I'm very very far from being a rose but at least, in today's society, I can chose what my name is going to be. The choice is mine, rightfully so. This great post on Off Beat Bride (one of my favest websites evar!!) talks about just that.
Long, long time ago I asked myself if I was going to take my future husband's last name. I had to consider the pros and cons and really think about what it meant to me. The thoughts were triggered by an article I read in Bitch Mag about what feminism meant now vs. 10 years ago.
Mind you, I never would have dared to imagine I was going to marry Js back then. He was still an old friend from high school I'd lost touch with.
I had decided back then that I wouldn't be against changing my name and I wouldn't be against keeping my maiden name - all depending on if he'd be willing to change it too. If I know he'd change his name if the roles were reversed, then I would change it. If I know he'd be opposed to the idea, tough cookies, I'm stickin' to my guns.
Enters Js, this crazy life and everything in between.
When he proposed, I revised my name-changing thoughts and realized that they were still the same. I brought up the topic in regular conversation to test the waters. I wanted to know if he'd change his name for me, what his thoughts were and to see if it would change/alter my views on the whole deal. It didn't. I still felt the same about it and realized then and there that I had some thinkin' to do.
One night, Js was back in Moose Jaw and I was all by my lonesome (with Jack) at our old place in Ottawa and as I went to bed, I looked at our picture I keep on the nightstand when he's away (same photo he had when he was in Basic and we both have a framed copy we keep for such times - cheesy, I know!) and just knew...
I will change my last name to his when we get married this summer.
The last name I mocked so much in high school will be mine and I guess you can almost call that karma.
I'm changing it because I know he'd take my name if the roles were reversed. I'm changing it because I love and respect his family and am proud to be a part of it. I love and respect my family too and I'm blessed to be a part of it - it's so much more than a name. My family is who I am, in the way I do things, in everything that I know. Family is more than a name.
Yes, I'm changing my name. Call me unfeminist. If you define being unfeminist as not giving in to the social pressure and knowing who you are as a person and a woman while making your way through life, then I guess that's what I am.
3 comments:
I don't think it is "unfeminist" at all. I have never considered my sense of identity to be tied up in my last name - I am secure enough in myself, both my "personhood" and my "womanhood", to not "need" that lable. Congratulations on being true to yourself, no matter what others may say.
Basinah's said it bang on...
M holds no value to his last name, however, so why should I? Obviously this is something we'd have to discuss when the time comes (Time! Come already!!), but I'm neither for nor opposed to taking a mans name. I just really like my family name, mostly because it is my fathers, and there's very little of him that I have left to keep for myself...
Agree with both posters.. :) When I was little, I always thought I'd keep my name. For me, there was the big "ACK" of letting go of dad's name, but at the same time, knowing how much it had probably meant to him when my mom had taken his name (and then reversed), I knew he'd "understand". Then I also considered Marc and figured how hurt he would be if I wouldn't take his name, partly because he'd grown up thinking his wife would, but also because as a military couple, it's not just "his" family that matters anymore, it's not just "my" family that matters anymore, but the one we're making through our union and the only one who will understand the sacrifices and joys of our lifestyle.. And what better way to celebrate that then by acknowledging it by sharing a name! (There was also the whole kids thing, and I didn't want my kids to have a gazillion names, and I wanted to share the name with them.. so 'ya know!) xoxoxox This would have been a good coffee convo.. ;) haha
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