On the family name

Women’s suffrage was ratified 100 years ago. Women’s push toward full equality of rights with men has slowly but steadily advanced. But there remains in our social customs a glaring inequality that continues to reflect on married women’s former subservience to their husbands.

It is customary for a woman to take the family name of her husband when she marries. The husband rarely takes his wife’s family name. This is clearly one-sided and strongly reflects the social inequality of the distant past.

Some wives have escaped this by retaining their family name, but that leads to problems naming the children. For example, if Mary Smith marries John Jones, the children get the last name, Smith-Jones. Maybe Tommy Smith-Jones is not so bad (it sounds a little English), but then in the next generation when Tommy Smith-Jones marries Sophie Whittington-Pendergrast, their child ends up as Henry Smith-Jones-Whittington-Pendergrast. Don’t even think about the following generation.

I propose a simple solution to this problem that will finally stamp out this persistent inequality and put women on an equal social footing with men. When the woman marries, she keeps her family name, just like her husband keeps his. Any male children of this union take the husband’s family name. Any female children take the wife’s family name. This way the male lineage is preserved in the family name down through the generations, just like it has been. But what is new is that the female lineage is also preserved down through the generations. It has a nice symmetry.

THOMAS ATWOOD

West Fork