Last week, as a result of a brief comment I made at the end of my Diana Blaine post, we wandered into the thorny discussion of whether or not a real feminist can take her husband’s last name when she marries.  When the comments seemed in danger of derailing the main topic of the post, I begged folks to hold their fire until I could put up a post specifically devoted to the subject.

Here’s what got me going. In the comments section below Bitch Ph.D’s post on the subject of Diana’s blog, a "dr. igloo" writes:

…I personally find her feminist street cred slightly tarnished by the fact that she has apparently taken her husband’s last name. Is there really a credible feminist defense of this practice?

Now, let me lay my cards on the table.  When my wife and I married last September, she chose to take my last name.  Though I have been married three times before, none of my previous wives took my last name.  Thus, I’ve got an interesting personal perspective on the issue, as well as an academic one as a woman’s studies prof.

Let me be clear I did not ask any of my wives, ever, to take my last name.  My first three all told me they did not wish to become "Mrs. Schwyzer".  Two gave traditionally feminist reasons; my first wife by objecting to what she saw as the overt sexism of the practice, the third by noting that she had already published under her maiden name and wanted all of her future professional work to be under that name.  And still another, my second wife, was more blunt: she would have taken my name, except she thought it rather ugly.  Hers was easy to pronounce; Schwyzer is always mangled.  (FYI, folks, it’s pronounced "Schwitzer" not "Schweizer")  She even suggested I change my name to my mother’s maiden name (Moore) as it would be more euphonious!

In the first two cases, I offered to take their last names — and was turned down flat.

I don’t blog much about the woman to whom I am now married.  This marriage is so unlike any of the others!  I am happy and content and challenged in ways I’m not sure I could describe even if I were willing to share more details of our home life (which I’m not).  And though it is not by any means an essential part of our relationship, I am moved and delighted by the fact that my wife took my last name when we wed last year.   Perhaps for excellent reasons, I always sensed that none of my previous wives fully trusted me.  It’s deeply unfeminist of me to acknowledge this, I realize, but I couldn’t help but interpret their reluctance to take my name as a symbol of a lack of complete commitment to our marriage.  In the same way, I am awed and moved by the fact that she to whom I am now married did take my name.  I would never in a million years have asked her to do so, but I cannot deny my unmitigated delight that she did.   

One essential article on this topic is "What’s Your Name" by the splendid husband-wife team of Amy and Leon Kass.  Many of my feminist friends, perhaps justifiably, are exasperated when I say that this line from that article rings absolutely true to me, based on my considerable experience:

A woman who refuses this gift (the husband’s name) is, whether she knows it or not, tacitly refusing the promised devotion or, worse, expressing her suspicions about her groom’s trustworthiness as a husband and prospective father.

Kass and Kass offer a thumbnail sketch of the history of last names that is very helpful.  It’s hard to argue that a woman taking her husband’s name is an ancient tool of the patriarchy when we understand that most Europeans didn’t have last names until the sixteenth century!  The "tradition" of a woman taking her husband’s last name and entirely giving up her own is largely an English one (the Hispanic tradition is different), and it is less than half a millenium old.

The Kasses argue that there’s a sound reason for wanting to have a shared name:

If marriage is, as we believe, a new estate, in fact changing the identities of both partners, there is good reason to have this changed identity reflected in some change of surname, one that reflects and announces this fact. If marriage, though entered into voluntarily, is in its inner meaning more than a contract between interested parties but rather a union made in expectation of permanence and a union open (as no simple contract of individuals can be) to the possibility of procreation, there is good reason to have the commitment to lifelong union reflected and announced in a common name that symbolizes and celebrates its special meaning.

One could, of course, make up a new name — L.A.’s splendid Antonio Villaraigosa (born Antonio Villar) and his wife (once Connie Raigosa) offers a fine example.  But should we do this every generation, thus ensuring that there will be little if any continuity between a child and its grandparents?  What hell this would be for genealogists!  One could also hyphenate.  But what do two already hyphenated children do when they get ready to marry?  What happens when Megan Callaghan-Ramenofsky wants to marry Woodrow Ramirez-Thanatopoulous?  Someone’s heritage will have to give, or the name will soon not fit on any documents.  If both parents keep their own name, whose surname attaches to their offspring?  Is it in the best interest of a kid to grow up knowing that one parent shares his or her last name, but one doesn’t?   

Just on grounds of practicality alone, having one last name makes a lot of sense.  Of course, why not have the husband take the wife’s last name?  The Kasses offer an answer:

Although we know from modern biology the equal contributions both parents make to the genetic identity of a child, it is still true to say that the mother is the "more natural" parent, that is, the parent by birth. A woman can give up a child for adoption or, thanks to modern reproductive technologies, can even bear a child not genetically her own. But there is no way to deny out of whose body the new life sprung, whose substance it fed on, who labored to produce it, who wondrously bore it forth. The father’s role in all this is minuscule and invisible; in contrast to the mother, there is no naturally manifest way to demonstrate his responsibility. (bold emphasis is Hugo’s).

The father is thus a parent more by choice and agreement than by nature (and not only because he cannot know with absolute certainty that the woman’s child is indeed his own). One can thus explain the giving of the paternal surname in the following way: the father symbolically announces "his choice" that the child is his, fully and freely accepting responsibility for its conception and, more importantly, for its protection and support…

The husband who gives his name to his bride in marriage is thus not just keeping his own; he is owning up to what it means to have been given a family and a family name by his own father-he is living out his destiny to be a father by saying yes to it in advance. And the wife does not so much surrender her name as she accepts the gift of his, given and received as a pledge of (among other things) loyal and responsible fatherhood for her children.

Patrilineal surnames are, in truth, less a sign of paternal prerogative than of paternal duty and professed commitment, reinforced psychologically by gratifying the father’s vanity in the perpetuation of his name and by offering this nominal incentive to do his duty both to mother and child. Such human speech and naming enables the father explicitly to choose to become the parent-by-choice that he, more than the mother, must necessarily be.

I find the case the Kasses make to be powerful and compellling.  And it’s true that whether I ought to or not, I do feel a greater sense of responsibility and commitment towards my wife because she shares my last name.  My wife is a well-educated professional; she is, in every meaningful sense of the word, an authentic feminist.  That she so fully trusts me as to take my name is an awe-inspiring challenge to me — every day, I feel called to be worthy of her choice in  a way that I did not with my former wives.

Those in charge of issuing them might well consider this the last straw, and pull my already questionable feminist credentials.  But please understand that I am not unaware of the complexity of the issue!  Please know that I deeply respect those women who do choose to keep their surnames, or those couples who choose to hyphenate!  I know many marriages that thrive with two different surnames.   I’m glad that it was my wife’s choice to take my name, and that she did so happily and without pressure from me or those around her.  (Indeed, she’s taken more flack for having become Mrs. Schwyzer than she ever would have had she kept her father’s name.) 

Feminists are often critical of odes to "choice."  As we’ve all pointed out, folks make choices that they think are socially appropriate.  Women who choose breast implants are making a choice, but it’s a choice conditioned by a relatively recent social message that feminists consider destructive.  Some would argue that women who choose to take their husband’s last name are making the same sort of choice as those women who pose for porn or undergo cosmetic surgery do — a choice compelled by financial necessity or a desire to conform isn’t really a choice, is it?  I know in my wife’s case that she felt little compunction to conform to anything — but I cannot claim that all women who choose as she did choose as freely.

UPDATE:

As I’ve been mentioning below, it’s entirely possible that the Kass article strikes me as so insightful and compelling precisely because it jives with my emotions.  And please take seriously what I’ve said in my penultimate paragraph — I think that there are many possible feminist responses to the question of surnames, all of them equally valid for the couples involved.

My sense of joy at my wife’s decision to take Schwyzer was very closely linked to my own troubled marital history.   How much of my response was male acculturation, and how much was Hugo getting a clear signal that this marriage was going to be radically different thant the first three?  I don’t know.

Folks, remember — some blog to express conclusions at which they have already arrived, and others (including me) blog in the hopes of coming to a conclusion through the process itself.

UPDATE Two:  Trying to convey my point more effectively, I’ve struck out what I don’t think was helpful from the post.  I’m leaving it there for folks to see, but think the post works better as the shorter, more personal, less universalizing piece that is left after this editing.