I've been unable to find posting time of late, swamped at work and at home, but I thought I'd at least post this new comment to an older article, "Taking Her Name, Part 1," since most readers would be unlikely to see it:
Anonymous:
"I am secretly envious of the men on this blog. My wife kept her name when we were married 20 years ago, but since then her career has eclipsed mine and her role in our marriage has become obviously dominant. It used to bother me that she kept her name, but over the past few years I've rather enjoyed being known as Mr. 'wife's surname.'"
12 comments:
I kept my own name when I married my sub. Looking back, I believe we should have changed his surname to mine (just wasn't practical at the time). However, it's something that may happen at some point.
If our kids didn't already have my name, I might have considered taking her name! But they seem to get the point that decisions don't get made until "Mommy" approves.
But when we are travelling and I'm called Mr. "Her surname" it's a lot of fun, particularly since my first name is an obviously ethnic name that doesn't jive with her WASP surname. All the better!
Be advised that Lady Misato's 'Real Women Don't Do Housework' link on freewebs has gone defunct.
An updated address is
http://www.rwddh.com/
I just discussed this with someone who commented on my blog. It is a bit of trouble to execute the change. It would also cause unneeded controversy with my husband's place of employment and could lead to demotions, ridicule, etc. It's not worth it for us.
I appreciate the updated link to Real Women Don't Do Housework. I'll fix the link on my site.
Also, it's enjoyable to read the lively comments on changing hubby's name, and certainly appreciate the manifold problems thereto.
An interesting comment on this appeared in Mistress Kathy's Femdom 101 blog, where she said, despite all the problems involved, if she and her guy were getting married today, with the understanding that she would be in complete control, she would require him not only to take her name, but to pledge his obedience at the altar in front of his family and all attendees.
In the Netherlands it is possible when you marry to assume the name of your Bride, instead of the traditional way that the Bride assumes the groom's name.
Anonymous, a very enlightened accommodation. I can actually see this happening in the U.S., perhaps within this decade. And when the social stigma is removed, I can see more and more young women demanding it of their fiances, and more and more guys going along. Certainly that is the direction we're going, however slowly. Thank you for the good news comment.
My wife and kids live in Central America, where women generally use their maiden names. I've told my wife that I want to assume her name because first, I want to, and second, because no one understands my last name. She said that once I learn Spanish, I can take her name, and she gave me a specific goal (55% of my complete Rosetta Stone course). I'm almost there.
I'm not sure if I will 'legally' change my name, or just 'assume' her name. Already, when I subscribe to magazines, I subscribe using my first name and her last name. It's amazing how much junk mail I get now addressed to me with her last name.
I've just been catching up on this subject, exploring stuff across the internet.
I'm not (yet) in a WLM, but after 25 years of reasonably happy marriage, I'm finally getting around to checking in my ego with regard to my attitude to my relationship with my wife.
And I find the idea of taking on my wife's surname to be pretty scary. But something that suddenly makes a lot of sense.
In my society people still assume Mr & Mrs Y, even though they don't do the old Mr & Mrs Tom Y anymore.
And younger couples getting married today can't be bothered with Mr Y & Ms X, but have reverted to Mr & Mrs Y.
In this context, it seems that the logical step would be simply for him to assume her surname, and for them to simply be Mr & Mrs X.
Because the majority of people are still going with the 'Mr & Mrs' part (as opposed to 'Ms & Mr' which would require endless correcting), having her surname as the family name is simple for others to deal with, and makes it clear to both husband & wife who has the final authority.
I wish my wife had thought of this 25 years ago and stated quite firmly: "Me and my name, or your bride won't turn up at the altar!" That would have freaked me out and even delayed the wedding - but she would have won out in the end, & it would have made such a difference ...
While my girlfriend and I are still a couple years away from getting married, we have already decided that I will be taking her last name.
I have not seen nor heard from my namesake (father) in probably the past 12 years and my mother has already gone through two other last names since having the same as mine. So I'm not really as attached to my last name as she is to hers. Her birth parents are still married to each other after 25+ years.
Changing my name at work is likely to be a little awkward. However, I figure one of my co-workers has already taken the bold step of changing their gender and the subsequent name change that went along with it, so I don't expect a whole lot of social push back when I change mine.
As far as being known as Ms. and Mr. Jane Doe goes, I wouldn't really have a problem with it and actually think it might properly credit her as the lead. But that titling is probably in the hands of other people (it's how other refer to us rather than how we refer to ourselves), so I don't know how practical it would be.
I don't know what the legal hassles are for changing the husband's surname rather than the wife's. Hopefully by the time we get married, those roads will be paved by the domestic partners system.
While it is difficult to get statistics on husbands taking wives' last names, the few statistics that come in show that about 3% of husbands take their wives' last names.
http://galtime.com/article/love-sex/38412/24360/more-men-taking-their-wifes-last-name#axzz1mAuvdLK3
An up and coming company called Hitchswitch, which offers newlyweds “a one stop shopping name changing service for a fee” has some interesting numbers.
CEO Jake Wolff says they’ve helped about two thousand couples change their names since June 2011-- and 5 percent of those clients have been men. Out of that five percent about three percent of men take their wife’s last name and the remaining two percent create a hybrid or hyphenate their last name.
Anonymous, thank you so much for a significant contribution!
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