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Last Updated: Feb 18th, 2008 - 14:39:01 |
Should the bride take on the groom’s name after marriage?
This is not the really important question. The right question to ask involves identity. The question should be framed thus: should the bride give up her own name after marriage?
One’s title is associated with one’s original identity, because it represents one's own origin and discloses one’s family background. What does giving up your original identity mean for society in general?
This is a hotly debated topic, involving many delicate issues. Most societies of the world are patriarchal, though some of them are quite liberal, like American and British societies. Those promise to preserve the liberty of women. Women of such societies never put up with imposed chauvinism. Their protest against patriarchy has been coined as “feminism”. But human identity cannot be equated with any ‘ism’.
Ours is a homogeneous society, where women enjoy choice, and are not obliged to take on their husband’s name. but if somebody wants to take it on as a token of love, as a gesture of devotion or only for the sake of a sense of security, she is free to do so.
It is one of the most recurrent and disputed topics in the third world, the underdeveloped or the developing countries where discarding the maternal title is to some extent compulsory. In certain cultures, however, there is no strict rule or compulsion, and there it is absolutely irrelevant and not a matter to worry about.
In some cases, women are seen taking on joint titles. In these cases, children have the choice of either inheriting the joint title or taking on their father’s title. In some cases, women choose not to take any title at all. Rather, they like to think of themselves as absolute individuals, and not someone's daughter or someone else's wife.
Women in today’s modern society have decided to directly address their perennial identity crisis. They have become independent financially and psychologically, and it's time for them to fight against various social menaces and hegemonies. The human identity in women of the developed nations has been awakened today, but this is not the case with women of all other societies.
When a child is born it remains genderless. Gradually, it is taught by society that it is a ‘she’ and not a ‘he’ and she has to maintain some do-s and don't-s if she does not wish to be condemned and ostracized. This unwritten rule is very strict in some societies. Male beings are treated as the original sex and female beings are treated as whatever is not the original sex. In a matured and advanced society, men and women should be judged by their distinct qualities, and not in terms of each other. In those societies, women are not considered to be an inferior species, but the same species with some different qualities. So in those societies, it’s absolutely up to the woman to decide if she will take on her husband’s name or not.
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