The women's rights movement has come a long way but to say that women in the U.S have achieved full social, legal, and societal equality would be a gross overstatement and frankly, a blatant lie. There are many topics to be discussed such as equal pay, women in positions of power, and domestic expectations, but something that has been burdening my mind in recent years is the fact that women are still generally expected to give up their last name when marrying a man and assume the identity of their husband.
Most will argue that it's just tradition and since it's been working for so many years why go against the grain? Why rock the boat and cause unnecessary hassle? To answer these questions we must first understand where this "tradition" originates.
Without going into a lengthy history lesson, the requirement for women to take the last names of their husbands comes from a western doctrine known as coverture which translates to "covered by". In essence, this common-law meant that once a woman married she was considered to be one with her husband in a way that her whole identity was consumed by his.
Coverture was also used as a way of legally limiting the rights of women. Because women were not considered to have their own established personhood in society they were excluded from being involved in politics, legislation, and business. Women were even restricted from legally owning anything, whether it was real estate or any other form of personal property. Women had to settle for feeling a sense of ownership vicariously through their husbands.
From the moment a woman is born she is stamped with the identity of a man (her father), and when she marries she takes on another man's identity (her husband). When will women be free to establish their own identities? To carry on their own legacies? Will there ever be a time when a woman can say I have carried on the last name and legacy of my great great great grandmother? I hope so.
It has taken so long just to get to the point where hyphenating last names is more widely accepted. Even so, there are many who roll theirs eyes at the concept believing it to be an unnecessary complication. And God forbid a woman ask her husband to take her last name. This would be viewed as outlandish to many and somehow emasculating.
As women we are taught not to question these societal "norms" and to just go along with it to keep things simple. But I believe these are exactly the types of traditions and expectations we should be continually challenging. We will never be released from the invisible grip of the hand of gender oppression if we stay silent.
Being recently married, my wife and I had to seriously consider what to do about our last names. In the end, we decided that our individual surnames were too important to us to lose so we just kept them. Having lived 30+ years with my last name it has become a significant part of my identity, something I have found a sense of pride in and had I married a man, I would have been expected to just let it fall by the wayside without consideration of its significance in my life.
In an ideal world, the subject of last names would be a discussion that every married couple has and a decision they make together after weighing the options and considering what makes the most sense for their lives. I would love to see more men voluntarily taking on the last names of their wives just to make a statement and more women challenging the expectations. But our world is still far form ideal, so I will continue to speak out on these matters and make people uncomfortable until more eyes and minds are opened to the realities that women have to face, fight, accept, ignore and rise above every day.
