can we say to this...wow and wow. Wow.
I am changing my name but not for the reasons of losing my identity and be subsumed into P's. I truly believe that my identity will only become more fabulous with a name as unique as the one I will be gaining! I have definitely had boyfriends before that I thought, "if I were to marry this person, I would surely keep my own name!". For me the decision must be a personal one, and based on your name and preferences. I hate any kind of fundamentalism and I really do not want to be told what I must do with my last name. So, although my choice seems to be the conventional one, it was made with a purely progressive mentality, considering what worked best in my circumstance.
1 comment:
you know i have been dying to change my last name since elementary school. (unless of course my future hubby's last name is something worse than mine like goldenblatschmooeyfarb, then i'd reconsider.)
It's worth mentioning that in Judaism it's tradition for the woman to take the man's last name, but their children take the MOTHER's RELIGION. SEE! even in the most ancient monotheistic religion is still more progressive in equality compared to modern day society's mainstream collective consciousness.
society=fail.
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