I had a conversation with a recent newlywed who shared with me the struggle she had in deciding whether she should take her husband’s name. She spoke of identity, and an important case can be made for that. According to the dictionary, one of the definitions for identity is the sense of self. We grew up saying, “Yes, that is me” to the mention of our names and perhaps associating the history of our names to how we feel about ourselves as individuals. Our names are a part of us, a part of what makes us who we are. And suddenly, because we’ve accepted someone into our lives through the words “I do”, we as women are told that that person we were all of our lives has to now assume a new identity. In fact, it’s been a long-standing tradition that when the bride and groom are introduced as man and wife (not husband and wife) for the first time, it’s usually Mr. and Mrs. and the groom’s full name. That’s what happened at my own wedding only a few years ago. What happened to at least my first name? My name didn’t matter in that moment because I was now his wife. In a manner of speaking, my name was pushed aside when I chose to say the words, “I do.”
Is there truly a loss of identity? If one really thinks about it, what does the actual word “Mrs.” mean? Does it allude to the idea of possession– that once we are married, our husbands own us? Again, I turn to my trusty dictionary, which defines the word Mrs. as a title of respect prefixed to the surname or full name of a married woman. A title of respect. Does this mean a married woman who does not use this prefix with her husband’s name to represent herself has lost the respect of society? Does it mean that single women have traditionally not earned a title of respect because they did not officially “belong” to a man? Maybe I’m just taking this interpretation too far. Where does the word Mrs. come from anyway? Is it another title created by a patriarchal society meant to keep women in their place? (The dictionary claims that Mrs. is an abbreviation of mistress and we’ll need a whole other post to discuss that definition and everything it implies.) This is one of the reasons why so many women do make the choice to either hyphenate their names or to simply keep their maiden names. Why should we have to change something we hold dear for a tradition that is very slowly fading away?
When I had that conversation with the recent newlywed and expressed my own hesitation to change my name, I began to wonder: how many other new wives out there actually do struggle with the name change? Before I got married, this was never even a thought of mine. I simply knew it as tradition— a way of life for so many women within so many cultures. I only started questioning the tradition upon considering my own name change.
I have a very distinct memory of me standing with my father outside of our home in Hollis, Queens when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I remember telling him that when I get married, I don’t want to change my name because I find my name to be quite beautiful. Marie-Catheline Jean-François. I couldn’t imagine that Marie-Catheline would sound just as beautiful with any other last name. My father looked to the ground, thoughtfully considered my statement, and, with his hand around my shoulder, told me that I might change my mind when I’m older and that I’d probably have to discuss it with the man I choose to marry. He didn’t say anything about tradition or the need to make my future husband happy by taking his name. Although I’ve always respected his pragmatic response, after all these years, I still hold on to my desire to keep my name after marriage.
The beauty of my name is not the sole reason why I want to hold onto my last name. Somewhere in my twenties, I started to really understand what my name meant to me. My father is the most important man I had ever had in my life and I would love to honor his memory by keeping his name. But my name means something to me. People tell me, “Oh! What a beautiful name! Are you French?” And I proudly respond, “I’m Haitian.” Yes, I understand that I can still be proud of where I’m from without anyone questioning me about my name. And a part of me tells me, okay, you’ve been proud of your name for forty-something years, now start being proud of the fact that you are Mrs._____. But again, it goes back to understanding how one feels about one’s own identity.
It goes without saying that a woman who chooses to follow tradition and take her husband’s name is not erasing who she was before she married. She might simply embrace every single part of her name, each one adding to the unique person that she was and who she is now. And for the woman who chooses, like I did, to keep her maiden name and not add her husband’s to it, well I think there’s something powerful in that as well.
The bottom line is that there’s power in the choice. I don’t know if much choice was involved in this tradition for many women. But I do know that in this day and age, more and more women have decided to hold onto their maiden names. There’s power in a woman’s decision to embrace her husband’s name and there’s also power in the choice to keep her maiden name and everything that implies for her. Either decision, no matter what, should be regarded as its own title of respect.