Are You Taking His Last Name?

I got engaged in 2017, so all-things-wedding pretty much consumed my life over the next year. One of the most reoccurring marriage topics was one that I would’ve never thought twice about before becoming engaged.

Changing my last name.

Not only was I caught off guard by the number of women who asked if I was planning to change my name, I noticed more and more newlyweds around me who had not done so.

One woman said she just hadn’t gotten around to it.

Another liked her maiden name and decided to keep it.

And yet another had travel plans and didn’t want the hassle of changing her passport.

My younger self may have rolled her eyes at these women going against the grain, but the 27-year-old me who was suddenly hit with the reality that her world and part of her identity was forever about to change wasn’t so quick to dismiss their actions.

Did I really want to change my last name? People questioned this name thing so much that it led me to question myself. And, sadly, I quickly realized that the confusing answers I usually offered others reflected what was happening inside me.

I didn’t know if I wanted to change my last name; I just knew it was what married women did. There was no question around it: taking your husband’s name was simply expected.

And I soon discovered that many people believed this. Both men and women offered similar opinions whenever I brought up whether a woman has to take her husband’s last name:

Well, it’s biblical.

Millennials are just being rebellious. It’s tradition.

No one wants to see all these hyphenated, confusing last names. Just take his name.

It disrupts the family unit if the mother has a different last name.

Y’all are becoming one. You can’t hold onto your old identity and try to keep your old name.

And every opinion I encountered had a very subtle yet clear tone: judgment.

Though most won’t say it outright, most people will side eye an engaged or married woman who questions changing her last name.

But, what I find interesting is that those same folks won’t question the tradition and its roots.

Under the 9th Century English common law, or doctrine of coverture, a woman was considered the property of her husband. Women couldn’t even own property, among other rights that were restricted under this law. So, a woman started as the property of her father (and of course had his last name), and once married, legally became the property of her husband and was required to adopt his last name.

Last names, or surnames, started in England as a way of distinguishing people who had the same given (first) names, such as multiple Johns or Elizabeths.

If we dig even deeper to biblical times, we will see that the bible never uses last names. People were always referenced by their given name, family, or hometown. For example, David, son of Jesse; the house of Boaz; or Jesus of Nazareth.

And let’s take it one step further to the very first marriage in history between Adam and Eve.

Genesis 1:26-27 says:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness… So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Verse 28 goes onto explain how God told man to be fruitful, multiply, and have dominion.

God made men and women in His image and likeness. He never designed for marriage to resemble slavery where a husband owns his wife as property. They are supposed to be equals.

Obviously, many things have changed over the years and laws treating married women as property no longer exist. So, wouldn’t it make sense that practices stemming from such laws would change as well? Even more so, practices that aren’t rooted in traditions we truly support?

A good pastor friend of mine just spoke about this; he said we are repeating patterns that we don’t even fully understand, and I couldn’t agree more.

Our world is definitely changing: women are increasingly deciding to keep their maiden names though the majority of Americans still believe a woman should change her last name. Some use hyphens while others have created a completely new last name.

As a Christian, married woman, I believe the right choice is whatever the wife and husband decide.

Whether the question is to get married, have children, or change a last name, everyone should take the time to fully understand why they believe what they believe so that they can make informed decisions.

Call it unconventional, but every tradition wasn’t meant to be passed down.