I don’t like my father. He doesn’t know I’m engaged. He’s probably not going to be invited to the wedding. I see and talk to him as little as I can. There are strong feelings of distrust on my side for many reasos.

But to disown the last name I grew up with because of /him/ would be to grant /him/ ownership over me and my identity.

That resonated with me so much. It’s NOT my father’s last name. It’s /mine/. It’s been a part of my identity my whole life. I’m happy with who I am, despite him, so I see no reason to change my identity to spite him.

(PS, we’re looking for rings right now, and he is fully intending to wear an engagement ring. Because something sure smells like doublestandard when the woman is wearing a ring saying “Owned,” and the man’s still in the “game”. So who says men don’t wear engagement rings? REAL men are proud to announce their impending marriage.)

I wanted rid of his name, and given that I was getting married to someone with a perfectly lovely surname that seems to fit me in all kinds of ways, I changed it to that name rather than coming up with a whole new one. Feminism, it is not about spite. It is not about being forced to make one particular choice in the name of the sisterhood - it is about having a goddamn choice to begin with. I made my choice, yey.

I HATE that. It’s tapered off a bit, but while we were engaged and then just married, it was impossible to avoid. I would turn the question around, and ask if my husband not taking my name meant he wasn’t committed to me, either (and if not, I’d ask why the double standard? Watching the wheels click into place, with them knowing the answer was “sexism” but not wanting to say it = fun for me!) OR, I’d say, Gee, I thought publicly declaring that we love each other and deciding to intertwine our lives for, like, EVER meant I was totally committing. With some people, I found that either tack lead to great discussions on why for a woman, her submission = love; I mean, people who otherwise might never have even thought of it. So that was cool.

The lone hold-out 2.5 years post-wedding is my own mother. I do not get it. Every opportunity she has, she uses my first name and my husband’s last name — even signed me up for a magazine subscription in that name. I tried to ignore it at first, but after venting my frustration at her, she starting sending me stuff to my name, in care of my husband’s name, I shit you not.

Fifteen years later, I’m the only woman in my family who kept her own name. Yes, I’m a staunch feminist, but it’s 2008, surely someone else could’ve bucked the trend in the interim. But no, cousins and siblings marrying left and right, but the wife always changes her name, talking about her “commitment”, as if husbands don’t need to make any commitments.

Now, I kind of wish I had kept my name, or at least hyphenated, but I’ve been KS for a third of my life and I’m used to it. Plus, it would be a hassle to change it back and since I didn’t have any objections to taking it in the first place, he’d probably see it as a rejection of him, which I don’t want.

Unless of course, you think women are the ones who make the commitment, and men just merely take a wife.