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What's wrong with the wife not changing her last name? Why does there have to be change? Islam does it, and there are no issues at all.

by M277 6y ago

zamadatix 6y ago
Nothing "wrong" with it and there aren't any "issues" in that you won't drop to the ground scratching your head on what to do in a certain situation if you don't change your name. That doesn't mean there aren't advantages to normalizing last names in a household though. I'm currently engaged and plan on taking her last name after the wedding. Life would go on very large the same way if I didn't the same way it will if I do. The whole problem is overblown.
bipson 6y ago
There are several issues in real life if you live in a society where it is the norm. The very least when you have kids and their teachers or any official you encounter assume that the parents have the same name as the kids. (This can't be your kid!) We know a couple where she had hyphenated surnames. Almost always confused the officials, colleagues and friends when they lived in Switzerland. We decided against my wife not changing her name, since it was not worth the troubles.
- M277 6y ago
  Oh, yes, I understand now. The original post was talking about changing surnames in general so I thought that it was criticising the norm, and my reply was in similar fashion - "why does the norm exist?" Should have clarified, sorry. It [not changing names] really wouldn't work out well if it wasn't the norm in place as you say, there are plenty of issues that could happen.
michaericalribo 6y ago
Likewise, women in China typically / often do not take their husband's name.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  Do they ever? There is a female title that applies to the husband's name rather than the wife's name -- when 宋美齡 marries 蔣介石, she can be referred to as 蔣夫人, but not 宋夫人 -- but that's a fact about the usage of the title, not the woman's name.
  - michaericalribo 6y ago
    I can't claim to be authoritative on cultural practices in China, so I hedged my language so I wasn't overreaching :) And there's usually some exception to every rule... That's really interesting! Can you explain it a little more? I can't read Chinese, so it's a bit opaque what's going on...
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      I can't claim to be authoritative either, but it's what I read. I feel fairly safe in claiming that there is no tradition of women changing their names on marriage, though. For the example, I used the names of two historical people who did historically marry; I picked them based on Soong Mei-ling being mentioned in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_titles#Women https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_titles#Women , under the title I wanted to talk about. For Chinese address in general, the example posits a woman named 宋美龄 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soong_Mei-ling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soong_Mei-ling ), whose family name is 宋 and whose personal name is 美龄, marrying a man named 蒋介石 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek ), whose family name is 蒋 and whose personal name is 介石. Chinese titles appear after the noun being titled, not before. So the ordinary address for 宋美龄 (before or after she marries[1]) is 宋小姐 ("Ms. Song"), where 小姐 is the courtesy title for women, and the ordinary address for 蒋介石 is 蒋先生 ("Mr. Jiang"), with 先生 being the courtesy title for men. The 夫人 ("Lady") title is unusual; it is applied to the name of the woman's husband, not to the name of the woman herself. (Compare an American letter addressed to e.g. "Mr. and Mrs. John Smith".) Thus, 蒋介石's wife can be referred to as 蒋夫人, regardless of what her name might be. Wikipedia suggests that the title 太太 ("wife") is also applied to the husband's name. [1] I'm following the convention of government forms here, in which 小姐 and 先生 are opposed options for how the form addresses you, and 女士 doesn't appear. The wikipedia section linked above states that 小姐 applies to unmarried women and 女士 applies to married women. My -- limited -- understanding is different; I see 女士 as being used to convey a higher degree of respect, such as in professional communications. For example, I was once advised by a Chinese person to address the mother of a child I was tutoring as 孟小姐; I can only assume that the use of 小姐 did not convey the fairly insulting impression that I believed she was unmarried.

What's wrong with the wife not changing her last name? Why does there have to be change? Islam does it, and there are no issues at all.

by M277 6y ago

What's wrong with the wife not changing her last name? Why does there have to be change? Islam does it, and there are no issues at all.

zamadatix 6y ago

Nothing "wrong" with it and there aren't any "issues" in that you won't drop to the ground scratching your head on what to do in a certain situation if you don't change your name. That doesn't mean there aren't advantages to normalizing last names in a household though. I'm currently engaged and plan on taking her last name after the wedding. Life would go on very large the same way if I didn't the same way it will if I do. The whole problem is overblown.

bipson 6y ago

There are several issues in real life if you live in a society where it is the norm. The very least when you have kids and their teachers or any official you encounter assume that the parents have the same name as the kids. (This can't be your kid!) We know a couple where she had hyphenated surnames. Almost always confused the officials, colleagues and friends when they lived in Switzerland. We decided against my wife not changing her name, since it was not worth the troubles.

M277 6y ago
Oh, yes, I understand now. The original post was talking about changing surnames in general so I thought that it was criticising the norm, and my reply was in similar fashion - "why does the norm exist?" Should have clarified, sorry. It [not changing names] really wouldn't work out well if it wasn't the norm in place as you say, there are plenty of issues that could happen.

michaericalribo 6y ago

Likewise, women in China typically / often do not take their husband's name.

thaumasiotes 6y ago
Do they ever? There is a female title that applies to the husband's name rather than the wife's name -- when 宋美齡 marries 蔣介石, she can be referred to as 蔣夫人, but not 宋夫人 -- but that's a fact about the usage of the title, not the woman's name.
- michaericalribo 6y ago
  I can't claim to be authoritative on cultural practices in China, so I hedged my language so I wasn't overreaching :) And there's usually some exception to every rule... That's really interesting! Can you explain it a little more? I can't read Chinese, so it's a bit opaque what's going on...
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    I can't claim to be authoritative either, but it's what I read. I feel fairly safe in claiming that there is no tradition of women changing their names on marriage, though. For the example, I used the names of two historical people who did historically marry; I picked them based on Soong Mei-ling being mentioned in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_titles#Women https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_titles#Women , under the title I wanted to talk about. For Chinese address in general, the example posits a woman named 宋美龄 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soong_Mei-ling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soong_Mei-ling ), whose family name is 宋 and whose personal name is 美龄, marrying a man named 蒋介石 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek ), whose family name is 蒋 and whose personal name is 介石. Chinese titles appear after the noun being titled, not before. So the ordinary address for 宋美龄 (before or after she marries[1]) is 宋小姐 ("Ms. Song"), where 小姐 is the courtesy title for women, and the ordinary address for 蒋介石 is 蒋先生 ("Mr. Jiang"), with 先生 being the courtesy title for men. The 夫人 ("Lady") title is unusual; it is applied to the name of the woman's husband, not to the name of the woman herself. (Compare an American letter addressed to e.g. "Mr. and Mrs. John Smith".) Thus, 蒋介石's wife can be referred to as 蒋夫人, regardless of what her name might be. Wikipedia suggests that the title 太太 ("wife") is also applied to the husband's name. [1] I'm following the convention of government forms here, in which 小姐 and 先生 are opposed options for how the form addresses you, and 女士 doesn't appear. The wikipedia section linked above states that 小姐 applies to unmarried women and 女士 applies to married women. My -- limited -- understanding is different; I see 女士 as being used to convey a higher degree of respect, such as in professional communications. For example, I was once advised by a Chinese person to address the mother of a child I was tutoring as 孟小姐; I can only assume that the use of 小姐 did not convey the fairly insulting impression that I believed she was unmarried.