After my father left in the early 70s (and forged my mother's signature on a loan against their property after the bank officer let him "take it home for the wife to sign"), my mother went back to her birth name, and needed a checking account. She had to rope in a distant cousin who lived in town to cosign with her -- because he was a man. We were all outraged at the time, and since said man was a charming guy, fun at parties, but ultimately not good at keeping a job, we have kept this family story alive as a warning to all the girls. Have your own money. Have your own accounts. Keep your name.
oh wow. Yes. I couldn't watch past the first scene of The Handmaid's Tale after they froze women's bank accounts--too eerie, too recent, too real. Cannot believe that women and others marginalized by these structures have been treated this way for so fucking long. Oof.
I've always had a complicated relationship with the idea of names. My first legal act as an adult was to change my first and middle names. Somehow erasing my surname seemed a step too far at the time. And I absolutely refused to take my partner's name when we wed.
Yet if I could convince him to combine our names to make a new one all together, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Despite knowing how much a pain in the ass it is to change your legal name with all the institutions you work with.
Names are such a tricky thing--and that's so interesting about your own experience changing your first and middle names. I mean in actuality, we're handed these names that become our identity and yet we have no agency over them as children really, unless we demand to be called differently (which I know several people have). I'm the same as you--if my partner and I had created a name together, I would be happy to do it in an instant. I suggested it but my son has my husband's familial name now too, so it is doubly complicated. Sigh. I wish I hadn't given in to that quite so easily. Even keeping my own name, it still feels strange to not be recognized as a family in that sense--which is how patriarchy instills a sense of fomo in those who don't conform. Sigh. But thanks so much for reading. 💜
Wow. This is so interesting and so thorough! Thank you. I took my husbands name (there were many things that I was just too young and indoctrinated to question at the time) but I’m also not particularly attached to my birth name (which comes from my fathers side anyway...) I have a friend who created a new name with her spouse when they married, and another who gave her name as a middle name to her child which I also love. I think your last paragraph was so powerful - what are the ways we perpetuate harmful myths simply by not interrogating “tradition” 👏🏽
Ah, thank you. I kept my familial name, but I agree with you--it's still rooted in paternity. I do wish my partner and I had created a new name--but as you say, we are so indoctrinated so early we don't even realize there can be a different way. We tried to give part of my last name to my son's first name--but it's a headache for him now because of the hyphen (and he doesn't go by that name per se....it's a long story... ). And it still feels like my real name is not a part of him as much. It's so tricky and insidious the ways these things play with our sense of self.
Freya throughout years I felt so much anger and disdain while reading and understanding the history of obliteration of oppressed people specifically women and this essay is a refresher of it all. How something that might seem as harmless as a surname is weaponised to entrench women in deeper gender based politics and deprive them of basic human rights and dignity of being a complete individual by themselves.
It’s all so infuriating and I specially felt the stab when you wrote “That women of the past who were assumed to be wives were in fact professionals in guilds and business owners, not only wives or spinsters”, I wish I too growing up realised that women are so much more than their marital status. I felt the need to say so much while reading this but you said it all and better than I could have. Thank you for this fascinating read, and special thanks for pointing out how it was a framework of the English and how they like many of their regressive idea exported this unnecessary patriarchal custom to their ex colonies.
India too never had it as a tradition to abide women by law to use their husband’s surname but needless to say what 200 years of colonialism must have done to this notion as well.
I know--I cannot believe the ways that these tendrils wrap around and take hold in ways we can't even anticipate some times. The reason I write these histories is because I keep thinking about you as a little girl or myself--and other little girls now--not understanding that women have had powerful, at times even equal, roles in the past--and that being reminded how far we've come is just a way to keep women in check. People who are oppressed are always supposed to be grateful and civil for the little crumbs we get. It's wearying. And just as knowing the past, knowing and being more aware that outside of this anglophone colonial world so many of us live in, it is not that way in so many other places, traditions, cultures. There are other ways and we don't have to accept these 'traditions.' Thanks as always for reading friend. 💜
‘People who are oppressed are always supposed to be grateful and civil for the little crumbs we get.’ This is what I think is the most inevitable part of all these centuries of conditioning. Be grateful for the crumbs is all I hear when I find somebody justifying the generations of misogynistic bullshit!
When I lived in Austria I had a long bureaucratic tangle with the electric company that serviced our apartment because at that time it was illegal for married couples to have different last names. I'd only been taking German for a couple of weeks and "I'm married" was one of the few phrases I knew. To which they responded, "You're not married" because I had a different last name!
My spouse and I admittedly had a huge argument about this before marriage. Fundamentally, I identify strongly with my name and didn't want to give that up. Plus, there are no males in my generation of either side of my family and my sisters and all my cousins took their husbands' names. My last name dies with me.
This was a fascinating history to read, Freya. Thank you for all your work on it.
How absurd, they would just reject the whole institution of marriage on the grounds that the woman has not submitted to the demands of patriarchal custom of taking the man’s last name, and even stranger that this is still happening. I for sure question the whole of idea of progress now. And dare to say the institution of marriage too!
I think they've changed the law now, but yeah, it was really weird! And the institution -- I agree, that's weird, too! Really is when you think about it.
Wow--fascinating that it was like that for you in Austria! And yes--my husband and I couldn't move to Norway on a visa for his grad schoool--or I couldn't--unless we were married, and it's the reason we went ahead with it all. Nations have ways with us don't they. I know what you mean--I think my family name is dying with me largely as well. It's a strange fate, and strange histories to untangle. Thanks as always for reading. 💜
This fascinating, Freya. Thoroughly researched and powerfully written. I shall have to go back and study my family tree through this lens. I have to wonder if this idea crept in alongside concepts such as land ownership.
In Rian Eisler's book 'The Chalice and the Blade', she notes that until recently in Dravidian southern India, children took their names and identity from their mothers, who might have multiple partners. A south Indian friend confirmed that while that was the case in her grandmother's day, she now needs her father's or her husband's identity to get a driver's license or passport.
Thanks John. I wanted to write more about the places that have gone as far as outlawing taking on a husband's name at marriage (Quebec!) and other traditions where it isn't the way. That's fascinating and not unsurprising about your friend and the shifting into a more patriarchal way--a result of colonization, no doubt. Frustrating to see how deep those roots are entangled and made their way into other traditions.
Add Iceland to the list of countries where names don't change after marriage. Of course, they still tag the father, and gender.
In India, it seems to be tied to increasing Hindu influence, which is a hierarchical, what Rian Eisler would call a dominator, culture versus the more partnership-based Tamil culture. The Brits maintained that hierarchy; they just inserted themselves at the top.
In Hispanic culture, you give your children the name of the father and mother as a surname. The father’s surname followed by the mother’s surname. To honor the matriarchs of my family and to make it easier on me in American culture, my parents gave me three middle names. The maiden names of my mother and both grandmothers. (Webb is my mother’s , thus Jenovia’s Web.) It’s a lot. It barely fits on my passport, but I think it was a beautiful gesture and I’m proud to carry the names of my matriarchs with me.
When I marry, I will take my partner’s last name because I want to. ( I’m also not entirely sold on the institution of marriage, I think it’s very beautiful AND completely unnecessary unless you’re doing it for the tax breaks.) His surname is gorgeous, I’ve always loved it, and I’m looking forward to having a shorter name on my IDs. My partner has no feelings about it either way. He knows it is completely up to me whether or not I take his name.
I have the ‘Smith’ of Hispanic names and if we really want to get into the thick of it, it’s a Spanish colonizer’s name. My father was Purépecha.
I’m not attached to my surname at all. I’ve always felt my first name represents me the best and it’s tied to my identity much more than my last name. It feels more me than some generic last name I’ve inherited. Plus no one has to add my last name when referring to me. I’m usually the only Jenovia in the room, building, organization, etc.
Half of my friends that are married did not take their husband’s last name and felt no pressure to. I think it’s all silly when it comes down to it, marriage, last names. We are living in areas with made up borders on stolen land. To participate in this made up society we have to play the game a bit, that looks different for everyone. Most of us just go along without asking questions and without knowing the why. This was a wonderful, important read. Thank you, Freya.
I so loved reading this Jenovia--thanks so much for sharing--and I so agree with you--sharing a name can feel renewing--and I love that connection to your matriarchs as well. I wanted to write about the places that actually require people to keep their names on marriage, and Spanish traditions of including both names--there are so many possibilities, I think that's what sets me going on it all too--there's no one way and no one reason--and that's beautiful. I also think about first names and what you said rings so true--especially when it's a father's family name to a husband's, etc. I was at a talk and the professor talking about a woman writer was getting annoyed at how women are so often talked about by their first name and not given the same respect in literary criticism as using their last name, like male writers are known by. And I've thought about this in my writing as well--that maybe everyone should be by their first name, especially for women artists, because that's the name that is always actually about them, not about their relationships to paternal lines or husbands, etc. Your name is so beautiful, and I love hearing the origin for Jenovia's web. 💜🕸🕷 Thanks so much for reading and sharing this, I loved to think about it today.
Yes! I so agree about women using their first name. The most I could give is two initials. For example: Jenovia W.H. It is the only concession I'm willing to make if there were ever demands for more than a first name regarding writing.
Thank you, Freya. Using my mother's name is way to honor her and keep space for her in my life after her untimely passing. 🖤
I kept my birth name after I married. I don't mind though when my daughter's friends and teachers call me Mrs. Hincks.
After my father left in the early 70s (and forged my mother's signature on a loan against their property after the bank officer let him "take it home for the wife to sign"), my mother went back to her birth name, and needed a checking account. She had to rope in a distant cousin who lived in town to cosign with her -- because he was a man. We were all outraged at the time, and since said man was a charming guy, fun at parties, but ultimately not good at keeping a job, we have kept this family story alive as a warning to all the girls. Have your own money. Have your own accounts. Keep your name.
oh wow. Yes. I couldn't watch past the first scene of The Handmaid's Tale after they froze women's bank accounts--too eerie, too recent, too real. Cannot believe that women and others marginalized by these structures have been treated this way for so fucking long. Oof.
Thank you so much for this illuminating history! Saving to revisit and reread.
thanks so much! 💜🙏
Thank you for an illuminating history!
I've always had a complicated relationship with the idea of names. My first legal act as an adult was to change my first and middle names. Somehow erasing my surname seemed a step too far at the time. And I absolutely refused to take my partner's name when we wed.
Yet if I could convince him to combine our names to make a new one all together, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Despite knowing how much a pain in the ass it is to change your legal name with all the institutions you work with.
Names are such a tricky thing--and that's so interesting about your own experience changing your first and middle names. I mean in actuality, we're handed these names that become our identity and yet we have no agency over them as children really, unless we demand to be called differently (which I know several people have). I'm the same as you--if my partner and I had created a name together, I would be happy to do it in an instant. I suggested it but my son has my husband's familial name now too, so it is doubly complicated. Sigh. I wish I hadn't given in to that quite so easily. Even keeping my own name, it still feels strange to not be recognized as a family in that sense--which is how patriarchy instills a sense of fomo in those who don't conform. Sigh. But thanks so much for reading. 💜
Wow. This is so interesting and so thorough! Thank you. I took my husbands name (there were many things that I was just too young and indoctrinated to question at the time) but I’m also not particularly attached to my birth name (which comes from my fathers side anyway...) I have a friend who created a new name with her spouse when they married, and another who gave her name as a middle name to her child which I also love. I think your last paragraph was so powerful - what are the ways we perpetuate harmful myths simply by not interrogating “tradition” 👏🏽
Ah, thank you. I kept my familial name, but I agree with you--it's still rooted in paternity. I do wish my partner and I had created a new name--but as you say, we are so indoctrinated so early we don't even realize there can be a different way. We tried to give part of my last name to my son's first name--but it's a headache for him now because of the hyphen (and he doesn't go by that name per se....it's a long story... ). And it still feels like my real name is not a part of him as much. It's so tricky and insidious the ways these things play with our sense of self.
Freya throughout years I felt so much anger and disdain while reading and understanding the history of obliteration of oppressed people specifically women and this essay is a refresher of it all. How something that might seem as harmless as a surname is weaponised to entrench women in deeper gender based politics and deprive them of basic human rights and dignity of being a complete individual by themselves.
It’s all so infuriating and I specially felt the stab when you wrote “That women of the past who were assumed to be wives were in fact professionals in guilds and business owners, not only wives or spinsters”, I wish I too growing up realised that women are so much more than their marital status. I felt the need to say so much while reading this but you said it all and better than I could have. Thank you for this fascinating read, and special thanks for pointing out how it was a framework of the English and how they like many of their regressive idea exported this unnecessary patriarchal custom to their ex colonies.
India too never had it as a tradition to abide women by law to use their husband’s surname but needless to say what 200 years of colonialism must have done to this notion as well.
I know--I cannot believe the ways that these tendrils wrap around and take hold in ways we can't even anticipate some times. The reason I write these histories is because I keep thinking about you as a little girl or myself--and other little girls now--not understanding that women have had powerful, at times even equal, roles in the past--and that being reminded how far we've come is just a way to keep women in check. People who are oppressed are always supposed to be grateful and civil for the little crumbs we get. It's wearying. And just as knowing the past, knowing and being more aware that outside of this anglophone colonial world so many of us live in, it is not that way in so many other places, traditions, cultures. There are other ways and we don't have to accept these 'traditions.' Thanks as always for reading friend. 💜
‘People who are oppressed are always supposed to be grateful and civil for the little crumbs we get.’ This is what I think is the most inevitable part of all these centuries of conditioning. Be grateful for the crumbs is all I hear when I find somebody justifying the generations of misogynistic bullshit!
oof it’s just so insidious and wearying! and total bullshit. 😖
When I lived in Austria I had a long bureaucratic tangle with the electric company that serviced our apartment because at that time it was illegal for married couples to have different last names. I'd only been taking German for a couple of weeks and "I'm married" was one of the few phrases I knew. To which they responded, "You're not married" because I had a different last name!
My spouse and I admittedly had a huge argument about this before marriage. Fundamentally, I identify strongly with my name and didn't want to give that up. Plus, there are no males in my generation of either side of my family and my sisters and all my cousins took their husbands' names. My last name dies with me.
This was a fascinating history to read, Freya. Thank you for all your work on it.
How absurd, they would just reject the whole institution of marriage on the grounds that the woman has not submitted to the demands of patriarchal custom of taking the man’s last name, and even stranger that this is still happening. I for sure question the whole of idea of progress now. And dare to say the institution of marriage too!
I think they've changed the law now, but yeah, it was really weird! And the institution -- I agree, that's weird, too! Really is when you think about it.
Wow--fascinating that it was like that for you in Austria! And yes--my husband and I couldn't move to Norway on a visa for his grad schoool--or I couldn't--unless we were married, and it's the reason we went ahead with it all. Nations have ways with us don't they. I know what you mean--I think my family name is dying with me largely as well. It's a strange fate, and strange histories to untangle. Thanks as always for reading. 💜
So many ways to enforce borders ... 🧡🧡🧡
exactly.
This fascinating, Freya. Thoroughly researched and powerfully written. I shall have to go back and study my family tree through this lens. I have to wonder if this idea crept in alongside concepts such as land ownership.
In Rian Eisler's book 'The Chalice and the Blade', she notes that until recently in Dravidian southern India, children took their names and identity from their mothers, who might have multiple partners. A south Indian friend confirmed that while that was the case in her grandmother's day, she now needs her father's or her husband's identity to get a driver's license or passport.
Thanks John. I wanted to write more about the places that have gone as far as outlawing taking on a husband's name at marriage (Quebec!) and other traditions where it isn't the way. That's fascinating and not unsurprising about your friend and the shifting into a more patriarchal way--a result of colonization, no doubt. Frustrating to see how deep those roots are entangled and made their way into other traditions.
Add Iceland to the list of countries where names don't change after marriage. Of course, they still tag the father, and gender.
In India, it seems to be tied to increasing Hindu influence, which is a hierarchical, what Rian Eisler would call a dominator, culture versus the more partnership-based Tamil culture. The Brits maintained that hierarchy; they just inserted themselves at the top.
that's fascinating too--how insidious colonization like that is, inserting itself in the structures that feel familiar. oof.
And then taking advantage if certain classes with that society to manage other colonies in Africa and the Caribbean.
In Hispanic culture, you give your children the name of the father and mother as a surname. The father’s surname followed by the mother’s surname. To honor the matriarchs of my family and to make it easier on me in American culture, my parents gave me three middle names. The maiden names of my mother and both grandmothers. (Webb is my mother’s , thus Jenovia’s Web.) It’s a lot. It barely fits on my passport, but I think it was a beautiful gesture and I’m proud to carry the names of my matriarchs with me.
When I marry, I will take my partner’s last name because I want to. ( I’m also not entirely sold on the institution of marriage, I think it’s very beautiful AND completely unnecessary unless you’re doing it for the tax breaks.) His surname is gorgeous, I’ve always loved it, and I’m looking forward to having a shorter name on my IDs. My partner has no feelings about it either way. He knows it is completely up to me whether or not I take his name.
I have the ‘Smith’ of Hispanic names and if we really want to get into the thick of it, it’s a Spanish colonizer’s name. My father was Purépecha.
I’m not attached to my surname at all. I’ve always felt my first name represents me the best and it’s tied to my identity much more than my last name. It feels more me than some generic last name I’ve inherited. Plus no one has to add my last name when referring to me. I’m usually the only Jenovia in the room, building, organization, etc.
Half of my friends that are married did not take their husband’s last name and felt no pressure to. I think it’s all silly when it comes down to it, marriage, last names. We are living in areas with made up borders on stolen land. To participate in this made up society we have to play the game a bit, that looks different for everyone. Most of us just go along without asking questions and without knowing the why. This was a wonderful, important read. Thank you, Freya.
I so loved reading this Jenovia--thanks so much for sharing--and I so agree with you--sharing a name can feel renewing--and I love that connection to your matriarchs as well. I wanted to write about the places that actually require people to keep their names on marriage, and Spanish traditions of including both names--there are so many possibilities, I think that's what sets me going on it all too--there's no one way and no one reason--and that's beautiful. I also think about first names and what you said rings so true--especially when it's a father's family name to a husband's, etc. I was at a talk and the professor talking about a woman writer was getting annoyed at how women are so often talked about by their first name and not given the same respect in literary criticism as using their last name, like male writers are known by. And I've thought about this in my writing as well--that maybe everyone should be by their first name, especially for women artists, because that's the name that is always actually about them, not about their relationships to paternal lines or husbands, etc. Your name is so beautiful, and I love hearing the origin for Jenovia's web. 💜🕸🕷 Thanks so much for reading and sharing this, I loved to think about it today.
Yes! I so agree about women using their first name. The most I could give is two initials. For example: Jenovia W.H. It is the only concession I'm willing to make if there were ever demands for more than a first name regarding writing.
Thank you, Freya. Using my mother's name is way to honor her and keep space for her in my life after her untimely passing. 🖤
Really enjoyed reading about this, thank you for sharing, Jenovia!
Thank you, Antonia. ❤️