InDePickWest
Im Not American
The Independent informs readers that younger married women on Facebook are less likely to take their husbands’ surnames when they wed. From the British paper: “[M]arried women in their 20s are far more likely to have kept their maiden name than women in their 60s. A third of married women in their 20s have kept their maiden name, according to a study by Facebook.”
Some 63 percent of married women in their 20s took their husbands’ names. That figure was 80 percent for married women in their 30s, and 91 percent for married women in their 60s. According to The Independent, this is “a sign that the younger generation is increasingly embracing feminism.”
This might be a little exaggerated. As Jen Doll wrote at The Atlantic Wire last year, despite the prominence of women who keep their own names among the world’s journalists, actors, and others in the public sphere, most American women who marry opt to change their surnames.
Some 10.1 percent of American college students agreed with the statement that “a woman keeping her name was less committed to her marriage.”
But while some 35 percent of American women in their 20s and 30s are now choosing to keep their own names, that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with a “resurgence of feminism,” interesting as that would be. While retaining one’s maiden name upon marriage has historically been pretty closely affiliated with feminism, it's also a sign that, for a lot of women, adult identity is now already established well before getting wed.
Research shows women are perhaps rather career savvy when keeping their names. In a Dutch study published in 2010, researchers looked into the perceptions people had of women’s competence and intelligence based on their use (or not) of their husbands’ surnames:
A woman who took her partner’s name … was judged as more caring, more dependent, less intelligent, more emotional, less competent, and less ambitious in comparison with a woman who kept her own name. A woman with her own name, on the other hand, was judged as less caring, more independent, more ambitious, more intelligent, and more competent…. A job applicant who took her partner’s name, in comparison with one with her own name, was less likely to be hired for a job and her monthly salary was estimated €361 lower.
That’s $472 a month. Basically, women appear more like successful professionals when they keep their names.
The singer Beyoncé Knowles, for instance, called her world 2013 tour the Mrs. Carter Show (this is odd on a few levels, but mostly because her husband, while born Shawn Carter, is known now as simply Jay-Z). There are a lot of people like her, who use different names in different places. Her name is Beyoncé Knowles, but she’s commonly known as just Beyoncé. She’s legally Beyoncé Knowles-Carter. Maybe her grandmother sends her letters addressed to Mrs. Shawn Carter. There are probably even some people who call her Mrs. Z.
This isn’t to say that women who retain their own names aren’t at some level feminists. The common definition of feminism is the belief that men and women are legally, politically, and socially equal. These women often have jobs where they compete with men, and win, on a regular basis. But they’re mostly not very strident about women’s liberation.Or they’re not as strident as first-wave feminists, a group whose agenda televangelist Pat Robertson once (bizarrely) characterized as “not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.” His statement was an exaggeration, but it reflects a common perception of early feminists as extreme.
Today’s newly married women might be low-level feminists, but more importantly they often come to the altar with careers and their well-established identities and property; their own condos and cars. So, they’ve got husbands now. That doesn’t mean they have to change their whole identities and start calling themselves something else.
As the Social Behavior & Personality study put it:
In the case of women who are business owners, senior level executives, professionals (e.g., physicians, attorneys), and those with careers in the arts and entertainment fields, their names are distinctly associated with the work they have produced, almost akin to a "brand."
This doesn’t seem to matter in many foreign countries at all. In Hispanic nations this appears to be a non-issue. Women simply retain their own names from birth until death. This has nothing to do with the power of women in society and their ability to vote, hold political office, or own businesses and control property. This is also true, interestingly enough, in most Arabic-speaking countries; women retain their own names upon marriage.
What we’re seeing in America is that the older the bride, and the better her job, the more likely she is to keep her name. In the long run, that’s probably a good idea for her career (that's $472 a month). This is true even without the killing children, destroying capitalism, and practicing witchcraft hyperbole. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense to take on a new name after putting so much effort into establishing the original one.
This doesn’t seem to matter in many foreign countries at all. In Hispanic nations this appears to be a non-issue. Women simply retain their own names from birth until death. This has nothing to do with the power of women in society and their ability to vote, hold political office, or own businesses and control property. This is also true, interestingly enough, in most Arabic-speaking countries; women retain their own names upon marriage.
What we’re seeing in America is that the older the bride, and the better her job, the more likely she is to keep her name. In the long run, that’s probably a good idea for her career (that's $472 a month). This is true even without the killing children, destroying capitalism, and practicing witchcraft hyperbole. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense to take on a new name after putting so much effort into establishing the original one.
