Name Changing

I have never seen the need for a woman to change her name on marriage. There is no law that says you have to, although some people assume there is. Indeed in Scotland, it's still a relatively new tradition. I've done a fair bit of family history research, and recall many baptismal records from the early nineteenth century which read something like John Smith, son of Robert Smith and his spouse Mary Stewart was baptised etc. You also see it on gravestones – Mary Stewart, beloved wife of Robert Smith. Civil Registration in the 1850s seems to have been the deciding factor in the change: government bureaucracies always like people being easy to keep track of.

My surname is very rare, and I rather like it, even though I continually have to spell it out to people and they inevitably get it wrong. It's part of who I am. I could hyphenate my name with his but I think that is silly unless both spouses do it and are comfortable doing it. There's also the issue of professional reputation, which is particularly relevant for someone my age.

I had all these arguments and others all lined up when I talked about the subject with Himself recently. He took the wind out my sails by not being bothered at all, which is nice, as a friend of mine said when she had tentatively broached the subject of not changing her name with her then fiancee, he had said she might as well hand the engagement ring back and they could cancel the wedding! I did think that was rather antediluvian. Such a relief to find that Himself, who is fairly conservative in many respects is actually pretty progressive in this regard.