The Name Game

My Facebook page has been filling up recently with articles about weddings. Not inusual, as it´s now spring, we´re officially in wedding season. Usually this doesn´t interest me much but seeing as i´ve just got married some of the titles have caught my eye, especially those on the topic of name changing.

I understand that changing your name after getting married can be a difficult decision, you´ve had your maiden name for your whole life, it connects you to your parents, brothers and sisters, other family members... But please don´t drop the F-bomb when talking about why you don´t want to take your husband´s name!!

Being a feminist should not be the reason why you don´t want to change your name after marriage. We all know that men don´t own women anymore, and i´m getting tired of the abuse that men get from these so called feminists that can praise a woman for posting a naked photo onto social media, UNLESS said woman is steriotypically beautiful with big boobs and a tiny waist (How stupid was all the Kim Kardashian hate?!)

The poor men of today can not be blamed for what men did in the past, nor can the mayority be blamed for how very few men treat or think of women.

Feminism can not be the excuse. You can not say: "I won´t change my name because I am a feminist and not owned by my husband" because if you feel like that, you could say: "I have to  have a name which is completely unrelated to anyone in my family because I am not owned by anyone"

It´s the exact same thing. Your surname at birth is usually that of your father (and your mother if she changed her name after marriage) so are you owned by him?? NO!!

My personal opinion is that my surname shows which family I belong to, who are the people who I love and who i´m closest to in the entire world, which is why I chose to take my husbands name after we got married, and I didn´t have to, here in Spain women DON´T take their husbands surname after marriage, they keep their own and the children take their first surname (they have two) from their father, and the second from their mother.

This can cause a lot of names like Juan Fernandez Fernandez popping up but it´s the tradition here, such as traditionally in England women take their husbands surname.

Sure, hundreds of years ago it probably was to show possession, but times have changed and I for one am proud to use my husband´s name, we are a family, and when we have children they will take, as is traditional here both surnames, they will have a Spanish one and an English one, something we have discussed as I am quite happy to relinquish my surname and use both of my husbands, but he would like them to have part of their English herritage in their names too.

I completely agree that everyone (women and men included) has the right to choose whether they keep their surname after marriage, or change it and take that of their new husband/wife, or to change it in any other moment of their life. But don´t think badly of your new husband, don´t say you won´t take his name because you are not owned by him, it doesn´t make you sound like a strong and independant woman from a Beyonce song, it makes you sound like a paranoid bully. Men are not the enemy, and if you felt like that you surely wouldn´t have married one in the first place.

Rant over. Sorry feminists...