GEORGIE BINKS:
Name change tradition changes slowly
CBC News Viewpoint | January 13, 2004 | More from Georgie Binks
Does anyone remember what Maureen McTeer went through after she decided to keep her name when she married Joe Clark nearly 30 years ago? The derision, the sneers that Joe couldn't keep his wife in her place. But McTeer hung tough and I have always admired her for it.
Those were the olden days, right? Well, not if you look at an online survey Wedding Bells magazine in Canada conducted last summer. Of the 537 brides who responded, 18 per cent were opting to keep their own names, with 15 per cent hyphenating. In the United States, the survey showed a measly six per cent were keeping theirs.
It's difficult to get a real handle on how many women keep their names these days when they marry. For centuries, the tradition in Canada and the United States has been that women simply assume their husbands' names, sometimes in the past even being addressed by his first name, too - Mrs. John Doe. American feminist and abolitionist Lucy Stone broke with tradition in 1855 and refused to change her name when she married, but it wasn't until the 1970s that women started to embrace the idea, albeit slowly.
Toronto writer Gillian O'Reilly had no problem keeping hers when she married in 1988: "My name is my name, that's who I am. It seems silly to go around changing it for reasons that are only tradition." Gillian didn't need a reason other than the fact that it was her name. But many other women will often defend name retention by saying they do it for their jobs, or that they're older and more people know them by their maiden names.
Using a combination of wedding announcements from The New York Times and birth records from Massachusetts, as well as statistics on female Harvard grads, Harvard Prof. Claudia Goldin, along with student Maria Shim, maintain in their paper, Making A Name, that women who retain their names usually have a college education and married later in life.
Goldin explains, "For couples where the husband is more working class, it is not well accepted for women to proclaim their independence. The more macho the world, the less enlightened the individuals and the more difficult it is to break with any tradition."
Morrison Bonpasse, of the Lucy Stone League, which advocates allowing women the right to choose, says, "There's a direct effect between women changing their names to their husbands'. It leads men to view women as their property and that's why they get upset when their property doesn't act like their other property."
While there seemed to be a steady increase in the percentage of women retaining their birth names at marriage from about 1975 on, Goldin discovered the trend peaked in the late 80s and early 90s and then started to fall off. For instance, Massachusetts records showed that 21 per cent of women between 25 and 29 kept their names in 1990, but in the year 2000 that had dropped to 13 per cent.
Goldin believes women in the 80s felt they were independent career women, and didn't need the names of their husbands. But now she says,
"My niece has said to me we don't have to do that. We can take our husbands' names; it's easier for the kids, for life in general. We aren't winning any battles anymore. You won them all. They claim to be feminists but they don't feel they have to keep their own surnames." Goldin feels it's part of a shift in the U.S back to conservative values.
In Canada, it's difficult to get a sense of what women are doing. In most provinces, women can still simply assume their husbands' surnames and no one keeps track. However, in Quebec, women must retain their names when they marry. In Ontario, women may still assume their husbands' names, but if they wish that name to show up on a credit card or driver's licence, they must legally change it. Of 67,644 marriages in Ontario in 1993, 12,758 women legally adopted their spouses' names. If you look ahead to 2,000, of the 65,395 marriages, 3,535 decided to change their names.
From those statistics, it might appear that the majority of Ontario women are bucking the trend in the States and keeping their names. However, bearing in mind the Wedding Bells survey, perhaps they're simply assuming their husbands' names to the world, and not bothering to change the documents because of the time and expense.
The problem is that when you change your name you disappear. There's little chance someone who knew you in high school is ever going to find you again. You can also disappear to yourself, too, becoming a different person, Mrs. Smith, an extension of Mr. Smith. Changing your name can even change your heritage, or what people assume your heritage to be.
While it's not even an issue for many couples, others grapple with it. For instance, London, Ont., lawyers Martha Macrae and Peter Dillon legally changed their names to Martha and Peter Macrae Dillon when they wed, but Peter remembers taking a lot of flack. "Martha was changing her licence and credit cards without changing her name at that point, but the Ministry of Transportation refused me. I said how can you? You're letting my wife change her name without doing it legally, but they said they had a policy against men doing it."
Actually, when you think of men changing their names, the Wedding Bells survey showed that three per cent of men intended to. But neither Michael Leshner nor Michael Stark, the first two men in Ontario to wed each other, considered it. Leshner told me, "Marriage didn't mean we lost our individual identities. Even if I had dreamt the impossible dream and married a woman, I wouldn't expect her to take my name, either. Marriage doesn't mean you both fall into a swamp and come out another entity."
For the Macrae Dillons one of the bonuses was that they both have the same last name as their children, which is often a dilemma when women retain their names, unless they hyphenate their children's last name. But critics ask, what will happen when their kids marry and have children?
Both Martha and Peter agree, "That's their problem."
Letters:
I would like to thank Ms Binks for her latest column on women's last names. In 2001, I legally changed my last name for reasons not due to marriage. I believe that my name is part of my image and persona, and find it important that I am comfortable with the name the world knows me by.
Historically, women took their husband's last name as a suggestion of ownership (Mr. Jones "owns" Mrs. Jones - she is his "property"). Further, women don't have their own last names; most of us have taken our father's names at birth, then if we marry, we marry into another man's name. Offensiveness aside, I am very keen on equality and believe that we should be able to choose which name we go through life with.
I never felt that my birth surname suited me; my burden was to wear the name like an ill-fitting garment. I felt a very strong need to change my last name into something that I wanted; something that suited me and what I was all about.
Once I decided on my new name (derived from legitimate Irish ancestry), I filled out the Vital Statistics booklet (to establish that I was not changing my name to run from among other things, debts or crime), paid my $137, and in a few weeks I got a name change certificate in the mail. The Canadian government acknowledged me as a new, independent being! I was elated!
My parents were initially shocked, then decided, a la tradition, that one day I might marry and change my last name anyway (the joke was on them). My women friends were very understanding and supportive, but my male friends had trouble with the concept. Sadly, many of them shook a condescending head, wondering why I would go to the bother.
For men, the name they are born with is the name they will die with; their name is not an issue. What they failed to understand is that my name is my very identity, symbolizing autonomy, power, and most of all, independence.
Leah Morrigan, formerly Leah Nargang
In regards to your column it was mentioned that children of married women
who do not change their names, use hyphenated names. When these children
grow up what happens when a man who has a hyphenated name (ie. Smith-Jones)
marries a woman with a hyphenated name (ie. Robertson-Anderson) and they
have children? Do you hyphenate the child's name to
Smith-Jones-Robertson-Anderson? Try to put that on a credit card, try to
page that person in a store or better yet, put it on the back of a hockey
jersey.
Dave Schmidt | Calgary, Alberta
Ms. Binks has a very strong point in her observations regarding name change
traditions - it is common practice for women to change their names when they
marry, but as she pointed out, it is difficult for men to change their
names. When my wife, Megan, and I married in 1999, there was the question
of whether or not she would change her name. After much discussion it was
decided that as I had two brothers who could carry on my family name, and
she was an only child, that we would both change our names so her name would
not vanish completely. We briefly discussed simply having me change my
name, but discarded that idea as it could cause too many problems, and ended
up combining our last names - Davies (hers), and Ostrom (mine) into
Davies-Ostrom. Both out families and all of our friends were quite
supportive and thought it was an interesting idea.
When it came to changing our identification, some government Ministries and
Agencies, both Provincial and Federal, gave us difficulty, although I now
suspect that the problems were simply with the individuals processing our
request. The Ontario Ministry of Transport questioned my name change, but
did not question Megan's. Human Resources Development Canada flat out
refused to change my SIN card the first time we tried, even going so far as
to say that our marriage licence was not a "real" marriage licence.
Strangely enough, Canada Customs and Revenue, for whom I now work, had no
problems; neither did the Passport Office when I applied for a passport
using my birth certificate with my original name, nor the Ontario Ministry
of Health when we got new Health Cards.
The only real problem my name change has caused came about when I applied
for a Security Clearance with the Federal Government. Megan's Security
Clearance applications were processed quite rapidly - within a month - as it
is common for women to change their names. However, I had to fill out three
sets of forms, and was fingerprinted twice, and even then it took almost
four months for my Clearance application, for even the most basic clearance
level, to be processed.
Daniel Davies-Ostrom | Ottawa, Ontario
Stop right there Georgie. You cannot make the claim that men whose wives change their names are viewed as property by their husbands. That is outright sexist. It's also wrong unless you can pinpoint each such instance, because there are more cases where this does not apply than there are where it does.
Beyond that I would like to add that a name change does not mean any such radical change as losing an identity. Each step in life is a growth opportunity and this is merely how some women choose to progress into their married lives. To suggest loss is to also suggest that there is something wrong with the whole family concept in the first place.
In my case, I changed my last name while my future wife and I were still dating. I took on my mother's maiden name, because all my cousins with that name were female, so that we could attempt to keep the family name front and centre in future generations. My father's line was already assured and other family names of relevance to us were also being continued. My wife accepted the idea and became a member of our family when we married.
She also made her maiden name into her middle name and added it as one of our son's middle names. My father's name, and supposedly my "real identity" if I'm to accept your premise, will be a middle name with our second child.
My wife did not become my property, we became a family with shared family concerns and a shared family name.
Brett Douglas Nelson Tremblay,
Husband of Ojdana Vidaic Tremblay,
Father of Liam Nicholas Vidaic Tremblay,
Son of Douglas and Dianne Nelson,
Son in law of Nikola and Maria Vidaic
Grandson of Clifford and Marie Tremblay and of William and Adrienne Nelson,
Proud member of all these families,
Citizen of Toronto
My wife and I have been married for just over three years and although we've been dealing with these exact same issues, we haven't found them to be much of an issue at all. The issue of my wife changing her name was easily solved as she preferred to keep her own last name and I never felt I had the right to ask her to do anything different. This was even reflected in our wedding vows, stating that marriage isn't the consolidation of two people into one, but rather the joining of two people who are able help make their partner the best person he/she can be.
That said, we are now expecting our first child and this was a little harder to deal with. My own opinion was that I wanted my last name to be at least part of our baby's last name. We were also somewhat hesitant regarding hyphenated names for the reasons you mention in your article... what does our child do later on if they want to keep their name as well? I realize there are much greater issues at hand under this dilemma, but this was a concern nonetheless.
My wife was on the fence about this one as she was more concerned with keeping her own identity rather than worrying about the identity of our child which will no doubt develop on its own. Our compromise... the baby will have four names, mine as the last, my wife's as the second last and my wife also decides the middle name, which will undoubtedly be after a member of her family. This way we both feel that we're able to honour the family names we both value so much.
Kevin Hunter | Winnipeg, Manitoba
Interesting column. In Québec, the law changed because of the high divorce rate. Keeping track of a woman’s new name was a nightmare for the government, especially because they changed more often than the average. I think that’s kind of sad.
We’re starting to have the first generation of children with hyphenated surnames (one from the father and one from the mother) having their own kids. How do they pick their surname? Well, there’s a limit of two names in the child’s surname and they have to come from the parents. The government also suggests the possibility of using a surname as a middle name; that way the mother’s surname is still somewhere in the child’s name.
I like your candid perspective and I find it refreshing. Keep up the good work.
Olivier Bridgeman | Montréal, Québec
When I married 14 years ago it was suggested that I keep my surname as a
middle name to make it easier for some future genealogist to track me. My
response was, "Well, if I keep my father's last name, should I not then also
retain my mother's maiden name? But wait, that one is her father's name too.
What about her mother's name? But wait..." There just didn't seem to be any
way to win the "I'm not a man's property" battle through name change, so I
declined. I hope my future biographers will forgive me.
Carolyn Wagner | Edmonton, Alberta
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GEORGIE BINKS
FREELANCE WRITER
Georgie Binks is a freelance writer living in Toronto. She writes for the Toronto Star and National Post, and has written for Chatelaine, Homemakers, Elle, Glow and Style at Home, as well as salon.com. Georgie is a former CBC radio and television reporter and editor. She has been a feminist since she wrote an essay in high school on "The Changing Role of Women in Society" at her mother's suggestion.
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