Confessions of a Stepford wife (was Names)

[Doreen Rich]

Sure... get us all curious ... and then don't tell us *what* the 
names are that you all are writing about. Bad ... very bad.

Doreen, ever curious


--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Amy Z" <aiz24 at h...> wrote:
> Amanda, who has never struck me as the Stepford wife type, wrote:
>  
> > And to be honest, I like being someone's wife. Publicly. Someone 
I 
> love
> > chose me! Forever! I want people to know. Damn straight I'll 
carry 
> his
> > name, and go by "Mrs."; my pride in it equals his humility in 
> offering
> > it. 
> 
> Yeah, I like that too.  I just wish there were a way for both 
people 
> to do that.  That's why I like it when both people hyphenate their 
> names--that's so lovely:  to take on a piece of each other's 
> identities.  Still, my dh and I could've done that and chose not 
to.  
> Maybe if we have kids.
> 
> And I still think it would be really nice if men changed their 
titles 
> upon marrying.  Anyone want to coin a Married Mr.?
> 
> > The point is that I hardly 
> ever
> > hear anyone speaking about taking their husband's name as 
anything 
> but
> > an antiquated imposition.
> 
> How come even though I live in the supposedly ultraliberal 
Northeast 
> and you live in supposedly ultra-reactionary Texas, I know almost 
> nobody who speaks about it this way?  For that matter, I know 
almost 
> no married women who did anything other than take their husband's 
> name.  Those who hyphenate, keep their maiden names, or do anything 
> like that are very much in the minority and seem to be likely to 
> remain so for a long time.
> 
> Carole wrote:
> 
> > I took my 
> > husband's last name for 3 reasons.  1) I was never fond of my 
maiden 
> > name (its rather odd, and I got teased a lot about it when I was 
> > young)  and 2) it is a whole lot less complicated when you have 
> > kids.  My sister changed her last name after a divorce, has since 
> > remarried (twice) but kept her "purchased" last name (went 
through 
> > the whloe court thing) "I paid good money for this name, I'll be 
> > damned if I'm going to change it now"  and 3)I got to move up in 
the 
> > alphabet..from S to E.  I don't have to wait as long for my name 
to 
> > be called!
> 
> LOL!  Shortly before I got married, my brothers-in-law-to-be sat me 
> down and said "Are you planning to change your name?"  I wasn't 
sure 
> what the right answer was, but I said, "Uh, no, actually, wasn't 
> planning on it."  They said "GOOD!" and proceeded to tell me all 
the 
> reasons why no one should be cursed with their last name unless 
he/she 
> was unfortunate enough to be born with it.  The primary one was 
that 
> it rhymes with all sorts of unfortunate things that get you 
ridiculed 
> on the playground (I wonder if they'd endorse our giving our kids 
my 
> last name on that logic?).  That wasn't my reasoning, but it was 
> pretty funny.
> 
> My name is no beauty, and I came in for my share of teasing based 
on 
> it too, but I can't say I've ever minded being low on the list 
> alphabetically.  I suppose when you're an S you're just low on the 
> list, but when you're a Z you're gloriously, distinctively last.  
Plus 
> it's kind of nifty having the initials AZ.
> 
> AZ