Dear readers, what do you really think, should women change their last names after marriage? I read the article below on net, I decided to post it on my blog..
Read on:
In March, the wedding website TheKnot.com surveyed nearly 19,000 women who got married last year. Of those women, 86 percent took their husband's name. The practice of women keeping their names, first introduced in the U.S. by suffragette Lucy Stone in the 20s and popularized during the Women's Rights Movement of the early 70s, peaked in the 1990s at 23 percent. By the 2000s, only 18 percent of women were keeping their names, according to a 2009 study published in the journal Social Behavior and Personality. Now, according to TheKnot, it's at just 8 percent.
But the fact that most women are willing to change their names doesn't mean the decision is an easy one. Making that choice can bring up all sorts of emotions -- and we're not just talking about the homicidal urges prompted by back-to-back visits to the DMV and the Social Security office.
There are a myriad of options when it comes to the name-change debate: you can keep your name, take his, take his last name and make your maiden name your middle name, take his last name legally but keep yours professionally, or hyphenate the two names (TheKnot's survey found that just 6 percent of women hyphenated their names last year, and the practice seems to get a collective "no thanks" from women in wedding website community forums).
Women who keep their names have tended to marry older, have higher levels of education and are more likely to work in medicine, the arts or entertainment than women who take their husband's names, according to the 2009 study. But when women who've built entire brands on their maiden names are giving them up -- like Kim Kardashian and Katy Perry, who's legally Mrs. Brand now -- the trend can seem even more pervasive.
Women "view it as some crazy glue holding their marriage together," said Claudia Goldin, a Harvard economics professor. In 2004, Goldin studied the New York Times' marriage announcements, Massachusetts birth records and Harvard alumni records, and found that fewer college-educated women were keeping their names than in the 1970s and 1980s.
The reasons women cite for taking their spouse's surname vary: some like the tradition of it, and others find it romantic. In some cases, it's more important to their husbands, and some feel it will be more convenient once they have children. Some women even argue, counterintuitively, that taking their husband’s name is a feminist choice.
But the fact that most women are willing to change their names doesn't mean the decision is an easy one. Making that choice can bring up all sorts of emotions -- and we're not just talking about the homicidal urges prompted by back-to-back visits to the DMV and the Social Security office.
There are a myriad of options when it comes to the name-change debate: you can keep your name, take his, take his last name and make your maiden name your middle name, take his last name legally but keep yours professionally, or hyphenate the two names (TheKnot's survey found that just 6 percent of women hyphenated their names last year, and the practice seems to get a collective "no thanks" from women in wedding website community forums).
Women who keep their names have tended to marry older, have higher levels of education and are more likely to work in medicine, the arts or entertainment than women who take their husband's names, according to the 2009 study. But when women who've built entire brands on their maiden names are giving them up -- like Kim Kardashian and Katy Perry, who's legally Mrs. Brand now -- the trend can seem even more pervasive.
Women "view it as some crazy glue holding their marriage together," said Claudia Goldin, a Harvard economics professor. In 2004, Goldin studied the New York Times' marriage announcements, Massachusetts birth records and Harvard alumni records, and found that fewer college-educated women were keeping their names than in the 1970s and 1980s.
The reasons women cite for taking their spouse's surname vary: some like the tradition of it, and others find it romantic. In some cases, it's more important to their husbands, and some feel it will be more convenient once they have children. Some women even argue, counterintuitively, that taking their husband’s name is a feminist choice.
A 2009 survey by researchers at Indiana University showed that 71 percent of respondents believed a woman should change her name, and half of those respondents went so far as to say the practice should be legally required. These numbers may help to explain why those who keep their names are sometimes criticized for their choice.
When writer Julia Porter blogged about deciding to keep her name, commenters accused her of not really loving her husband. It's not an uncommon response -- women who blog or post to online forums that they are keeping their names are often asked whether they are really committed.
Some women and their fiances sidestep the decision -- and potential judgment -- by taking a different path altogether.
When writer Julia Porter blogged about deciding to keep her name, commenters accused her of not really loving her husband. It's not an uncommon response -- women who blog or post to online forums that they are keeping their names are often asked whether they are really committed.
Some women and their fiances sidestep the decision -- and potential judgment -- by taking a different path altogether.
So tell me readers, what do you think???????????????
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