JOIN USOnce they were back from the honeymoon and suitably settled into the new home, Garima got down to job hunting. In a couple of weeks, she got an interview call from a reputed media organisation. The meeting went well until the interviewer, a lady in her 40s, asked to see Garima’s academic records. “Where’s your name on these?” she demanded. The job aspirant explained how she had recently changed her name and surname after marriage, a common practice in their community.
What followed was a passionate speech against the “fundamentally sexist practice” and how young women like Garima were doing a disservice to the feminist movement. “After yelling at me for what seemed like forever, she finally told me how there was no place for
subservient women like me in the organisation,” recalls Garima, anger still palpable, a decade since the “jolting incident.”
If you think Garima’s is an extreme case, let’s consider the furore over Amal Alamuddin’s decision to change her name after she married George Clooney last year. As a successful human rights lawyer, the world expected better from her. There’s simply no excuse for such blatant anti-feminism was the popular verdict.
To take or not…
It has been a common practice for women in many cultures across the globe to take their husband’s name after marriage. As the couple embarked on a new journey of togetherness, it made sense for them to share the family name (no points for guessing why it was the husband’s). In time, when the children arrived, they took the same surname and everybody was part of the same team.
“It wasn’t even a topic of discussion,” says Nirmala, talking about her surname change that happened more than 21 years ago. “It was a given. Like you changed your residence after marriage, you changed your name,” she explains, adding that there were so many new things to get used to that the name issue never really bothered her.
In certain communities, like Maharashtrians and Sindhis, for instance, traditionally, the bride gets a completely new name — not just the last name. The idea is to start a new life on a clean slate, says Harini, who was more than happy to swap her erstwhile “ordinary name” with the current one. “It’s not like I was forced to do something against my wishes. I wanted to change my name; I never quite liked it. And here was an opportunity to choose a new one,” reasons the marketing professional in her late 20s.
It’s only over the last two decades or so that an increasing number of educated, independent, married women worldwide have chosen to retain their maiden name. In most parts of the world, it called for some fierce legal battles to be fought. Women were waking up to the fact that they were losing a huge chunk of who they essentially are in a bid to become the good wife and later, the good mother. Holding on to your name was, perhaps, one of the ways to hold on to your core identity.
“My name is an integral part of who I am. Why should I change it? Nobody is asking my husband to change his,” argues Arpita, for whom the name issue is a matter of principle. As she sees it, if you start to do things you don’t believe in just to please people, it’s only a matter of time before you end up lost and frustrated. “I’m being honest in my relationship, and I think that’s the foundation of a good marriage,” she maintains.
In the 19th Century, when Lucy Stone, among the first American activist to keep her maiden name after marriage, started signing her correspondence “Lucy Stone (only)”, she became an inspiration for generations of women to work towards amending the skewed power equations in marital relationships. However, not every woman who sticks to her maiden name is making a feminist statement. Some do it for sheer convenience, while others do so for professional reasons. And then, there are those who are prohibited by their religion (Islam, for instance), or the law of the land (Quebec and France, for instance) from taking their husband’s name.
Hyphenated choices
But that’s not how the world sees it. Just like we are inclined to label those who take on their husband’s name as docile, old-fashioned and anti-feminist, we are prone to think of married women with maiden names as ambitious, anti-tradition and “too much of a feminist”.
Nowadays, though, there’s a new, fashionable sect in between the two extremes. The women who want to have the best of both worlds. Think Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Shilpa Shetty Kundra. “I don’t think it’s such a great idea. You retain your dad’s name and add your husband’s…but there’s still no mention of your mother,” avers Arpita, who prefers to use only her first name.
A quick survey says that men today are just as divided over the issue. “It has to be the woman’s choice. Everything else is secondary,” says Abhinav, a media professional engaged to be married this year. And what if his fiancé asked him to take her last name? “It’s not a choice I’m comfortable with,” is his candid response.
So, until we have more men like Marco Perego — American actress, Zoe Saldana’s husband, who has chosen to use her last name — it boils down to just three name choices for ladies who are looking to tie the knot. What’s your pick?
(Some names have been changed on request)