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More men taking their wives' last names
Filed under: Just For Moms, Just For Dads, In The News, Sex
When I married the first time, I was quite young and didn't think twice about taking my husband's last name as my own. That's what a woman does when she marries, right? But when I married again nearly 20 years later, I didn't even consider taking my new husband's name. Well, maybe I considered it. But after realizing that he didn't care what I called myself, I knew that I would always and forever be a Maple. What we didn't discuss during those pre-marital negotiations was him taking my last name.
I don't think he would have done it even if I had suggested it, but there are men who would - and do - happily change their last names to that of their wives. There are no real statistics on the subject, but anecdotal evidence suggests that this might even be a trend. And while this trend my seem terribly modern to some, it was actually not uncommon in 14th and 15th century England for men to take their wives' last names if hers was more prominent.
These days, I imagine a man would have a better reason than popularity to exchange the name he was born with for his wife's. Maybe hers is easier to pronounce. Maybe a hyphenated version of both their names would be long and awkward. Or maybe he just likes her name better. I understand why couples want to have the same last name - to show they are united as a family and for the sake of the children. But I see no reason why it must be his last name. Do you?
I don't think he would have done it even if I had suggested it, but there are men who would - and do - happily change their last names to that of their wives. There are no real statistics on the subject, but anecdotal evidence suggests that this might even be a trend. And while this trend my seem terribly modern to some, it was actually not uncommon in 14th and 15th century England for men to take their wives' last names if hers was more prominent.
These days, I imagine a man would have a better reason than popularity to exchange the name he was born with for his wife's. Maybe hers is easier to pronounce. Maybe a hyphenated version of both their names would be long and awkward. Or maybe he just likes her name better. I understand why couples want to have the same last name - to show they are united as a family and for the sake of the children. But I see no reason why it must be his last name. Do you?












ReaderComments (Page 3 of 3)
10-07-2008 @ 11:33PM
aerobabs said...That's freakin' hilarious.
"All my ex-wives took my last name."
Proof positive that taking a man's last name solids up the relationship, no?
10-07-2008 @ 11:29PM
aerobabs said...Wow.
You're nuts.
I'm a whore because I didn't take my husband's last name? And my daughter will be too? That's a bit of a leap, don't you think?
You're obviously angry. I get that. Let's try to direct that anger into something a bit more constructive, eh? Because that rant was incredibly offensive, and someone who uses such language and is filled with such hate has no right judging ANYONE else.
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10-08-2008 @ 12:09AM
WARREN GARRISON said...damn right I'm angry. Once again, when you consider the % of young women that will pull their tops up and show their tits, drop their drawers and show their ass or spread their legs then unless you live in a cave or have your head up your ass, which I can imagine you just might have, then you'd realize that we're in a moral dilemma that is destroying us so yea, I"m pretty upset and indignant about it. Watch any program where kids are on it and an adult ask the little bastard a question, NEVER do you hear a yes sir or no sir because you damn liberals have no respect so you teach no respect. But listen to that kid answer the adult, "yeah", everything is "YEAH". Your kids are beating the hell out of one another, beating the hell and even killing homeless people, destroying property, f'ckn like dogs out of control. And you think that I'm going to be able to go into a business, a company, a bank, an institution, a government facility and deal with one of these immoral individuals and get a fair shake, HELL NO!! You can't expect a fair decision from a godless individual and Liberals are turning them out at an alarming rate. Such a horrible rate that I would vote to neuter and spade Liberals.
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10-08-2008 @ 12:22AM
warren garrison said...YES DEAR, WHATEVER YOU SAY DEAR, HOW HIGH DID YOU SAY JUMP DEAR, WILL THAT BE ALL DEAR? CAN YOU BORROW MY JOCK STRAP TO KEEP YOUR BALLS IN? SURE DEAR I DON'T NEED IT ANYMORE SINCE YOU HAD ME CASTRATED, THANK YOU DEAR, I DIDN'T NEED THEM ANYWAY SINCE YOU'RE THE MAN OF THE HOUSE. 95% of you women are an oozing sore to this world, to marriage, to the home and it's sad. Many a man needs to be horsewhipped for ignoring his family and spending time at the bar, at the track, at the office screwing his secretary and many a home was held together by a good woman who loved her family more than herself, but those are rare anymore. You've turned into a bunch of self centered, self absorbed pigs who as I said earlier follow those 4 whores on "Sluts In The City", geeze, what pathetic examples they are you women are following them and your daughters are following you. lll
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10-08-2008 @ 9:30AM
aerobabs said..."You've turned into a bunch of self centered, self absorbed pigs who as I said earlier follow those 4 whores on "Sluts In The City", geeze, what pathetic examples they are you women are following them and your daughters are following you. lll"
Think we learned that from YOU. Men have been taking advantage of women for decades. How many violent crimes are perpetrated by women? Murder? Rape?
You, sir, are lumping all women together and making VAST and sweeping statements. I can tell you that *I* have never raised my top for a camera. But I will also tell you this - what women in this world are doing PALES in comparison to what MEN are doing, and have been for centuries - maybe millenia. Perhaps you would like us better if we all covered our faces and hair as they do in the middle east, and knew our place better, and worshipped the ground men walked on, and serviced them at their leisure.
But as a women, I can tell you, never me. And never my daughter. Who, by the way, DOES say please and thank you and is quite polite. Guess she must be the only one left.
Ever consider the fact that your crappy attitude is why people all around you treat you badly? Maybe if you could muster a little more politeness and compassion, people would treat you with a bit more respect. Because you have to give respect to get it, and you obviously have no respect for women of any kind. Except, I guess for that 1% of 1%. But I can tell you that THEY would avoid you like the plague. I know *I'd* keep my kids away from someone like you if I could. I just hope I see you coming.
People like you, judgemental, ignorant people who have already decided what a person is like before they even converse with them, and make sweeping generalizations about entire generations, YOU are what is ruining this country.
And, BTW, I'm no liberal. But YOU make conservatives look like asses.
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10-08-2008 @ 2:49PM
warren garrison said...thank you for your response and good for you if you aren't in that vast majority, but it is a VAST MAJORITY and growing of women who have abandoned their families, home, marriage, children for a career or happy hour in an effort to aligne themselves with the mistakes that men have made. Women who have absolutely no thread of morality, integrity or character. Back in the day it was the one or 2 girls that had the bad rep in school and the few boys that were hell bent on being desperados but now the tables have turned and of course we can thank MTV, and so many other programs like that which kids have patterned themselves after. Some people are upset about global warming as I said, some are incensed about the killing of whales, others are up in arms about the destruction of the Amazon rain forest and actually I am one of all of those people BUT, I'm sick and tired of women with this attitude of "ANYTHING YOU CAN DO I CAN DO BETTER", because it isn't going to work and that isn't the way it was designed. I lived in a ghost town for awhile as I restored it and Southern Pacific lines were only 100 feet away. There was a siding so that the non priority train could pull over and let the priority train go by. Way too often as the train that had stopped would try and get going again, because it was such a bad spot they would bust a knuckle. It was the "labor union's" order that the guy on the caboose changed the coupling out and they weighed like 75-80 pounds, maybe more. Women fought and fought and fought to get that job on the caboose, finally it was allowed but then because a woman couldn't pick up this coupling and carry it 1/4 of a mile they had to bring a man 140 miles out from Tucson to do her job. Of course the DYKYES coming on now could carry a 200 pound coupling 2 miles, but again, this isn't the way it's supposed to be. Ok, let's see if you can get this or any or the others reading this. We go back to the primitive days and you women had rebelled then, you've turned all the dads into Mr. Moms, they're sitting around chewing on the deer hides to make them soft and giving them a flask of milk that you squirted out of your tit to give to the kids before you left for the hunt. Your little group of lesbo wanna be's heads off, you've put that man in his place and given him his orders for the day. You all go out there, you tackle a grizzly or mammoth or whatever that's more than you can handle and it kills allllllllllllllllllll of your asses. Now we have a camp of nothing but men which of course the homo's would love but these men left aren't into that as yet. The question is, who carries on the tribe, the group, the family? And even though you aren't going to be able to understand that analogy and compare it with today since there are no Mammoths or grizzlies or deer hides to chew, you won't be able to understand the basic laws of nature that God laid down for the good of the family. I know that most women probably just puke when they see a female animal grooming the male and if they could get through to them they would probably say "hey, you stop that, let the old bastard groom himself. Stop showing him that attention". Men and women have different make ups and men are guilty of not showing that sensitivity to women when they need it, and women are horribly guilty of not giving their man that praise that men need and it's getting worse all the time. For me to sit on the sofa and order my wife to "get me a beer" isn't the way to go, but to KNOW that she would if I asked, is quite comforting and reassuring. For a wife to get up and clear the table and KNOW that if she asked her husband to help her with the dishes is quite comforting and reassuring and he probably should even if she didn't ask if he hadn't had a day like my dad so many times as a plumber coming in just drenched, hands torn up from his work after a 12 hour day under a house. You've never met anyone like me and there are few out there like me that can take both sides, but right now I'm on the womans ass because I CANNOT do a search on my music, for desert plants, NOTHING that somehow the porno people don't manage to slip in a link and one compeletely destroyed my hard drive a few months back and their materials is the young girls of this generation that have, again, the morals of a damn rabid dog. Here this little Miley Cyrus has it all, voice, acting, TV show but that isn't enough, little slut has to get online, post pics of her as close to being nekked as she can get and show the guys what they can get if they date her, and what all the others are missing if they don't. This little Hodge girl with Disney, it's one thing to be playing around and take a pic of yourself nude, but then to send it to a guy with the attitude of "fuc me", ANY PARENT that would continue supporting Disney should be shot. It was crazy enough to see little girls going bananas over the Beatles and other groups and it was crazy enough to know that grown women were throwing their underwear at Tom Jones, but we've moved into a new era of Immorality that is going to destroy us and instead of coming back at me and bashing me as a conservative, you need to get your head out of your butt and realize just how bad this really is. And oh, while we're at it and completely off the subject, check out YOUTUBE and do a search on OBAMA and see the scarey devotion and allegiance groups are having towards this man, it is so similiar to the allegiance that kids had towards Hitler.
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10-08-2008 @ 2:55PM
warren garrison said...and why the hell was there a quandry? DUH, who the hell got you pregnant? I really shouldn't even come in here and be constantly confirmed that people are just basically nuts and this board supports that more than just about any.
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10-09-2008 @ 1:56AM
johnmayo said...I agree and women changing their last names to their husbands is a tradition. A man gets married and has kids 2 keep the male family name alive
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10-09-2008 @ 2:02AM
johnmayo said...I agree and women changing their last names to their husbands is a tradition. A man gets married and has kids 2 keep the male family name alive
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10-09-2008 @ 6:21PM
k said...My last name is Livingood....why would I ever change my name to something meaningless or common??? I LOVE !
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10-09-2008 @ 6:25PM
Kimberly said...When my great grandparents got married in 1912... he took her last name then. She was nurse at a hospital and my grandfather had been abandonded by his birth mother, My great grandmother stepped in and wanted to adopt him but she was single so she married her 'beau' and when they did he took her last name. So in my family it was always a question of why cant a man take his wife's last name. never been an issuse. Now many couples just hyphon the names i.e. John Smith-Jones. A name is not what connects a family its the love and support you get. By the way to day we do not know what our last name should have been nor do we care : )
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10-15-2008 @ 8:46PM
Rebecca said...My fiance and I will be probably both be changing our last names when we marry. He and his father do not get along (his father is unstable), but he and his father share the same name, both first and last. My last name is plain and often mispelled. So we have agreed to choose a name that we both like either from one of our ancestries or just out of our heads. This way, we will end up with something we both love!
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11-01-2008 @ 2:58AM
Kathryn K. said...I think that people should come to their own preferences and do what they feel is best for their OWN family......
Whatever choices they make, they will have their own issues (if any) to deal with.
Why is it that some people feel as though they need to push their views on others?
I do what's best for me, and eff what everyone else thinks. It's my life, not theirs.......
Live and let live......duh!
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