From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npoiv!alice!rabbit!kco
Newsgroups: net.singles
Title: What's in a name
Article-I.D.: rabbit.925
Posted: Tue Nov 16 11:15:31 1982
Received: Wed Nov 17 02:01:12 1982

All this talk about "i took my husband's name because i liked the sound
of it" and similar comments appear to be merely rationalizing acquiescence
to the long standing tradition in western culture of wives adopting their
husbands surnames. what's so bad about that? it provides a consistent,
convenient and predictable way for naming children and identifying a
family unit. another fairly common practice, in honor of the mother's
family, is for a child to take the mother's surname as a middle name.
outside of the family context, there is somewhat less justification
for these practices. there certainly isnt any legal restriction on what
you call yourselves after marriage (except you cant change your name to 
a number, at least in Wisconsin) - if you really want to be fair, why
not both change your last names to some perfectly neutral appelation? 
of course, that would be a bit bizarre for most people. so too, one would
imagine, might mr. puder feel about adopting the surname of his wife's
family, even if it did sound good.

		Here's another one of those
		numbing nutshells in closing,
		
		K. C. Olsen