Fucking dumb! And this guy calls himself a progressive?

Okay, this really got my blood boiling. Yesterday, I was talking to a guy I know who was recently married (friend of the family, yada yada yada). He was talking about the wedding and whatever, which was pretty interesting, although I'm not generally a big wedding fan.

Anyhow, I can't remember HOW we got on the topic--it might have been the arrival of my mother, who kept her own last name upon marrying--but the next thing I know, he's talking about how thankful he is to have married such a great woman, etc., etc., and how glad he is that she agreed to take his name, because he wouldn't marry her otherwise.

:wtf:

This is an allegedly progressive man, telling me that he told his wife she was taking his name, or they weren't getting married. If I were the woman, I would tell him to go fuck himself. Any man who demands that you take his name sounds sketchy to me. Even though the woman "readily agreed," according to him, that's still one of the dumbest "progressive" things I've ever heard of. I could never marry a man knowing that he wanted me to take his name, and wouldn't marry me elsewise.

...self-absorbed.

When my wife and I got married, she decided to keep her name for both professional reasons and because it's an extremely rare name. When/if we have children, they will take her name to keep it alive (mine is incredibly common, so it's not like it's going to die out).

Regardless, I couldn't imagine not marrying the woman I love because she wouldn't bow to my will. It's just primitive.

might make an independent wife.

mustn't have that, must we?

they're going to get the vote.

:nuke:

it's totally none of our business.

Some people are totally traditional about a woman taking the man's name etc. If I ever get married, sure I would like my wife to accept my name, but if she wanted to keep hers that would be fine too. What galls me is that he supposedly loves this woman, yet he would kick her to the curb over something as trivial as her keeping her last name. As if that absolutely will change all the moments they have shared and why they have found love with each other in the first place. Maybe it just means a lot to him for his wife to assume his name, I don't know, but I don't think marriage and love should hinge on that one detail. It's pretty petty to do so, imho.

I have a friend who's pretty Progressive too...but he insisted on his wife taking his name. And got all over my case when my wife and I wanted to hyphenate (I like to think of hyphenation as a comprimise...)

the only people who gave her any grief were the women in her family. I insisted that my wife do what ever she wanted to do.

He did not want to explain what might be seen by his family of the wife's rejection of them when she refuses to do what is "normal." He might be afraid that people will see him as kind of a sissy for not insisting on his masculine perogative. It's silly, I know, but I can see it happening.

But then again, a lot of things are incomprehensible to me these days.

Would you have the same attitude if a person would not marry their spouse if they would not wear a wedding ring?

If you perceive something that bothers you about their level of commitment, then you need to talk about it.

My husband often doesn't wear his ring, I find it on the bathroom counter all the time. It doesn't bother me in the slightest, I know he's completely loyal to me.

He just isn't the jewelry wearing type. In fact, his mother was surprised to hear that he was planning on getting a wedding ring at all.

I didn't change my name. I asked him if that bothered him. He said, "No." If it had, I would have been perfectly willing to hear his concerns on the subject and try to figure out some sort of conclusion that was acceptable to both of us.

But, he knows that I love him. I know he loves me. That's all that matters.

"Take my name" "wear this ring" etc. or I won't marry you - that's just fucking bizarre, IMO.

isn't it?

And would think that just as shallow as pitching a fit over not taking his name.

A wedding ring is not what makes you married - just because you have your spouse branded with your name or your ring does not mean you have a solid marriage. Sheesh.

I'm looking forward to it, in fact.

But if he wanted her to and she readily agreed, where's the problem? Clearly it's good that YOU are not married to this man, but it seems he's made a good match with his wife, right? :shrug:

her name that has me (and, I think, the OP) upset in this case.

If a woman wants to change, that's fine - but to say "Take my name or I won't marry you!" is fucking outrageous.

I couldn't care less if the wife takes her husbands name or not. However, if he uses the name as a "dealbreaker," then I find that disturbing and I have to wonder what else he'll try to control.

The TV remote, definitely.

prize. WIMR has better manners than I do. I would have let him have it with both barrels. Crowing about it that way makes me think he believes whatever ills there are or were in his parents' marriage are somehow tied to his own mother retaining her name.

college. Because he wouldn't marry a woman with more education than he had.

So, she didn't.

The name business is the same patriarchal bullshit, just in a different disguise.

He was one of two sons and she was an only child, so he took her name when they married.

not only for that reason,but because he bears the name of the man who abuesd him.
We can't wait to get that shit done!

My wife kept her name. There wasn't anything wrong with it. Before we got hitched she asked what I thought of that and I said either way was fine with me.

I can't help think that the fact that my name is "Shithead" had something to do with her decision.

:evilgrin:

How unreasonable! :D

Not even Ms. Dumbass-Shithead.:(

But not so much out of being a good progressive, more out of lack of loyalty to my own last name (my father was raised by a step father who was basically an ass).

It does seem like a good idea for people forming a family to choose one or the other name but it doesn't make much sense to me to always have to choose one based on which is from the male or from the female, just choose the one that works best for the couple for whatever reasons they think important. And I wanted to avoid hyphenation, just a personal choice but those hyphened names often seem unwieldy to me.

But my wife insisted on us using my surname.

:shrug:

Turns out her surname has a bit of a confused family history which probably reduces the 'loyalty factor' there too.

http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/GENEALGY/perfect.htm#J

who wouldn't wanna be Mrs. Perfect?

:spray:

:rofl:

I don't think I'd want to be Mrs. Perfect. I mean, that's like a lot of fucking pressure right there. I'll stick with my good solid Irish last name. Not too much pressure there.

http://genforum.genealogy.com/goodenough/

There's a few Slacker families too, but for some reason none of them has gotten around to putting up a webpage about their family.

the Mrs. serves beer and finger food to the guys.


(i've been wondering; do woman who wear burkas have vitamin D deficiency, because their skin is not exposed to the sun...)

If I were his then fiancee, I would've told him to enjoy his last name by himself....see ya!

She was hesitant, but did change it. Unlike this guy, I still would have married her if she hadn't changed her name. If we could do it over though, I'd tell my wife NOT to take my name for a couple of reasons that are more practical than anything.

Firstly, it's a pain in the ever rotten ass to change your name. You'd think that because women do it all the time it would be easy. It wasn't. She was going to city hall numerous times, dealing with all her cards, subscriptions, mail, etc. It was months and months of red tape for her, and she even had to take multiple days off of work. Maybe she had a worse time than others, but it definately wasn't just a 'fill out a form and drop it in the mailbox' type procedure.

Secondly, even if you don't change your name people will still call you that. Relatives will send you a wedding card and mark it 'Mr. and Mrs. Ravenseye" or even worse 'Mr. and Mrs. Firstname Ravenseye' where not only is her last name subsumed but her first name as well. Those were really irritating.

In all it's just easier to keep your name if you're a woman, and if you want to introduce yourself sometimes as Mrs. X then you can. What are they gonna do? Go to city hall and look up your records? Other times you can keep your legal maiden name. If you change your name, you can still go by your maiden name if you like, but it's a bit more complicated.

I'm not exactly sure WHY I wanted my wife to change her name in the first place.

*sigh*

I was told that we were *supposed* to snuff out our individual candles, once we lit the unity candle together, to signify the end of us as separate entities, and the joining of us as one. I refused to do it. While I'm all for unity, I couldn't do something that symbolized the denial of me (or my husband) as an individual. We lit the unity candle and left the other two burning, as well.

Now and then, some of them turn up right here at DU, quite often in threads like this... :popcorn: