Three years ago I met my "soulmate." In one month, he and I will say "I do."
I have never been one for tradition. We are getting married at city hall with only a few people in attendance, and we are having a reception to celebrate a month later. I am wearing a short, simple white dress and my fiance is going to wear a simple button up shirt and khaki pants. We are writing our vows together, I am not wearing a veil and no one will be walking me down the aisle. And lastly, I am keeping my own last name.
As I have announced my decision to keep my name, I have had a lot of different reactions. I have been asked if my fiance "minds" that I am not taking his name. I have been told that it is surprising that my fiance is "letting" me keep my own name. I have been met by shock, even in cases where people have very much respected my decision. What bothers me is that it should not be shocking that I am keeping the name that I have had since birth. It should not be my fiance's decision what I do with my name. In all honestly, what is shocking is that in 2016, heterosexual women still take their spouse's name when they marry. Women and children once took their husband and fathers' name because men once owned their wives and children.
To clarify, I feel that if you keep your own name or you change your name when you marry, neither decision is better than the other. Changing your name ensures that you have a clear, defined family name that you, your spouse, and your children can share. This is a wonderful thing. Although, it is also a wonderful thing to keep your own name and hyphenate the last name of your children, or to have a husband and wife both hyphenate their names, along with their children. There are no legal reasons for needing to change your name when you marry. You will still be husband and wife and you will still be a family unit.
There are many reasons to keep your own last name. Lets face it, it can be a big hassle to change your name and there is a lot of paperwork involved in doing so. It does not really seem fair that a woman will loose ties to her family name and yet her husband will not. If you are established in your career or have work published in your name, it would be exceptionally complicated to change your name. If you are the last person within a family generation with your surname, the name could die out. And lastly, men are not expected to change their names for marriage, so why should women?
The last reason I named is the reason that has made this decision so easy for me. Although, again, I do not think any less of any woman who takes her husband's name. I personally just want to keep my identity and to be my husband's equal. I love my husband-to-be and I will refer to us and "Mr. and Mrs. Yeager-Strawder." However, legally I will still be me—Alicia Yeager.
