Google alerts turned up this article written by one Mary, another Aussie commenting on the Catherine Deveny column I posted about last time. In it, Mary tells us she just had a baby boy - to whom she and her husband gave her last name, instead of his.
Then on my own side porch I just picked up the latest issue of the Grand Traverse Insider, a freebie good-news-only paper that usually goes straight to the recycling. But I happened to open it up to find a story on a local woman’s goodwill work in Haiti. She, too, is matrilineally named.
So counting these two, plus my own daughter, I know now four people who’ve taken the matrilineal path. Hurrah! The ranks are growing.
On the downside, the bill making its way through Japan’s political process that would allow dual surnames has a lead lining. According to this editorial in the Asahi Shimbun, it would also require couples to choose which name their children will have in advance. All children would need to have the same surname, making my family’s decision illegal in Japan. The editorial says: “To avoid any confusion, the proposed bill requires couples to decide in advance on their children’s surname and to ensure that all siblings have the same family name.”
My responses:
1) What confusion? Why is it anyone’s but the family’s business whose name is chosen, or if there’s more than one? Why is it the family’s burden to insure others aren’t confused?
2) Decide in advance - It’s almost impossible to decide anything to do with children in advance. At my childbirth classes, the final exercise was designed to teach us how to cope when circumstances shot the plan to pieces. In retrospect, it was the most valuable lesson of the bunch for what it taught about children in general.
3) Ensure than all siblings have the same family name: This bill’s purpose is - admirably - to modernize the requirement that spouses have the same name. Why revert to the old standard for the kids?
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Australian columnist Catherine Deveny has a great piece this week taking on the lemming-like behavior of parents that masquerades as tradition and results in 99 percent of kids having their fathers’ names. She writes:
“Why are so many people still clinging to this convention in this day and age of divorce and DNA? A convention that insidiously
reinforces power, control and ownership.
“It’s a patriarchal minefield we deny even exists. Despite so much social change, this is a rusty nut that will not budge. And don’t be fooled by being fobbed off with ”it’s not important”. It is.”
Elsewhere around the world: Thanks to Google alerts, I’ve discovered lately that this patriarchal tradition is even more pernicious than I thought. In Turkey, married women are required to take their husbands’ last names after marriage. The good news: A European court decision on ID card information has brought about an opportunity to revisit this provision of Turkish Civil Code.
In Japan, married couples are required to choose one name after marriage. Theoretically it could be the woman’s, but realistically, tradition prevails. The good news: A (female) legislator says she’s ready to introduce a bill that would allow husband and wife to retain separate names, and it has the prime minister’s support.
On the other hand, I learned that since 1981 in Quebec, women are prohibited from taking their husbands’ last names. Since freedom of choice is the underpinning of my passion for maternal last names, I technically should have a beef with the Quebecers. But making a truly free choice is a lot harder when 98 percent of the world is doing it one way. So for the virtue in their contrasting example - so tiny in the worldwide picture - I say Vous allez, filles! to the Canadian province.
Tags: choice, Mother, Names, tradition
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This article on the last name dilemma faced by married women has been popping up frequently in my Google alerts of late, as it makes its rounds through wire services and syndication and blogs. Two things made it noteworthy to me:
1) Written by Canadian Elsie Hambrook, chairperson of the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women, it quotes a Canadian magazine survey as finding that 69 percent of prospective Canadian brides plan to take their husbands’ last names. Hambrook doesn’t say it straight out, but implies this is disappointing. But from south of the border, where a whopping 90 percent of married women adopt the Mrs. moniker, I find that heartening.
2) I like the part that is used in the pull quote. Of the last name choice, Hambrook says, “There are no rules without exceptions, no guidelines that are infallible. There is also no surrender without loss, no action without a message.” That second sentence was edited out of other versions I saw, and, as conversations with other women have revealed, it’s so true. When women give up part of their identity, they lose something.
In the interest of fairness, it’s true that something is also lost by not yielding to prevailing winds and taking a husband’s name. Every so often I get hit with a panic attack that the kids will, at some point in the future, get tagged as weird for our dual last names. (Tonight being one of those times, having just returned from a nametag function in which almost every pair of spouses I saw sported matching labels.) Then I get mad about the lack of good options that drove us to this situation. Which makes me resolve to broadcast our choice far and wide, (hence this blog post) in the hope that eventually it will spread to the point where it becomes a good option (one that doesn’t make people feel weird.) Then I’m happy again.
Tags: choice, Kids, Names, worry
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