Who’s We?
Well really. There is a limit. And I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who thinks so. I’m perfectly happy to be peculiar, eccentric, bloody-minded, odd, etc (which is just as well), but there are some ideas and thoughts one wants to see plenty of resistance to. There are a lot of them in this ridiculous comment by Katie Roiphe.
These days, no one is shocked when an independent-minded woman takes her husband’s name, any more than one is shocked when she announces that she is staying at home with her kids.
Oh is that so. No one? Really? How do you know? Have you asked every last one of us? Have you asked the black swan? And anyway, what a silly word to use – ‘shocked’ – how typical that is of this kind of post-feminist bilge. It’s not about being shocked, for heaven’s sake, it’s about equality. ‘Shocked’ is a sly, underhanded way of making prepostfeminists sound like prudish Victorians drawing back their skirts. Of implying that subordination is sexy and sexual (Roiphe ought to read or re-read Mill on that subject) and refusal of subordination is sexless and antisexual.
There’s something romantic and pleasantly old-fashioned about giving up your name, a kind of frisson in seeing yourself represented as Mrs. John Doe in the calligraphy of a wedding invitation on occasion. At the same time it’s reassuring to see your own name in a byline or a contract. Like much of today’s shallow, satisfying, lipstick feminism: One can, in the end, have it both ways.
Ew. Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew. Oh yes that dear old delicious frisson of seeing oneself obliterated and disappeared and nullifed and erased. Of no longer being oneself but being instead Mrs SomeoneElse. Mrs Man. Funny how that’s not a frisson men long for, isn’t it. And funny how people can be stupid enough not to realize (or is it not to care? which is worse?) what these invidious distinctions say about women. Get a clue, Roiphe. If it’s only women who are expected to become Mrs SomeoneElse when they get married and men carry right on being Mr Himself, that is saying something about women. Maybe you should think a little harder about what that something is. (Here’s a hint: it’s that women are inferior and subordinate.) And don’t be in such a damn hurry to assume that you speak for all women, that you know who ‘we’ are and what we think.
Of course I agree with all this. But there is something odd about the fact that very few people seem to mind that the name that they are born with is almost inevitably their father’s…
Personally, I’m all for inventing names. I fancy being called “Adonis”. That would be apt in many ways.
Oh, I know, we all know that. (Yawn, yawn.) We discussed all that thoroughly before you were born. But at least it’s the name we started out with. At least if we hang onto it we don’t have to self-obliterate in adulthood.
I’m all for inventing names too, I have quite a few noms de guerre. None of them the slightest bit apt in any way.
“But at least it’s the name we started out with.”
Hmmmm.
I’m not convinced it’s much better. If a woman doesn’t take her husband’s name on principle – which she shouldn’t – then why doesn’t the same principle enter into the reckoning when thinking about her given name?
If it is simply that it is more inconvenient to change a given name, then one is opening the door to the kind of defence which people offer for taking their husband’s name (even if we don’t buy the defence).
If it is that we feel comfortable with our given names, and that somehow this trumps the principle, then is comfort a good reason to trump principle in the case of taking a husband’s name?
I think there is a problem even if it is a matter of “self-obliterating”, because what do you say to the woman who claims that not taking her husband’s name would result in harm of the similar magnitude (and people do say this kind of thing, as you know).
Well I don’t think women should be stuck with paternal names forever. But I do think there’s a difference between giving up your identity as an adult, and being given a name when you’re an infant.
But you’re right about the principle. I like the Icelandic system. There’s a lot to be said for Iceland. (Except for the part about living on an active volcano, of course.)
“But I do think there’s a difference between giving up your identity as an adult”
Yes, but there’s a problem with the structure of this argument. The trouble, I think, is that identity is part of the reason that many women want to take on their husband’s name.
So:
a) It’s bad, in principle, that the identity of women is linked institutionally to that of men. This is true, but applies to the given name;
b) Our given name is part of our identity so difficult to give up. If this is true, and justifies keeping given name, then it will also justify certain people – i.e., those who see marriage and all of its traditional trappings as being part of their identity – taking their husbands’ names.
I think this is a real problem here if one wants to be consistent about these things.
But what does identity mean then? It’s a very tricky word at the best of times – I’m always meaning to do a N&C on the subject. But it’s at least often thought to have something to do with continuity, and etymologically it does mean ‘the same.’ So if one keeps the name one started out with, that is more like keeping one’s own identity – as opposed to glomming onto someone else’s – than changing one’s own name for someone else’s would be. People who see marriage as part of their identity are still taking on a new identity in some sense if they change their names.
Maybe identity is simply a misnomer in the case of people ‘who see marriage and all of its traditional trappings as being part of their identity’. Maybe their belief in all that is part of their identity, but the identity-change can’t really be part of their identity. That would be an oxymoron. So it seems to me anyway.
“a) It’s bad, in principle, that the identity of women is linked institutionally to that of men. This is true, but applies to the given name.”
Says Jerry. But boys and girls are both given their father’s name at birth. This is at least equality. Only ‘girls’ are expected to change their names at marriage.
And, Ophelia, your “Ew. Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew,” captures my feelings exactly. A recent wedding invitation here was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Bill Cook– with Bill’s first name and my last name. I don’t think he felt any ‘frisson’ about it, but we did laugh. We’ve had three last names in my family since 1990 (mine, Bill’s and the childrens’– whose father is Troy, not Bill), and it has never caused any problems beyond embarrassment for the people who assumed incorrectly.
“But boys and girls are both given their father’s name at birth. This is at least equality.”
No it’s not.
Well it is true that Roiphe doesn’t cite any evidence. And women certainly say that they don’t want to be subordinated. But if you ignore what they say and watch how they really behave, women on average do feel more sexual attraction when they feel subordinated (in power, age and status). This is a psychological trait so of course it means that this trait is distributed on a curve, so the existence of a few women who really don’t respond to subordination doesn’t disprove the thesis. It also means that there’s a correlation but not a perfect correlation, so subordination is one of many factors. So the existence of another factor doesn’t disprove the thesis.
Certainly, both men and women wish this weren’t so, but it’s not as depressing as it sounds because it is just one of many factors, and it is useless in the prediction of behavior of any randomly chosen individual.
I think What Women Want-What Men Want: Why the Sexes Still See Love and Commitment So Differently by J. M. Townsend does a good job of citing sociological data that support this view.
If the boys got Dad’s name and the girls got Mom’s, THAT would be equality. I think in Iceland girls get the choice to be Mothersdottir or Fathersdottir but I woudn’t hold my hand in the volcano to prove it.
Always was a bit surprised to see so many female relatives dutifully taking their man’s surname, while otherwise seeming liberated. Equally surprised to see so many people sticking with the name, 1st or last, that their parents dumped on them when said parents didn’t even know who they were. Always wondered why more folks didn’t choose their own names on maturity, and a bit disgusted to see this at times regarded as a hippie (or Wiccan) fad. “Flowerchild” some of us ain’t!
“And, Ophelia, your “Ew. Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew,” captures my feelings exactly.”
That’s funny, Marijo, because I said the same thing at Slate – the comment as a whole was different, but I did say the ew ew ew thing. And someone there said just what you did. Good! Indicates a lot of us were really repulsed by dear Katie’s frisson. Of course, she likes to repulse, she does it on purpose, it’s part of her schtick. Very tiresome.
Could we go with the Spanish custom, where women don’t formally change their names, and children inherit the first surname of both parents and use the one they’re most comfortable with when they grow up.
(OK, I know it’s almost always their father’s, but it isn’t obligatory, as in Pablo Ruiz Picasso, who went with his mother’s name because it was quite distinctive, while you can’t throw a brick in Malaga without braining somebody called Ruiz.)
So most women like to feel subordinated, do they? EEEEWWWWW!!! Seems to me the last time I read an article on BDSM, there were a lot of female tops and a lot of male bottoms. Go figure.
Name changing was such a hassle 26 years back…hate to think what it is like now…
KM — That’s exactly the kind of unscientific comment I was trying to preempt when I wrote “This is a psychological trait so of course it means that this trait is distributed on a curve, so the existence of a few women who really don’t respond to subordination doesn’t disprove the thesis.”
When my wife and I got married, we decided to take her (her father’s?) last name as our surname since it was the easier of the 2 to use (6 letters instead of 10) and since it better reflected our common German heritage (my last name was Polish, but you have to go back a few generations on only one branch to get back to Poland). We did this because we saw it as an advantage to have the same last name as a family and because we didn’t want to hyphenate (16 letters plus a hyphen). We actually considered just taking a completely different last name for a family name but decided that some continuity with one family name or the other was more to our taste.
Anyhow, what irks me occasionally is getting pieces of mail addressed to Mr and Mrs Pete Schult, even from people who know the story. If anyone’s name should be suppressed in such a construction it should be mine since Julie had the name Schult before I did. I.e. they “should” address their mail to Ms and Mr (Msr?) Julie Schult. Somehow in our culture I’m the one who owns the name even though it was hers originally. Seems sort of 19th century to me.
–Pete
Adonis said: “certain people – i.e., those who see marriage and all of its traditional trappings as being part of their identity… “
Who could be married and *not* see it as part of their identity? Forget the “traditional trappings”, which all in all don’t amount to much. What would “marriage” even mean if it didn’t alter your “identity” any?
Girls in Iceland are “Fathersdottir” by the way. You have no identity in Reykjavik except as your father’s offspring.
Yes, that ‘Mr and Mrs X Y’ construction reminds me of another odd one – when people talk about ‘the Joe Baggses,’ ‘the Bill Clarks,’ ‘the Tom Browns’. I always think (and sometimes say) ‘There’s more than one Tom Brown?’ What the construction means, of course, is Joe Baggs and his wife – but what a very odd way to put it. And yet it hasn’t died out yet.
‘What would “marriage” even mean if it didn’t alter your “identity” any?’
That’s one reason it doesn’t appeal to some people. But it also makes it odd (it seems to me) that marriage is so popular. Surely there must be a lot of people who want to do both – have their own particular identity (whatever that means, yes, I know, but I think we have an idea what it means in this context) and be married too. Are they just kidding themselves?
I think your “whatever that means” is clothing the reality that your identity is not a fixed thing that you are handed, or decide on, at, say, 25, and then stick to limpetlike through thick, thin and matrimony.
If you were married, Ophelia, your identity would be whatever it is *plus* I am married. You are reading that “plus” as “instead of”. If you have a child, in the same way, “mother” will become part of what you are. But you will still be Ophelia.
KM — Townsend’s book isn’t based on one experiment. It cites several experiments by him and by other researchers in various parts of the world. The book description and reviews on amazon provide descriptions of some of the experiments.
Ophelia — different cultures fall on different places on the individualism-collectivism spectrum. Both sides of the spectrum have costs and benefits. On the collectivism side of the spectrum, though, you simply think of yourself as part of your family, so you naturally make major sacrifices for your parents, spouse and children. But from an individualist perspective, these sacrifices seem demeaning and are therefore hard to understand. From the most extreme individualist perspective, the costs of marriage outweigh the benefits. But for other people, the benefits, i.e. raising children, having companionship, possibly having grandchildren, are much greater than the costs. Since I was raised in India but now live in America, my perspective is somewhere in between. I’m definitely not as family-oriented as the average Indian, but I find it appalling that many Americans get divorced due to unhappiness, thus putting their personal happiness over their obligation to bring up their children in a two-parent home. (I’m specifically referring to those with children under 18; I realize that divorce is different for childless couples or those with adult children.)
Dr Zen,
No, I don’t necessarily see it that way – I was reacting specifically to the way you put it:
‘What would “marriage” even mean if it didn’t alter your “identity” any?’
But there we are, it’s a highly debatable term, so I may simply not have understood what you meant by it.
Chris,
Sure. Only I wonder…those cultures where family comes first – I have to wonder if that’s equally true for all parties, or if some people have to abdicate their own identities (wants, needs, plans, projects, etc) more than other people. Some people as in some genders, for example.
I think that’s one reason I hate the hijab so much. Because people who wear it don’t look like people any more, they just become interchangeable integers, while men look like – well, like people with an identity.
Anyway, it wasn’t things like sacrifices I was talking about, in terms of marriage. Surely one can retain one’s own identity (whatever that means etc) and still make sacrifices for people who need them. It’s the self-obliteration that I’m pondering here. I thought Dr Zen was saying that marriage necessarily entails a degree of self-obliteration, of partial fusion with someone else. (I know of other people who say the same thing – I saw quite a lot of that in threads discussing the Roiphe article last week, in fact.) I decidedly don’t think refusal to self-obliterate or to fuse entails selfishness or refusal to sacrifice for others.