Have I put the cart before the horse with this blog?

I started wondering after reading about the recently-publicized study* on

What's wrong with this picture?

American attitudes toward women keeping their name after marriage. With the blog, I’d hoped to, by example, advocate for women passing their names on to their children.

But that presumes women kept their name to begin with — something I knew was uncommon, but didn’t realize how very uncommon.

So while I still intend to plug that matrilineal matters, I’m going to also try and single out stories and trends where women’s simple autonomy gains ground. To that end, I was pleased to note that three out of five anniversary notices in my local newspaper this Sunday referred to the woman by her full name instead of vaporizing her at the altar.

Traditionally these announcements read: “Mr. and Mrs. Joe Blow celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary Aug. 24. Joe Blow and the former Jane Doe were married…”

The former? Um…what happened to her? Where’d she go? Vanished under the veil? Used to be they’d use the word “nee” - French for “born as” - which at least translated sensibly.

It may seem picayune, but especially after reading the Indiana-Utah study*, I’m ever more firmly convinced of how integral and vital names are to our identity and of how powerful the cultural forces around them are.

So I keep plugging and posting. One day, ‘the former’ will be former practice, and we’ll get that old mare pointed to make forward progress.

* While co-author Laura Hamilton of Indiana University did share the study with me, I am unable to post it due to copyright restrictions.

The rhododendron failed to bloom. But:

• Mike’s mom is coming home today after more than two weeks in the hospital
• Owen’s doctor ordered a reprieve from potty training treadmill we’ve
  

  Bountiful blossoms portending possibilities

  been on for two months

• Audrey has now slept through the night - REALLY slept through the night, 7 p.m.-6 a.m. — two nights in a row
• I made my tattoo appt. for my 40th birthday, now just two weeks away. I’ve been planning this for a year.
• And my hydrangeas, which had two flowers between three bushes last year, are loaded now. We’ll see what they bring forth as forty approaches.

Son Owen and I were on a donut run this morning when I told him his babysitter, Molly, was coming over later. “Which Molly?”  he asked. (He has a cousin named Molly, too.) “Molly Smith,” I replied “Why is her name Molly Smith?” he asked.

An answer like, “because of the patrilineal traditions that prevail in 21st century Western society,” was not going to go down with a three-year-old. But how to boil down to his level the question that is the crux of this whole blog endeavor? I started to say, “that’s her dad’s name,” but realized that would simply reinforce those patriarchal traditions that we are trying to balance with our family name choice and me with this blog.

“That’s what her parents decided,” I answered. But my belief is that few parents DO make an active decision about their children’s surname in favor of doing the easy and expected. This 2000 Salon.com article by Carol Lloyd explores the question, but a solid answer is still elusive.

Owen, I’ll have to get back to you on that. Or maybe, if we succeed in teaching the lesson, you’ll be asking it of yourself when it’s your time to be a dad.