Perks of Having a Penis: You get to keep your name

Upon returning to school after Christmas break, I discovered several of my friends had become engaged. It got me thinking "Will I take my husband's name?"

As a child, I always planned to - cause I never knew anything different.

In high school, of course I did (!) - because that is what you did: doodle your name with the last name of every crush you had. In high school, I not only doodled the name but planned the wedding to my high school sweetheart.

Oh yea, I failed to mention, he became engaged over break as well; weird. Now, I can rest assured I will never take his last name.

But will I take the name of the guy I do end up marrying?

Why does anyone take a husband's last name?

I recently read an article by Lynn Harris called "Mrs. Feminist." According to Harris, 90% of women take their husband's name, though this was lower in the 1980s after the second wave of the feminist movement.

So why do women take a husband's name? Not because they are conservative, Patriarchal-obeying, oblivious idiots. I can assure you.

Some reasons listed in the article included: their husband's last name simply sounded better than theirs, they wanted to, it would be easier for the kids, it was the norm, it promoted more of a family feeling.

Similarly, women who chose to keept their names were not all doing it as a political act. Some simply liked theirs better or feared an identity crisis or were known publicly by their maiden name.

Just for clarification, if you think about it, your maiden name is really a man's name anyways. If by not taking your husband's name you think it will spare you the title of a man's possession or it will prevent the loss of your personal feminine identity, I hate to break it to you but your maiden name technically represents you as belonging to your father.

BUT, this was not always the case.

Up until the middle ages when women began to lose their rights to own property, gentry had trumped gender as Harris points out. A.K.A. if your mom had more money or fame or property than your dad, the maternal line would be the family name and it was given to the children. But, soon the paternal line began to dominate regardless, once the courts created the idea of "coverture" (a male and female become one entity in the eyes of the law - that entity is male and he has all rights of the property, children, and wife).

The first women believed to have bucked that system was Lucy Stone in 1879 when she tried to keep her own name. According to Harris, when she went before the courts claiming that there was no law requiring her to take her husband's name, they drafted one.

Harris also points out that until the 1970s, US laws required women to take their husband's name in order to vote or get a driver's license!?!

But, not all women - myself included - view taking your husband's name as a bad thing. It is not necessarily losing your identity and becoming a "Mr. Him" as Lynn calls it, but instead it can be positive:

"for some women now, it's an assumption, rather than a loss, of power -- shared power. 'Instead of feeling like I 'belong' to my husband now that I have his last name, I feel like we are on equal footing,' says Amy Owings, 34, a executive assistant in Overland Park, Kan. 'We are both Owings, so now I claim him as much as he claims me.'"

But, basically, I believe it boils down to a choice. Harris shares this in her article:

"And the Lucy Stone League, an organization dedicated to fostering equality in United States naming practices, has a point when it says: 'Until naming practices are equal, women will not be considered equal to men in the U.S.'"

Is this true?

Would your future husband ever consider taking your name?

Are you considering not taking his?

Will you after reading this?