Various writers in Britain have recently raised the question of whether it is rational, or even ethical, for a wife to adopt the surname of her husband.
It’s hard not to have some sympathy for the concerns these writers are raising. On the surface at least, there does seem to be something unfair in a tradition that insists a woman must change her name while a man is never expected to change his. Of greater concern to many women is the fact that name-changing might imply that a wife is simply an adjunct of her husband with no identity of her own. Others are concerned that this custom is simply a residual hang-over from our culture’s “patriarchal’ past – a past in which women allegedly had no rights and could be abused without consequences.
These concerns need to be taken seriously. At the same time, however, it is also important to deconstruct some of the faulty premises on which the objections to name-changing so often hinge. I have tried to achieve both these ends in my recent Christian Voice article on the subject. You can read my article at the following link:
Surname Controversy and the Future of the Family
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