What is in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
William Shakespeare, English dramatic poet (1566 -1616).
Unlike in Shakespeare’s time, now names are changed on marriage, the bride taking the surname of the groom’s family. It is more so in traditional Asian families than in western countries like America. Even in the Indian context, names are not always changed on marriage. Sometimes they are also compounded with a hyphen joining the husband’s and wife’s name – as in the case of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. It is because she had become very famous as an actress when she got married to Abishek Bachchanand was a brand name in her own right. When she got married, my daughter had made a name for herself as young and promising journalist and she retained he maiden surname compounding it with her husband’s surname. In the case of my son’s marriage, his wife, who had studied together in an elite post-graduate HR institute, she retained her maiden surname. Children in both instances have father’s surname. Among Goans, there are long surnames – almost reflecting the family history. Sample these: Maria Camila Da Costa Ferreira Alvares, Maria Louisa Isabel Ferreira e Alvares – apparently bringing on board both parties to the marriage.
The subject of shedding or retaining maiden names in USA is well reflected in surveys and article written in the US print and electronic media. In an article published on Refinery 29 website (28-6-15) by Laura Mckenzie, the surprising reasons for change over the decades have been highlighted.
One of the most difficult things about getting married is deciding whether or not to change your last name. The maiden name debate has raged strong over the past few decades. In the 1970s, it was a political statement to keep your last name, a nod to the feminist movement. In the 1980s, no one seemed to care anymore – they threw those maiden names right out the window. Recently, however, the trend of keeping ones maiden name is on the upswing, and the reasons why may surprise you.
In an expansive piece by The New York Times (Article titled “Maiden names, on the rise again” by Clair Miller and Derek Willis), it is revealed that about 20 percent of women married in recent years have decided to keep their last name, a significant increase over the 14 percent in the 1980s. The data was determined using a Google Consumer Survey.
Laurie Scheuble, a sociology professor at Penn State who studies marital naming, asserts the change to a number of reasons, including the fact that women are attending college at higher rates than men, high profile celebrities are more prone to maintain their maiden names, and couples commonly live together before marriage. “When they do get around to marrying, they’ve already lived in a household with two names,” Scheuble said. “Maybe it seems normal to them.”
The data, in addition to a study of the Times wedding announcement section, also showed an interesting correlation between income level and the decision to keep a maiden name. Higher-income urban women were far more likely to stick with their maiden name, as evidenced by the analysis of 7,835 wedding announcements over the course of five years.
When Donna Suh married in September 2014, wearing a short white dress at San Francisco City Hall, she decided to keep her last name. Her reasons were practical, not political. “It’s not necessarily a feminist reason, but it’s just my name for 33 years of my life,” Ms. Suh said. “Plus, I’m Asian and he’s not, so it’s less confusing for me to not have a white name. And on social media I thought it might be harder to find me.”
The practice of keeping one’s maiden name after marriage — which appears to have declined sometime in the 1980s or 1990s — has begun rising again, according to an Upshot analysis of data from multiple sources. The share has surpassed that of the 1970s. Yet unlike in that Ms. Decade, the decision now tends to be less political. For many women, sociologists say, keeping their maiden names has lost its significance in defining their independence and its symbolism as a feminist act.
Roughly 20 percent of women married in recent years have kept their names, according to a Google Consumer Survey conducted by The Upshot. An additional 10 percent or so chose a third option, such as hyphenating their name or legally changing it while continuing to use their birth name professionally.
By comparison, about 17 percent of women who married for the first time in the 1970s kept their names, a number that fell to 14 percent in the more conservative 1980s before rising to 18 percent in the 1990s, the Google survey shows. A separate analysis of New York Times wedding announcements (which cover a select, less representative share of women) showed similar patterns. Last year, 29.5 percent of women in the wedding pages kept their name, up from 26 percent in 2000 and a recent low of 16.2 percent in 1990.
From the time that the equal rights activist Lucy Stone became famous for keeping her name when she married in 1855, maiden names have been politically charged. In the 1970s — when state laws still required a woman to use her husband’s name to vote, do banking or get a passport — keeping one’s maiden name became a tenet of the women’s movement.
Yet as women continued to get education, have careers, use birth control and marry later, the share of women keeping their names went in the opposite direction and shrank, to the surprise of social scientists and women who fought for the right in the 1970s.
“The pressure is huge,” said Laurie Scheuble, who teaches sociology at Penn State and studies marital naming. “This is the strongest gendered social norm that we enforce and expect.”She said the resurgence in keeping names could be because women now go to college at higher rates than men, celebrities often keep their names and couples commonly live together before marriage.
“When they do get around to marrying, they’ve already lived in a household with two names, so maybe it seems normal to them,”
Many women still find the decision hard, and some object to the name-changing tradition as patriarchic. But for many, the choice reflects a modern-day approach to gender equality. Basic rights have been achieved, so the gesture carries less weight either way.
It often comes down to weighing the inconvenience of changing versus keeping. Some say it would be too complicated to change their professional or social media identity. Others say it is too difficult to have a name that’s different from the one for
Women are more likely to keep their names if they are older, not religious, have children from a previous marriage or have an advanced degree and established career, according to data from the Google survey, the Times announcements and previous studies.
To conclude, what happens when Indian surnames are denoted in terms of place of residence – like Padukone or Belgaunkar? Over to you!
About the Author
Born in 1938, John B. Monteiro was raised and educated in Mangalore, a coastal city in Karnataka, India. He earned a master’s in economics, political science and public administration from Bombay University.
After a stint as lecturer at St. Aloysius College, Mangalore, from where he had graduated, he went to Bombay (now Mumbai) and got into journalism and, later, corporate communications. He now lives in Mangalore, continuing to write for print and electronic media, and his website, www.welcometoreason.com.
