Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!ora!ora!daemon
From: bweiss@cs.arizona.edu (Beth Weiss)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Name Change After Marriage
Message-ID: <24409@megaron.cs.arizona.edu>
Date: 21 Aug 90 14:33:32 GMT
References: <220@sierra.STANFORD.EDU>
Sender: ambar@ora.com (Jean Marie Diaz)
Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson
Lines: 36
Approved: ambar@ora.com

beckwith@sierra.STANFORD.EDU (beckwith) writes:
[on discussion of a woman "taking her husband's name"]

>But the other problem I see is one of self identity.  I know a woman
>who has been divorced 3 times and now is married the 4th time.
>Between each marriage she takes back her real ("maiden") name, then
>when she marries she takes her current husband's name.  It seems to me,
>somewhere along the line you would lose track of who you are.  
>I'd like to know how the
>married women in net.soc.feminism.land feel about this (potential)
>loss of identity.

I think it's a serious problem.  Divorces happen, spouses die, women
remarry.  Once a woman changes her name, she's pretty much committed
to changing it again under certain circumstances.

Examples:  Ann Jones marries Mike Smith, and becomes Ann Smith.  After
15 years of marriage, Ann and Mike divorce.  Ann doesn't feel like a
Smith anymore, so she changes her name back to Jones.  Alternatively,
Ann doesn't change her name back, because it's too complicated.  She
meets Steve Anderson, and they get married.  She thinks it's pretty
silly to keep her ex-husband's name, so she changes her name to Ann
Anderson.

From a professional point of view, Ann has committed suicide.  She has
lost all name recognition.  From a personal point of view, she's lost
her _name_.

I have to admit I'm always slightly amazed when I meet a
professional woman who changed her name when she got married.  The
older the woman when she married, the more amazed I am.  To me,
it means that she's not completely serious about her own career, and
she's willing to let it take second place to her husband's.

--beth
bweiss@cs.arizona.edu