A Woman By Any Other Name.....

While at a bar last night, my group of friends and I were randomly chatting with a couple of guys, and through the course of the conversation, one of the young men indicated that he was from Hyden.  I shared that I, too, hail from Hyden, so he asked me my name.  I then had to say, “Well, my name is Tami and my maiden name was ____________”

As a feminist, I’m a staunch supporter of women keeping their own surname when they marry.  Despite this, I changed my name when I married 15 years ago.  In my case, personal politics trumped gender politics.  I didn’t like my family of origin, so taking on my husband’s surname was an opportunity for a new identity and a clean slate.  The fact that I continued to like my husband more than my family of origin is also the reason I kept his name when we divorced 5 years ago. 

I feel confident in stating, though, that I will never change my name again.

Any woman who has married and changed her surname knows what a hassle it is.  Your name is your identity, and everything attached to you has to be changed.  If you’re a professional, it gets even more complicated - you may have a professional identity that doesn’t match the degree that qualified you for that career. Fortunately, I married as a teenager, so everything I’ve accomplished as an adult is under my current last name – all of my degrees, licensures, certifications.  Since the median age at first marriage for women is 26, most women aren't as fortunate as I am.  

Changing your name when you marry is kind of like entering the witness protection program.  Have you ever tried to find an old female friend?  It can be nearly impossible.  “Well, when I knew her back in the day, her name was ____________, but I don’t know if she’s been married, or how many times she’s been married.”  This has also created difficulty in how I address former teachers that I’ve reconnected with.  As I stated in an earlier post, I have a hard time as an adult calling former teachers by their first names, but many of them that I have reconnected with have married or re-married, so addressing them by their current surname feels wrong, too, and it would be offensive to reference them by an ex-husband’s surname.

I get the appeal of changing your name.  There’s tradition, and there’s also something romantic about saying, “I love you so much that I plan on being with you until I die.  I’m going to take your name so the whole world knows I’m yours!”  But, the fact is, til death do us part just isn’t that likely anymore.  Let’s take feminism off the table and just talk about the name issue in practical terms. 

In the 19th century, staying married until death was much easier, for at least a couple of reasons.  One, getting a divorce was extremely difficult, especially for women.  Two, life expectancy in the United States in the mid-19th century was 40 years.  I mean, really, it's not that hard to keep a commitment until your 40.  Life expectancy has doubled in the past 150 years, with current life expectancy at 78.5 years.  I love my partner immensely, but there's a distinct possibility that I'll want to smother her in her sleep sometime in the next 45 years.

Divorce is simply more likely to happen than it used to be.  The combination of increased life expectancy and increased likelihood of divorce also increases the likelihood of remarriage.  This means multiple identity changes for women over the lifespan.  According to U.S. Census data, 15% of Americans over the age of 15 have married at least twice.  In the U.S., 5% of women currently married have been married three or more times, and in Kentucky, 7% of women who are married have been married three or more times.   

With all of these changes in identity, is it really any wonder that women are twice as likely as men to have a serious mental illness?  Women are 70% more likely than men to experience major depressive disorder during their lifetimes, and 60% more likely to experience anxiety disorders than men.  It's nearly impossible to maintain psychological health and balance when your identity is in flux.  As women, can we just agree that changing your surname when you get married has outlived any usefulness it may have once had?