Surnames Part 4 (of 4): Names and Identity

My friend Melyngoch, who is the recurring motif of this series, intends to keep her last name when and if she gets married. Another friend, Jessica Benet, kept her last name when she got married (but honestly, who'd want to be called Jessicawill?), and if I'm not mistaken, Marcia kept hers too. (Lauryn Hill, who is the recurring motif of this blog and my life, doesn't count because she and Rohan Marley were never legally married. Or maybe she counts even more because that's how much she scoffs at patriarchal society.) No doubt there are several other women I know and respect who chose not to take their husbands' last names or don't intend to do so if they get married. This is not one of those "I respect them despite the fact that..." things; the truth is that I am secretly envious of them. I find the practice quite sound and indeed very cool. Part of me wishes I could be a woman who kept my last name when I got married. As fate and chromosomes would have it, though, I am stuck being a man who kept his last name when he got married, which isn't nearly as cool.

I would not call myself a feminist, as I am not educated enough in the history and theories of the movement(s) to deserve the title, but I would not hesitate to call myself a wannabe feminist, insofar as feminism strives for gender equality. In the name of gender equality, then, I'm all for women and men having their own last names.

At the same time, though, I see the practical and symbolic advantage of two married partners sharing the same last name. On the practical side, you have the ease of only having to remember one name for the entire family, and the space-saving considerations on post cards. And let's not forget the children: if the first generation has to deal with two last names (Fob-J), the second will have to deal with four (Fob-J-Steed-Thmazing) and the third with eight, and so on. As for the symbolic advantage of having a single name, there's something to be said for family unity, for two individuals becoming one flesh.

The problem is that tradition asks that the one flesh represented by that single last name be that of the husband's, which is clearly unfair. Perhaps the solution is to take the wife's name as the family name. But how is that any better? Replacing one unfair binary (male over female) with another (female over male) is not progress; it's revenge.

I like the course taken by Silly Marie's brother and sister-in-law, who have each taken the other's last name, making a hyphenated family name. But then this takes us back to the problem of that great-great-grandkid with sixteen last names (thirty-two when she marries).

There's always the example of Theric and Lady Steed, who have merged their blogonyms to create a single fictional surname, Thteed, but that is not always practical in reality, and then there's the issue of genealogical continuity and extended family unity. On the other hand, it's not like I feel any less connected to my sisters who have a different last name, either by birth or marriage, than to my brother who shares my last name.

Ultimately, a name is a name is a name. I care less about what you call yourself than about who you are. Which, I believe, is what FoxyJ was thinking when she decided to take my last name. If you're concerned about her identity being consumed in mine, take a look at her blog, where she has talked about being the wife of a gay man in maybe eight to ten posts out of 276, compared to my blog, where I talk about being a married gay man in about one out of every eight posts. FoxyJ's identity is defined not by her husband's identity but by her interest in books, current events, and social criticism; her struggle with the conflicting demands of academia and motherhood; by a capacity for strong emotion and the intellectual capability to step back from those emotions and analyze them critically; and by the love she has for the people in her life. Call her FoxyJ Fob, Jessie Christensen, or Faye Frome; she's the same person. If either of our identities has been radically altered by our marriage, it's mine, and it's for the better.

And it's nice to know that, should we ever decide that it was a bad idea to put our name out on the internet and on Fox13 News and in the Salt Lake Tribune, we can always fall back on hers. So if Master Fob mysteriously drops off the map some day, don't dismay; just look for Master J at the Jcave.