Doing everything the bible says in whatever way you interpret it leads to a whole new set of problems (slaughtering goats, stoning people, mass banning of the Harry Potter books, etc.) but that's possibly a topic for another debate.
Even if you don't think that a woman taking the man's last name has any connection to ownership, writing "Mr. and Mrs. JOHN Doe" seems unnecessarily chauvinistic.
The hyphen doesn't rid the union of romance; it's a symbol that welds the two parties together. What's more romantic, carving "John + Jane" in a heart on a tree, or only carving "John"?
"The choice is still entirely up to the woman"? Saying "You can either marry me and take my name, or you can marry someone else" seems to limit the choices of the woman. When a woman answers "Yes" or "No" to marriage, it should be based on how compatible she is with the man and how much they love each other, not other stipulations such as whether or not she'll give up her name.
It comes down to the argument of "If you love me, you'll do this" vs "If you love me, you wouldn't ask me to".
For some females in positions of fame or power, it's in their best interest to keep their own last name. Sandra Bullock shouldn't change her name to Sandra Whatshisface.
I agree that things seem to be working the way they are, and it can be a hassle to have different last names in the same family (although if society changed to where more people had different last names, this wouldn't be an issue). I also think a family should all share a last name until one of the children grows up and starts a family of their own. The issue is in who's name the family takes.
If it had turned out it was tradition for the male to take the female's name, I would somewhat reluctantly go along with that simply because that's the way the system works, and I don't usually stand up for things that I consider not worth the fight, but I'd still be sad about loosing my last name.
If a female isn't ok with taking the mans name, and she decides to keep her own or add a hyphen, she shouldn't be ostracized for her decision. She should be looked up to as a strong, independent woman who challenges issues that aren't fair, where most other people just fold.
You're right that a last name like Wyndham-Smith-Burrowsly-Pretentious, in our culture, is over the top. However, several other cultures sprung from Western European, Judeo-Christian foundations do make cultural accommodations for the surnames of both parents:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-barrelled_name
I know of a family who prefers to assign last names according to gender: the daughters take their mother's maiden name, and the sons take their father's family name. It gives the woman's name fair play, but perhaps it's unfair to title someone and identify them with one family or the other based on their gender alone.
Additionally, some women may be concerned about aesthetics. It seems frivolous, but consider this: "Willis" and "Wood" both seem like fine last names, but if I fell in love with someone named Joe Butz, I'd have a conundrum. I wouldn't want to say "Change your last name, or I won't marry you," but I wouldn't want to sign "Mrs. Butz" or even "Mrs. Jacobsen-Butz" on my kids' tardy notes for twenty years, either.
Finally, I agree with Wood that sharing the man's last name isn't about claiming ownership of the woman---but he IS putting "property of _______" on their family's identity and heritage, dating from a time when a girl's father would pay her bridegroom to take her out of his house and thus leave him with one less mouth to feed. And while European societies were generally patrilineal, several agriculturally-based, female-dominated societies, such as the Iroquois, dictated that a man should live on his wife's family's property and their children should carry on her name.
Luckily for us, people in mainstream America today don't get carted off to their spouse's family compound right after marriage. And in that regard, a woman automatically assuming her husband's surname without question is a bit like sacrificing goats to please the gods: there was a time when people had limited economic means and more limited control over their environments, and it made sense to consolidate resources and defenses into one family line, just as it made sense to try to give your best goat to whatever austere being was controlling how much rain your farm received. But since women don't need to marry rich and retreat into a relatively safe feudal castle to sustain their survival anymore, they shouldn't be expected to unquestioningly surrender their family identity.