Yes, I’ve neglected this site for a while, but between
starting a new job two months before my wedding, then the wedding, then the
post-wedding, then the holidays, then planning a three-week multi-city European
belated honeymoon, then starting to job hunt again (long story), and trying to
simply enjoy early marital bliss, you could say I’ve been preoccupied.
When Remus first asked me early into our dating life if I
would take his last name “if we ever got married,” my initial reaction was,
“fuck no.” While not a militant feminist, I’m feminist enough to take issue
with the whole history behind why women traditionally take their husband’s name
after marriage, and even more egregious than that, it just seemed like a huge
hassle. Going to the Social Security Office (which is where, exactly?), going
to the DMV for a new driver’s license and car registration (who doesn’t love a
superfluous trip to the DMV?), ordering a new passport (and getting a new
passport photo), updating my name on every single account I have (I’m 30+ years
old; I have a lot of accounts), potentially creating a new email address (my
whole life is tied to my email address)…it sounded like a lot of annoying work
for a pointless payoff, and I am inherently a rather lazy person.
After declaring my disinterest in ever being branded “Mrs.
Remus LastName,” I decided to ask him if he had strong feelings on the matter.
He decided that he didn’t, really, “but I think it would be nice if my wife and
I had the same name.” Fair point, but “nice” wouldn’t have to go stand in line
at the DMV, I would. I half-heartedly suggested he could take my last name if
he really wanted us to have the same one, to which he just laughed, because
men.
With the name seed now planted, and for the first time being
in a relationship that could potentially lead to marriage, I began to think
about it more seriously. My unmarried last name was my father’s name, and while
I didn’t like the implication of first being branded as his to eventually be
branded as my husband’s (especially when I would come with no dowry of 20 acres
of land and a pair of horses guaranteed to breed), I liked the thought of
keeping my father’s name when I had the perfect opportunity to shed it even
less. I had neither seen nor spoken to my father in nearly 20 years due to him
being kind of a garbage human being, so why exactly was I being stubborn about
keep the name of a man I had to which I had zero emotional ties rather than
potentially taking on the name of a man I loved and was choosing to build a
life with. Would a visit to a few government offices and the updating of a few
(a lot of) accounts really be such an ordeal?
A few years after this conversation, when Remus and I did
eventually get engaged, I ultimately decided that I would take his name, but
woe be unto anyone who referred to me as “Mrs. Remus LastName.” After our
wedding I was still in peak “get shit done” mode, so I banged out the various
office visits, paperwork filings, and account updates (seriously, how does one
get so many different accounts?) necessary to legally change my name as quickly
as I could, though half a year later I’m still coming across things with my old
name on them that need attention (sorry for the delay, hair salon I go to maybe
twice a year) and continue to not immediately register that I’m the one being
addressed when I hear my new name spoken aloud, which has led to a few close
calls for missing that our table at a restaurant is ready.
With my new name established, I asked my mother, who still
has my father’s (her ex-husband for decades) last name if she would now change
back to her unmarried name. When they initially divorced he had it written into
their child custody agreement that she couldn’t change my name, so she kept it,
too, not wanting me to grow up with a different name as my primary parent (and,
I suspect, to passive-aggressively piss off my father’s second wife).
“Fuck no,” she told me. “Do you know what a hassle that
would be?”
I have a pretty good idea, mom.
