Does getting married completely change your identity?
How about having kids?
Based on some of society’s traditions – like what happens to your last when you get married particularly as a woman – it sure seems like people assume the answer is “yes” (i.e. even some of our close friends assumed that when Andy and I got married, overnight, my identity changed from Cynthia Chang to Mrs. Cynthia Porter – or better yet… Mrs. Andy Porter!).
But societal assumptions like those around how your identity changes with marriage are exactly those that Andy and I aren’t willing to blindly make without first doing some questioning.
When Andy and I got engaged 5 years ago, we considered all the options around what to do with our last names, talking through what each meant to us as individuals and as a couple.
- My taking his last name?
Before getting married, I spent 3 decades as Cynthia Chang. It’s who I am. It’s who I know myself as. And it’s who others know me as, not to mention that I’ve worked hard to establish my professional brand as Cynthia Chang.
Plus, this is the 21st century. Families don’t need to marry off their daughters, pay a dowry to have a man’s family take them on as their burden, and send them away on a donkey cart!
- His taking my last name?
To play devil’s advocate, I asked Andy if he’d be willing to change his name and take mine. The answer was no – interestingly for many of the same reasons I stated above (except maybe the thing about the donkey cart!).
- Hyphenating our last names?
Too complicated for us! We like to keep things clean and simple and prefer to spare our child the inevitable headache-inducing decision-making around what to do with her last name if she decides to marry someone in the future.
- Combining our last names to come up with a new one?
This was appealing to us. Neither of us would be giving up who we are, but rather would be embracing a new family identity that we would be responsible for crafting. Nice idea, right? We tried to come up with something that made sense, but the best we could come up with was “Pootang”… a little too reminiscent of the late 1990’s rap group, the Wu-Tang Clan. Kind of awesome, but we could never live with torturing our kid like that!
- Keeping our own last names?
This is the option we went with. I chose not to take my husband’s last name – not because I don’t love him or because I’m anything short of ecstatic to be part of his family. When it comes to keeping my own name, I could make the feminist argument. I could also make the ethnic identity one.
But at the end of the day, how I decided to keep my name the same it has been for over 30 years boiled down to something really simple.
I think about getting married as enhancing – rather than changing – the person I am.
This is the kind of stuff that this blog is all about. We all have choices to make in our lives – whether it’s about marriage, parenting, work, family, or otherwise. And whether difficult or seemingly trivial, Andy and I like to be thoughtful about these choices, talk about the options, and have a rationale for whatever choice we end up making.
As you can imagine, conversations about our kid’s name are well underway. More to come on that soon…
I struggled so much with this when I got married as well and love this conversation. Especially your perspective on “enhancing” the woman you are — so, so true!
So much of my decision (I did eventually change my last name to my partner’s last name once I started graduate school) was based on my desire to have a “family name” and an identical last name as my child. It made it easier to do the switcheroo with my future family/child in mind.
With baby on the way, I’m still satisfied and happy with the decision but nonetheless have occasional twinges of regret and doubt. Mostly when I receive those “Mr. and Mrs. Carl Ritchie” invitations in the mail. Barf.
At the end of the day, we should all be thankful for choice.
Totally agree! I’m still grappling with how to balance the desire to have a shared family name vs. wanting to stay true to my own identity.
I can so relate! I love my hubby, and always just assumed that I’d take his last name and never really thought twice about. Signing the paperwork to make it official almost made me cry. Although my firstname is somewhat common, my maiden name is extremely unique. Although it was annoying to have to spell it out for people or to hear how people try to pronounce it, I was the only person in the world (that I’m aware of) to have my first/last name combo. (If you search my maiden name on Facebook, I believe you only get about 10 results which include me, my cousins, and my mom.) My hubby’s last name is VERY common. Now, my name is no longer unique. If I search for my first and last name, I get millions of results. I’ve resulted to using my middle initial everywhere just to distinguish me from others. I’ve been married almost 3 years and I’m still not completely used to my new last name. It may be easier for people to pronounce and (usually) spell, I still miss my maiden name but I think it’ll get easier once we have kids and they have the same last name.
Well, for our part of the world, its a ‘shame’ for a lady to still have her father’s last name after she is 30. It calls for celebration each time a lady changes her last name, signifying marriage.
This is such an interesting topic! I, too, chose to keep my own last name when I got married but then was faced (and am still faced!) with the question of what to do for my children. We gave my three-year-old daughter my husband’s last name, but neither of us feel entirely comfortable with that decision (his name is difficult to pronounce). We tried combining our names into a new family name, but became stumped by limited options. And we vetoed hyphenation because it is so cumbersome.
With her sibling due to arrive in six weeks, we are anxious to make a last-name decision. It looks like we might drop our daughter’s last name altogether, use the second of her two middle names as her new last name, and give the baby a last name all of his/her own. Or we may still come up with a combined version of our last names that works!
I am curious to read about what you guys decide …
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