Bound by Love, Not Tradition

Empowering Women Through Married Name Choices

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

Welcome to the introduction for my first book, Bound by Love, Not Tradition: Empowering Women Through Married Name Choices (working title). In the post below, I share a glimpse of the moment that inspired me to write this story and champion my view. At the end, I have a few questions for you and invite you to share your story. Thank you for reading!

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“I don’t think I’m going to change my name when we get married,” I mentioned to my fiancé while setting the dinner table. We both had been married before and had already combined our teenage kids into the new house we bought together.

Needless to say, life was a little crazy coordinating doctors appointments, sports schedules, and other incidentals that came along with managing a household of eight and working full time. The chore of changing my name seemed overwhelming.

Setting the table was as good a time as any to have a conversation about the subject.

While holding the stack of plates, my fiancé stopped, wrinkled his forehead with inquiry and asked, “But then, how will people know you’re married to me?”

“Well, probably the same way people will know that you’re married to me,” I said as I brought the knives and forks to the table. “They’ll see we wear wedding rings. We’ll tell them we’re married, and we’ll refer to each other as husband and wife.”

He sat down on the chair at the end of the table and lowered the stack of plates still processing the concept. It occurred to me that this probably was the first time he had considered his wife not taking his name. “Huh, okay. I guess I just assumed you would change your name when we got married.”

When I first got married at 21 and changed my name without considering any other options or even haveing a conversation about it, the process was pretty simple. I think I had to file with the Social Security Administration and have my name updated on my driver’s license. Now in my 40s, I would have to change so many more documents, but it wasn’t just the inconvenience. This name has been my identity basically my entire adult life. It’s the name on my college degrees, publication bylines, bank accounts, credit cards, driver’s license, and passport. All my college friends, coworkers, PTO parents, and social media “friends” all know me by this name.

“Yea, I know,” I said trying to be sensitive considering this was a completely new idea to him. “I mean, I love the idea of both of us having the same last name, but it’s not that easy,” I said while placing the silverware around the absent plates and walking around him at one end of the table.

After a few seconds of contemplating, he put his elbow on the table, propped his chin up with his fist and curiously asked, “But won’t that be weird if we have different last names?”

“Possibly, but I want to have the same last name as my children and I wouldn’t want them to feel like I’m leaving them behind and switching to your team,” I said with a halfhearted chuckle. I playfully suggested, “If you want, you can change your name to my last name.”

He scoffed at that suggestion, stood up, started placing the plates with a resounding clunk and said, “I’m not going to take your ex-husband’s last name.”

Oh, I hadn’t thought of it like that. Since I had this identity for so long, I didn’t associate it with my ex-husband.

“I see your point because I really wouldn’t want to have your ex-wife’s last name either,” I said, taking a couple steps sideways so he could get by with the plates. He stopped and looked up. His head was tilted, his eyebrows were creased and with a puzzled look he finally chuckled, “What?” He then shrugged his shoulders, slightly shook his head and went back to placing the plates.

I continued to add options to keep the conversation going. “We could both change our names to one from my family tree,” I suggested.

“How about Schulze?” I asked.

“Schulze?!” he spouted. “I’m not German. I’m Irish.”

At that point I had a mix of emotions – shock at the mocking of my heritage, and comic relief as I imagined Shultz, the German guard from the 60s sitcom Hogan’s Heroes with his round face and egg-shaped army green helmet.

“Haha, you’re definitely not a Shultz! And I’m not Irish, even though I’ve had an Irish name than half my life.”

At this, we both started laughing at where the conversation had ended up. “Well, if we each keep our last names, at least we’ll both have Irish last names.”

As we brought the food to the table and the kids started to gather, we stood back and admired the eclectic, blended family we had created.

According to a Pew Research Study, almost 80% of women still take their husband’s last name when they become wives. A statistic that hasn’t budged much since the 1970s wave of feminism that saw the creation of the prefix Ms and the push for women to keep their maiden name once married. Why is that?

Tradition is an obvious answer to that question. Wanting to have the same last name as future children is also common. And “that’s just the way it is,” can be a blasé response.

Nowadays, there is no right or wrong option when it comes to choosing a married name – take his name, take her name, hyphenate names, create a new name. While the tradition is for a woman to give up her name and take his without any discussion, I argue that this could unconsciously imply there is an imbalance to the relationship and create awkward situations for modern couples.

One woman, Jane Quill, told me that before she and her fiancé Bill Elish told their families that she’d be keeping her maiden name, Bill’s mother gave Jane monogrammed napkins embroidered with the initials she expected her future daughter-in-law to adopt.

“Oh my gosh, it was so uncomfortable,” Jane said about the gift. “I love Bill’s mom and it was so nice of her to give me this gift, but I wish people wouldn’t assume women are going to automatically change their names.”

This outdated surname tradition comes from a time when a married woman’s only identity was literally “the wife of” her husband. In fact, “Mrs.” technically means “the wife of,” so to use the prefix correctly, it has to be followed by the husband’s name - Mrs. John Doe - instead of using her name - Mrs. Jane Doe.

This old-fashioned tradition of casually taking the man’s name, embeds an inherent, almost subconscious theme that a woman’s worth, identity, ancestry, and place in society is less valuable than a man.

But there is a simple way to make choosing a married name romantic, exciting, and fun, giving your relationship one more way to begin a lifelong journey of equality. My proposed solution is to take “gender” out of the equation. Make it a cohesive decision knowing both your names have equal weight.

For Darcy Ward and Jeff Cohen, this took the form of flipping a coin at the altar. After the officiant pronounced them husband and wife, a coin was tossed in the air. The coin with Darcy’s face on one side and Jeff’s face on the other, landed with her side up resulting in the couple taking Ward as their family name.

“People say I won,” Darcy said. “But Jeff is quick to point out that he was the one that got something new, so in that sense he won. Aww, right? I love him.”

In my book I plan to cover topics such as:

· The history of married names

· Unconscious, conscious, and implicit bias

· How to negotiate you and your future family’s last name

· Why men should consider changing their names

· How same-sex couples choose a married name

· Stories of how couples have chosen their married names

· Laws and customs of other countries

Does this feel like a book you would read? If so, what additional information would you want included? Please share your comments, thoughts, and suggestions. Feel free to share how you choose your married name 😊