THE HIDDEN HEGEMONY: The cost and benefits of traditional and nontraditional surname practices.

Zach Tilton

English 315

Dr. Myrna Marler

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1. Introduction

When I was a teenager my sister made the decision she wanted to drop our family name,

and use her middle name as her last name. Of all the emotions I experienced after her decision,

confusion was principle. I wondered how my father must have felt to have his only daughter

abandon the family name. From my musings I concluded he must have felt injured to some

degree, because that is how I would have felt if it were my daughter. However, he and my

mother surprisingly supported my sister in her decision to drop the family name. Many years

later my best friend got married. However, instead of having his wife take his last name, he opted

to change his last name to his wife's. I’m not sure all of his reasons for doing so, but yet again, I

was still confused why he would want to give up the surname he carried and identified with his

whole life. I thought about his father, and how his parents must have felt about his decision?

Were they offended? Were they hurt?

Soon after I became engaged to my wife, she introduced her trepidation in taking my last

name as hers after we were to be married. For my whole life I had been culturally conditioned to

expect that my wife would take my last name in marriage, and that we would share that name as

a family unit. Despite my expectation, and my subsequent disillusionment, I decided I loved my

fiancée and valued her agency more than I did my cultural expectations and personal preference.

Presently, my wife and I have two different last names. Despite my initial acceptance of my

wife's decision at marriage, two years later, I still would like to share the same last name. I have

often thought about what effect our surname decisions have had on our relationship.

Additionally, if my parents traditional marital surname practice influenced me and my view of

the world, then what impact would the nontraditional decision my wife and I make have on our

future children?

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The issue of surnames has affected my family, with my parents and sibling, my wife, and

will undoubtedly affect my children. Through the balance of this paper I will present the origins

of the default patrilineal surname practices, explore the symbolism and significance of names

and surnames and how they are perceived and interpreted by family members, and outline what

impact traditional and nontraditional marital surname practices have on families. My aim is to

prove that the choices individuals make and don't make about their marital and family surname

practices have hidden costs and benefits for themselves, their marriages, and their children.

1. Background

A brief history of the origin and progression of the practice and utility of surname

traditions will offer some context into the matter. The practice of surnames, particularly the

transmission of the patrilineal surname, originated in England after the Normans invaded and

altered the institutional landscape of the Anglo-Saxons by introducing the feudal system in the

eleventh century. With the invention of the hereditary paternal surname, feudal lords were able to

identify the children of their most loyal soldiers. Additionally, surnames served various other

purposes, ensuring children's inheritance from their fathers, aiding families to trace their history

and lineage, facilitating state record-keeping, (B.S.S 1324) and to help differentiate people with

the same Christian, or first name. Surnames were often derived from physical characteristics of

the bearer, his occupation, or his place of origin (Emens 771).

The necessity of inventing a paternal surnaming practice instead of a maternal one was

due to the fact that women did not have the same rights and privileges when it came to

landownership, wealth contraction and control, and inheritance. Shortly during the 14th Century

women were able to contract and to hold property and subsequently transmit their surname to

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their children. This custom seemed to have faded completely by the eighteenth and nineteenth

centuries when women were no longer afforded these privileges. It wasn't until the last half of

the nineteenth century that the Women's Property Act's were instituted that enabled women to

own property (B.S.S 1326). This advancement, as well as the advocacy of Lucy Stone, a

prominent women's rights proponent in America who was the first recorded women to keep her

surname after marriage (Goldin & Shim 144), laid the groundwork the shifting of marital

surname practices.

With the passing of the 19th amendment in 1920, women received the right to vote,

however, only if they registered to vote under their husband’s name. It wasn't until the decision

of Dunn v. Palermo, in 1975, half a century later that the Supreme Court of Tennessee struck

down a state law requiring a married woman to register under her husband’s name in order to

vote (Emens 773). In response to the main argument for the status quo as being "custom" the

Court declared, "Had we applied the rules of custom during the last quarter of a century, the

hopes, aspirations and dreams of millions of Americans would have been frustrated and their

fruition would have been impossible" (774). This watershed moment changed surname practices

among women in the following decades.

Many other changes in the social climate of the twentieth century contributed to a shift in

marital surname practices. In one of their many demographic studies about changes in marital

surname practices, David Johnson and Laurie Scheuble contend that "increased educational

levels and labor force participation for women, lower fertility and higher divorce rates, and the

challenging of institutional structures which have devalued women" have contributed to the

change in practices (“Marital name Change” 747). In their study about the percentage of women

who "change" their last name as opposed to "keep" it, Claudia Goldin and Maria Shim expound

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that, "by increasing the age at first marriage and allowing more women to continue with their

studies, the Pill was one important cause of the increase in surname retention" (146). They

continue that because women were beginning to "make a name" (160) for themselves in the

professional realm, more women were retaining their names at marriage.

Since there is "no single place in the U.S. government that stores your ‘legal’ name"

(146), Goldin and Shim built a data set of about 7000 marriage records by sampling from

wedding announcements from the New York Times from 1975-2001 (147). From their findings

they concluded that "the fraction of all U.S. college graduate women who kept their surnames

upon marriage rose from about 2 to 4 percent around 1975 to just below 20 percent in 2001"

(144). In their study about the transgenerational impact of mothers marital naming choices on

their offspring, Johnson and Scheuble found that "daughters whose mothers had nonconventional

marital names were 51/2 more times likely to use a nonconventional name themselves"

(“Naming in Two Generations” 731). From these statistics, one can expect to see an increase in

the percentage of women who choose nontraditional marital surname practices in the future.

With the various studies about marital name choice trends, one might question the relevance of

the issue in their lives. An exploration of the significance of names and surnames will begin our

discussion of personal relevance to the reader.

2. Significance of Surnames

The significance of names is great in that they shape how we view ourselves as

individuals, and they signify who we are in relation to others. Names inform individuals about

their identity and self-awareness (B.S.S 1353). Elizabeth Emens asserts that "to have a name at

all is thought to be a fundamental element of identity and dignity. From a young age, we are

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identified by our names". She continues, "our names are often among the first words we are

taught to say and write. They are [the] words that we learn early to associate with our selves"

(768). Essentially, our names are the primal signifiers of our existence when we enter this world.

We use our names to make meaning of who were are as we begin to associate and disassociate

what we are and are not. Additionally, individuals not only identify with their names, but studies

have shown that we prefer people, places and occupations that share letters in common with their

names (Lockwood, Burton, & Boersma 828). These studies present the significance of our name

with relation to our identity.

This is particularly important as we seek to identify where we stand in relation to those

around us. Emens highlights, "moreover, for many, our names link us to our families and kin

networks--whether through first, last, or middle names. And in the eyes of outsiders, our names

link us to particular others" (769). Not only do our names indicate our relationships to others, but

they inform us about the nature of those relationships like encoded social directions. Julie

Walker supports this in stating that "we recognize social evaluations result in identity

implications; therefore our names convey messages about us and our relationships, and the

meaning of those messages is derived from cultural standards" (93). Therefore, the names we

bear are packed with meaning that in turn affect our behavior in society.

The cultural standards presently inform each member that whoever shares the father's

name is kin. In her qualitative study on the perception children have toward the meaning of

surnames, Hayley Davies used pictures children drew of their families as a springboard to

question them about their perceptions. In one of her interviews a child named Oliver reveals how

his culture has informed his view about familial identity:

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Hayley: What does it mean to be related to someone?

Oliver: It means you're in the same family as them. You're like, your last name is the

same 'cause I'm a Bradford and so is my dad, and my mum" (561).

In a later interview, Davies listens to a child of an immigrant family who speaks of the

connection her surname gives to her about the group identity associated with those from her

country of origin, who hold her same values. Davies concludes that, "surnames are not only a

signifier of family and, more so, kinship, but also of ethnicity, faith communities and regional

identities, and that surname can serve to locate individuals in a wider web of international

relationships" (566). In this regard, surnames play an integral role of an individual’s group

identity. Group Identity is the “average degree…a group’s members…regard [their] group as

central to their self image” (Pruitt & Kim 31). Group identity is important toward our own

individual identity because one aspect of individual identity is an “inner solidarity with one’s

group and its ideals” (Volkan 32).

In this regard, our surname symbolizes not only our core individual identity, but our

group identity. This gives us the context to understand the weight of considering surname our

choices and might offer some insight into the anxiety experienced by those who feel compelled

to change their names. If our surname represents our core identity, and our current cultural

traditions expect women to abandon their surname after marriage, Psychologist Vamik Volkan

explains that, “the loss of one’s core identity is intolerable—it is psychological death” (33).

Additionally, "the loss of one's name has been associated with death in some native American

and African societies" (B.S.S 1342). Hence, when our culture expects women to abandon their

name, there are adverse psychological impacts from that decision. Men may be able to empathize

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with this anxiety to some degree when they have no son to carry the family name to future

generations. In this sense the name "dies out" and subsequently, so will the identity of that father

to a degree as "the loss of the surname-or the inability to bestow it-means symbolically that the

original bearer will not live among future generation" (B.S.S 1343). Despite the shared anxiety

men share with women about having their names and identity “die out”, there is little empathy

for the plight of the woman in her decision process with surnames.

3. Problem with Surnames

The previous section that explored the significance of a names and surnames hinted at the

negative aspect of the current surnaming tradition as we discovered the adverse impact losing a

surname can have on an individual’s identity and psyche. This section will explicitly tease out

the problem with the default marital naming tradition of the wife taking the husbands last name

and naming the children's last name after the father, specifically in relation to gender equity,

agency, and moral accountability.

The current tradition sends implicit value judgments about the worth of gender in society.

Despite the marked gender-related shifts referred to in the background of this paper, the cultural

norm of marital surname choices has not changed at the same pace. Ogburn refers to this as a

“cultural lag” (qtd. in Nugent 500). Nugent explains the lag causing the marital surname

practices to be unaltered is "privileging a single, gendered outcome (501). That outcome "is one

of the last remaining symbols of woman's inferiority in American society" (B.S.S 1344). The

effect of this practice is that it "perpetuates notions that only men are legitimate carriers—and

creators—of family identity and heritage" (500). This subconsciously affects every member of

the family, informing them about the value a specific gender has to offer or not offer to societal

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fabric and the identities woven therein. When the son is the only child who can transfer the

family name parents might start to prefer boys over girls (Emens 784) This false notion about

men as "legitimate carriers" is then internalized by children as they "enter the world with names,

and within a naming regime, that has repercussions for their sense of themselves, their family,

and their future" (784). Riseman asserts that this then gives cause for “a reasonable and

legitimate basis for the distribution of rights, power, privilege, and responsibilities" (qtd. in

Nugent 511). Thus, the result is the subliminal message of gender inequality.

These cultural notions of entitlement further complicate the issue by limiting the agency

of women with regard to their marital surname choice. Ironically, since 1975, discussions on the

topic highlight that women now have a choice. However, "it is women's choices- and only

women's choices--that are typically discussed" ( Emens 775). Little emphasis is placed on the

fact that "men are also free to change their names" (776). Due to the cultural expectations

resulting from the current marital naming regime, men are conditioned to not even consider the

possibility of changing their name. In reality, there are many nontraditional options for

surnaming, but because of this inequality among genders, women are limited in their options

"because there's no serious possibility of (most) men altering their names at marriage" (776).

Therefore, a woman can either choose to keep her family name or change to her husbands, but

this limited decision set women have to choose from contributes to another facet of the injustice,

imbalanced moral accountability.

Due to the limited choice women are presented because of the cultural conditioning the

current marital surnaming practice offers, women are faced with a moral dilemma. At the time of

their marriage, and potentially again at the birth of their children, women bear the sole

responsibility of either preserving ancestry and personal identity, expressing family connection,

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or fulfilling nonpatriarchal ideologies (Stodder as qtd. in Nugent 501). More specifically, women

feel obligated to choose to either keep their name, preserving their ancestral and personal

identity, choose to take her husband’s name and express family connection at the expense of

their ideologies about gender equality, or opt for a nontraditional decision that might leave her

with a different family name as her children since it is a cultural expectation that the children

will automatically inherit the patrilineal family name. With the burden resting on the woman, she

and she alone is obligated to feel at ends either with her family, spouse, children, or ideologies

(Nugent 502). This framing is a false dichotomy that foments the "predominance of [the]

patrilineal surnaming" (504) practices that caused the dilemma initially.

4. Nontraditional Naming Practices

With the understanding of the hidden cost that traditional surnaming practices have on

the individual and family, the need for nontraditional naming practices becomes more apparent.

There are many options for individuals, couples, and families to choose from with regards to

naming practices such as “Keeping; matrilineal naming; bilineal naming; hyphenation;

biphenation; Mr. Her Name; new names; and merged names” (Emens 794). For the intent of not

losing depth on covering all options, the author will present the costs of nontraditional naming

practices generally and highlight the benefits of a specific option, biphenation, which could

address the problems resultant from the current surnaming regime. In accordance with the

emphasis on agency, the reader will then be able to weigh the costs against the benefits for him

or herself in making a decision.

The largest costs from nontraditional surname practices are those of social and emotional

costs. Surnames, as with any name, symbolize different meanings to the name-holder and the

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outside world. Unfortunately, because of the “cultural lag” that Nugent refers to, chances are

good the bearer of a nontraditional surname will receive some healthy questioning at best and

persecution at worst. Colleen Nugent offers explains what this might look like for men who

make this choice, "Given that some men perceive married men with hyphenated surnames as less

masculine (Forbes et al. 2002), it is reasonable to suggest that men perceive nonpatrilineal

marital and child surnaming as a loss of power—a denial of the privileges of the patriarchal

dividend to which they feel entitled" (504). This perception only reifies the value society places

on the patrilineal surname practice as perpetuating hegemony over their female counterparts.

Women receive similar criticism from their peers as "some research finds that women name

keepers are perceived as selfish and as different from name-changers in assessments of their

ability to be good mothers” (Suter & Murry as qtd. in Nugent 503).

Although these costs seem significant, one might argue that individuals who dare to

question the status quo are not concerned with the perceptions of others or society in general.

However, more concern is placed when considering the effect the perceptions of others might

have toward children with nontraditional surnames. Parents might want to mitigate the risk that

children might be “stigmatized as “different,” or even “illegitimate” due to historic and ongoing

prejudice against children born outside of traditional marriage" (Lockwood, Burton, & Boersma

834) if they have another name than the father’s. Additionally, mothers might be more inclined

to have children take the father’s name so they will “not be required to go through the tiresome

process of justifying or explaining their decision to family and friends" (837). The costs to be

borne by the children seem to be of most concern to the parents who make nontraditional

choices.

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Many view these costs as insignificant in comparison to the gains of benefits

nontraditional naming offers for individuals, couples, and families. Although each nontraditional

practice has its own strengths, the author will highlight the benefits from the practice of

biphenation. Biphenation is the same as hyphenation, where spouses hyphenate their surnames to

create one family name. However, biphenation answers the question about endless hyphenation

for future generations by suggesting children would choose, by random or deliberately, one half

of their current surname to hyphenate with their spouse. Family names would then be at a

manageable length. It would also allow for names to travel equally through the male and female

lines instead of just the male. Consequently, names would therefore carry more information for

genealogists. The likelihood of a name and an identity “dying out” would only occur if children

never married and had children. Biphenation would allow for an individual’s name to continue

partially or completely throughout their life and remedy the moral dilemma women now face

about choosing between their personal identity, their family before marriage, unity with their

husbands, and unity with their children. This practice would therefore offer a sense of continuity

throughout the generations of the past, the relationships of the present, and the generations of the

future while advancing the values of agency, accountability and equality.

5. Conclusion

My personal experiences with family members and friends abandoning and not

abandoning their surnames, as well as the concern I have for the well being of the quality of my

marriage and future family prompted me to conduct this research. Looking back at those

experiences I recognize a touch of irony. I was so perceptive to the potential psychological pain

that my sister’s and friend’s decision to abandon their surnames would have on themselves and

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their family, yet when it came for my wife to do the same I had no concern. In fact, I was only

concerned when she decided not to abandon her surname and subsequent personal and family

identity. From this realization I recognize the role my cultural conditioning has played in shaping

my expectations. The decisions made by my parents, ancestors, and members of my culture have

in turn had an impact on how I see myself, my relationships, and my world. Consequently, the

decisions my wife and I make will have an impact on our children as well.

The research I conducted on the issue of surname practices has greatly influenced my

views on the matter. I will confess my initial thesis set out to explore the impact multiple

surnames in one nuclear family might have on the relationship between spouses and their

children. From my research I learned that “to the extent that [I] would benefit from the practice

of passing on [my] ancestral name…[I] might be especially likely to endorse family dynamics as

a reason to preserve traditional naming practices for both women’ and children’s surnames”

(Lockwood, Burton, & Boersma 829). Essentially, my initial research motivations may have

been aimed at discovering perceived negative impacts the current status of my wife and my

separate surname status for the purpose of influencing my wife to lean toward more traditional

practices. However, as I read about the social problems traditional surname practices create,

specifically perpetuating inequality among gender lines, limiting the agency of wives, and

creating an imbalance in the moral accountability with marital surname decisions, I have come to

the conclusion that nontraditional surname practices are essential to maintaining the timeless

values I hope will survive for future generations.

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Works Cited

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Emens, Elizabeth F. "Changing Name Changing: Framing Rules and the Future of Marital Names." The University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 74, No. 3, (2007):

761-863. Web.

Goldin, Claudia and Maria Shim. "Making a Name: Women's Surnames at Marriage and Beyond." The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2004):

143-160. Web.

Johnson, David R. and Laurie K. Scheuble. "Marital Name Change: Plans and Attitudes of College Students." Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 55, (August 1993):

747-754. Web.

---. "Women's Marital Naming in Two Generations: A National Study." Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 57, No. 3, (1995): 724-732. Web.

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Springer Science+Business Media, (2011): 827-839. Web.

Nugent, Colleen. "Children's Surnames, Moral Dilemmas: Accounting for the Predominance of Fathers' Surnames for Children." Gender & Society, Vol. 24, (2010): 499-525.

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Volkan, Vamik. Blind Trust: Large Groups and their Leaders in times of Crisis and Terror. Charlottesville, VA. Pitchstone Publishing. 2004. Print.

Walker, Julie L. G. I Now Pronounce You…Uhh: A Qualitative Autoethnographic Exploration of Women's and Men's Marital Surname Choice Experiences. MA thesis. University Mankato. UMI Dissertation Publishing. Ann Arbor: Mi, 2012. Web.

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Pruitt, Dean G. and Sun Hee Kim. Social conflict: Escalation, Stalemate, and Settlement. New York. Mcgraw-Hill. 2004. Print.