I'm reading Charles Murray's 2012 book Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, about the growth of class divides in America and I think it sheds some light on this NYT article [link fixed] by Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow on the failure of that post-1968 project to have women not take their husbands' names at marriage:
WHEN my parents married in 1977, women’s liberation was in full swing and my mother was a consciousness-raiser. She was about as likely to take my father’s name as she was to sport a veil at the wedding. She would remain Ms. Tuhus. Nine months later, the surname for their new baby (me) was self-evident. My parents yoked their names into a new one: Tuhus-Dubrow....
But this Wave of the Future has washed out to sea:
According to a 2009 study analyzing data from 2004, only 6 percent of native-born American married women had unconventional surnames (meaning they kept their birth names, hyphenated with their husbands’ names, or pulled a Hillary Rodham Clinton).
I know lots of women, including myself, who kept their birth names at marriage. But according to my anecdotal observations, which others seconded, rates of hyphenation seem to have fallen since my brother and I were born.
As Ms. Segal-Reichlin said, “At the time I think they thought they were going to be the wave of the future,” but it has not panned out that way. Still, hyphenated names are not entirely a relic of the ’70s, like sideburns and lava lamps: witness the Jolie-Pitts.
Based on my conversations, the verdict on hyphenation was mixed.
“When I was young I hated it,” said Sarah Schindler-Williams, a 32-year-old lawyer in Philadelphia. “It was long, it never fit in anything. I was always Sarah Schindler-Willi.”
But most, including Ms. Schindler-Williams, eventually grew to appreciate their cumbersome monikers. Names frequently convey information about their bearers: Weinberg or O’Malley gives you a hint about the person attached to it. But conjoined names, several people mentioned, also say something extra about your parents’ egalitarian values. (Unless you are British; then it means you’re posh.)
Of course, the point of wanting to advertise your parents' egalitarian values is to demonstrate your own hereditary poshness.
The problem, though, is that egalitarian values, such as a lack of disdain for bastardy, got taken up, in practice, by all the wrong people.
For example, when reading lists of arrestees in last summer's English riots, I was struck by the many double-barreled surnames. Were Old Etonians running amok, like on Boat Race Night in a Wodehouse novel?
My English readers pointed out, however, that doubled-barreled surnnames in England today are less the mark of friends of Bertie Wooster (e.g., Gussie Fink-Nottle, newt-fancier from deepest Lincolnshire) and more the mark of blacks whose parents didn't marry.
As Murray documents in his new book, the key class divide today centers around marriage and legitimacy. Thus, it's hardly surprising that this innovation has faded out of fashion.
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Not surprising when I think about it: I guess there is a reason that patriarchy has survived for the last 100,000 years or so.
I went to Amazon to buy the book but it isn't on sale until January 31st. How does one get an advance copy?
Here's an article with data on the changes over time:
http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/goldin/files/Making_a_Name.pdf
Keeping her surname got going around the mid-'70s, hit a plateau by the mid-'80s, and began falling in the early-mid-'90s.
So, what would the children of two hyphenated parents do if they got married? Take on four hyphenated names?
Unfortunately though, this isn't about a return to patriarchy, as men have never had less control over women, who have become more bossy, pushy, and selfish over the past 20 years.
Taking the husband's name is just a token gesture to make him feel like he's still the man wearing the pants, when in reality she's hectoring him into buying a Viking range stove, stainless steel door refrigerator, and a kitchen island with a marble top. And that's just in the kitchen.
It's more a story of men and women retreating into separate spheres instead of overlapping more like they used to in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. There's a rebirth in the female "cult of domesticity" like during the mid-century, and as then it's voluntary, not the man forcing his will on the woman.
But also like the mid-century, women are more pushy, selfish, and almost childish. (See the complaints to this effect across the country in the original article on the Silent Generation from Time Magazine, or Peggy and Betty from Mad Men.)
When women are too secluded from broader society and the community, they fail to mature and wind up more childish and interested only in buying as many pairs of shoes and domestic gadgets as their credit line allows. It used to be Tupperware, now it's panini presses, but same thing.
I think the sweet spot was the later '70s and '80s, when they had jobs and a broader social life, which made them socially mature, but weren't so self-sufficient that it was like a black matriarchy. If keeping her surname was the cost for that, it was worth it.
I have noted the trends of what people do on Facebook. When women get married, some do it the conventional way by going over to their husband's name cold turkey, some do so but with an addendum stating what their maiden name was, some do it Hillary Rodham Clinton style (although this in most cases seems to be just on Facebook and isn't their legal name), and lastly, some keep their married name.
So, what would the children of two hyphenated parents do if they got married? Take on four hyphenated names?
I know a recently-married couple. The man had a double-barreled surname, and the woman had a single one. The man decided to toss his name away and take his wife's name. Granted, that's still thankfully a rare occurrence, but I found it understandable in this one case.
In another case, a woman with a double-barreled name kept her surname after marrying, even though her husband had a nice single one. The Wave of the Future passed into the next generation in this one case. Although not into the next, because as far as I know, they are not planning on ever having children.
"So, what would the children of two hyphenated parents do if they got married? Take on four hyphenated names?"
I was chiming in to ask the same thing. What happens if Ms. Tuhus-Dubrow has a son and Ms. Schindler-Williams has a daughter who then go on to marry? Does their granddaughter become Bella Swan Tuhus-Dubrow-Schindler-Williams?
Obviously that'd be absurd. True feminists would never let a child be named after a retro anti-feminist character like Bella.
Hyphenated names are like communism - the true believers obviously never spent more than about 5 seconds thinking through the ramifications.
"The man had a double-barreled surname, and the woman had a single one. The man decided to toss his name away and take his wife's name."
If my name were something like "Smith" and my wife's name were something both beautiful and rare I might've considered doing that.
"Unfortunately though, this isn't about a return to patriarchy, as men have never had less control over women, who have become more bossy, pushy, and selfish over the past 20 years."
And boy is it shown!
The UK practice was "posh" because it was meant to strengthen family ties, not weaken them. Often, a wealthy, even landed, man with no sons would bribe his sons-in-law to keep the name going.
The US practice was quite different-- middle-class and cheesy, pop feminism.
Still, it isn't quite "Back to Patriarchy", as the title of Daniel Amnéus's manifesto recommended. I think the hassle of picking up a kid from nursery school or taking him to the doctor when he has a different surname just got to be too much.
But that doesn't stop the "single mothers", whose brats often carry the surname of the babydaddy long gone. On their part it's just wishful thinking.
My wife's maiden name is ubiquitious enough in our part of the country to make it almost invisible. She said she was tired of being "anonymous". But the more exotic surnames her mother and half-uncle were born with might have been harder to part with.
Ultimately, though, it doesn't matter what name the wife has. It's what name the children carry. That was Amnéus's point-- the paternal bond is inherently weaker, and needs to be propped up socially.
Or, as Dr Johnson said, nature has given woman so much power, it is wise that the law has given her little.
Now, it's easier than ever, thanks to Hitchswitch. Read about them in November's Entrepreneur.
It was named by their wives, of course.
Yes.
For some reason Brixton ghetto blacks are very keen on double-barrelled surnames.Usually they are the combination of two very common old Anglo-Saxon names such as 'Clark-Smith' for example, which rather defeats the object of the exercise, which I believe was to preserve a rare and endangered surname from the maternal line from
extinction.(As an aside surnames are inherited just like Y- chromosomes are, it is estimated that most English surnames of 600 years ago are now extinct along with their paternal lines).
I believe the Brixton blacks are doing this out of pure snobbery and nothing else.In England a double-barrelled surname still has the cachet of a 'certain type of person' ie poshly spoken, gentle-mannered old stock English, a countryman with a pad in Chelsea etc - the whole Sloane Ranger thing.To the Brixton blacks this is just another form of 'bling', but why they are consciously imitating English upper classes in this respect (in every way possible they are a million miles removed from them), I don't know.
"Not surprising when I think about it: I guess there is a reason that patriarchy has survived for the last 100,000 years or so."
You can't be seriously suggesting that we are returning to patriarchy! As a young woman, I can't really think of any rights that men have in 2011 that I don't. Well, except for the right for a shot at becoming a Navy Seal, but women of previous generations didn't have that right either. The tides aren't turning in that respect.
I think what we're seeing is a return to a polished, well-functioning tradition. It's easier to have one last name for everyone in a nuclear family. It's expected and helps avoid confusion. Plus, it's not a big deal. It's kind of like deciding to stick with the standard dictionary spelling of "woman" instead of adopting the funny looking "wymmyn". To a normal healthy person, maintaining correct spelling and grammar in the daily use of language is more practical and relevant than caring about the possible implications of linguistic oppression experienced by someone 2000 years ago, when the word was formed. It doesn't matter what people do with their last names after the wedding, and for that reason it makes the most sense to go with the traditional default.
That bit about the British ghetto dwellers imitating the upper class last names is interesting. Here, in the US, quite a lot of my little students introduce themselves as Something Something The Third. It's never "Junior" or "The Fourth", only "The Third". I didn't think much about it, until being faced with the fact that 2 of my The Thirds claim to not know where their fathers are or what they are called. I don't really know about the rest of these kids. They all have mothers, aunts or grandmothers listed as contact parents, but that doesn't mean the dads don't exist.
"The US practice was quite different-- middle-class and cheesy, pop feminism."
Yeah, for awhile it seemed like every drab female fussbudget thought the ticket to cubemaze respect was to report to her useless paperpusher job with two awkward loser surnames stuck together.
You still see it but much less than in the nineties.
Steve, the link is broken.
Here, in the US, quite a lot of my little students introduce themselves as Something Something The Third.
Take:
1. A common household product,
2. A US Presidential surname,
3. Add ... the Third.
Ajax Coolidge ... the Third
Brillo Washington ... the Third
Triscuit Roosevelt ... the Third
Instant 'Kingfish' gentrifimication!
"According to a 2009 study analyzing data from 2004, only 6 percent of native-born American married women had unconventional surnames (meaning they kept their birth names, hyphenated with their husbands’ names, or pulled a Hillary Rodham Clinton)."
Wow... When my American wife refused to take my name on marriage, she convinced me that was 'normal' - normal for intelligentsia, at least. And certainly US female academics who take their husbands' name on marriage are frequently ostracised by their leftist peers. But I had no idea it was so rare in wider US society, especially as Mexicans often have double-barrelled names, don't they?
You can't be seriously suggesting that we are returning to patriarchy! As a young woman, I can't really think of any rights that men have in 2011 that I don't.
Including the right to go extinct, which is the trajectory for feminist society.
Reconsidering sexual repression.
Your first link doesn't work for me.
Using your maiden name as a middle name is not some strange new tradition. Think Harriet Beecher Stowe or Louisa May Alcott. Or even Martha Curtis Washington (although in her case that's her first husband's name, not her maiden name.) Both my high school and college alumni magazines refer to all married alumna in this way. It's just practical - if you went to school with Mary Smith and didn't hear about it when she got married 10 years later to Mr. Jones, you're not going to have any idea who Mary Jones is.
Sorry, scratch Louisa May Alcott. I see on Wikipedia that she wasn't married, the May was given to her at birth.
Entirely correct. Although neo-double-barrelled names are big among low-class whites as well as blacks. These days, a name like Baker, Hill, Johnson, Clarke or Walker is likelier to be borne by a posh person than is any double-barrelled name picked at random from a phone book.
Brixton riots aside, over the last decade, the double-barreled surname has become practically ubiquitous in college football and basketball. And while it's not likely that very many upper middle class feminists are big college football fans, by the mid 2000s, it had become obvious to anyone watching March Madness or a bowl game that double-barreled last names were no longer solely a mark of enlightened post 60s feminism.
Still, a name like 'Rachel Cohen-Strauss' has a different ring to it than a name like 'Taekwonn Freeman-Edwards.'
The cool thing about Ms. Tuhus-Dubrow's NYT piece is that it continues the longstanding New York Times tradition of "taking the pulse of America" by dispatching a feminist NYT writer to quiz two or three of her girlfriends/sorority sisters/prep school classmates for their opinions on some issue of the day that has particular interest to modern feminists. Since the women quoted in the article appear to be Ms. Tuhus-Dubrow's age, I'm going with 'sorority sisters/prep school classmates.'
Of course, the all-time greatest example of this particular style of journalism could well be the Judith Warner piece that graced the Times' opinion page in 2009, in which Ms. Warner determined that American women want to sleep with Barack Obama because her girlfriends (err, "Ivy League educated lawyers and professional Ivy League educated women in Manhattan") giggled with glee when she told them that she'd dreamt about showering with him.
"the mark of blacks whose parents didn't marry."
Like Patriots running back BenJarvus Green-Ellis.
The most precious example of this was a coworker back in the 70s. He and his bride took each others names; he became Kelly-Martin and she became Martin-Kelly.
Agnostic, excellent post.
Great comment from Agnostic.
My ex kept her name in our 1975 marriage. We debated the issue and I, as an ex anthropology major, made the argument about the unsustainability of the practice over generations. She was an ex political science major more Interested in politics than culture and told me, in effect, to shove it. I ended up with a grudging respect for the practice. It made her happy and didn't really bother me. Sure, I figured things would probably bend back over time, as they have done, but I don't think people have an obligation to be consistent to principles of lineage when organizing their lives.
From my armchair, the reason this will never take hold is because women fantasize about getting married from age 6 on. It's a BIG deal to them. And the pool of men willing to publicly demonstrate that they're functionally missing one or more testicle by having a wife who kept her name (professional reasons excluded), is indeed very small. And those remaining men, well, they're missing a ball or two. Not exactly a women's archetype of a desirable male.
"Tuhus-Dubrow"
But wasn't 'Tuhus' taken from the father?
The media didn't push it like 'gay marriage'. People go with social pressure, and celebs/thinkers/teachers/media never pushed hypenaming as a hip thing.
When a girl took the guy's name in the past, it meant the guy owned the girl. Now, girls do it cuz it means they own the guy.
Btw, did Amy Chua remain Amy Chua?
With more kids dependent on welfare, we're headed toward statriarchy. With kids getting their values from TV, movies, and pop music, it might also be called poptriarchy or paptriarchy.
Double barreled names in the English aristocracy were aquired by marrying an heiress. This was quite a common way for the aristocracy to refresh family fortunes but the bride's family could insist on the name being adopted as well as the money.
Over generations it happened often enough for such names to become a mark of aristocracy.
Steve.... if there is a catty comment starting with the sentence "I don't like Charles Murray" please please throw it back as I think I signed in with a google account on accident.
Thank you (P.S.---No one takes into account how demoralizing it is to live in a multicultural society hence why people 'drop out')
In light of that 41-percent illegitimacy rate, shouldn’t a lot of kids be named something like Smith-Taxpayer? And if the government can’t collect child support from many deadbeat dads, why not legally change their names, on drivers’ licenses, passports and social security filings, to Smith-Deadbeat?
This would only follow medieval practice, in which surnames for place or occupation were supposed to convey useful information about each person.
A lot of women I know went from (example)
Jane Ann Doe (marrying John Smith)
to
Jane Doe Smith
I think this may be the most common name convention in my social circle--it's at least as common as just taking her husband's last name.
I also know a few couples who made new composite names from their original names, and a fair number of women who retained their maiden names. Hyphenating names seems less common than it used to be, probably (IMO) because it gets unwieldy quickly and makes filling out forms more painful.
There is a perfectly good convention for hyphenated names used in Spanish, which is why the current president of Argentina is Cristina Fernandez de Kichner, the widow of former president Nestor Kitchner. The male name sticks around longer, but your formal name includes your mother's maiden name, and your wife's formal name includes her maiden name. If you want to do the hyphenated name thing, why not follow this convention, which has been around for a long time and has had the kinks worked out by years of use?
If I understand the convention correctly, you get:
John Smith y Johnson marries Mary Jones y Baker,
yielding John Smith y Johnson and Mary Jones de Smith.
They have a child, David Smith y Jones. He marries Anne Williams y Cooper (who becomes Anne Williams de Smith) yielding little baby Sam Smith y Williams, and so on.
The place where the woman taking her husbands name is really painful is where she already has, say, a successful scientific career with a bunch of publications and lots of people knowing her in her maiden name. And I'm not sure there are any good conventions to handle divorce in a society where divorce is common. I know women that kept their ex-husband's names, and others that went back to their maiden name,, after the divorce.
While in grad school at Princeton, I shared an apartment with a women who had gone to Harvard undergrad and was contemporaneously doing professional and grad school work at Yale Law and Princeton grad school. She was engaged to a fellow Yale Law student. One day I was in the apartment while the two of them were talking about what her last name would be after getting married. She said, "I'm going to be [really long name hyphen really long name]." Her husband-to-be said, "Really? That's a mouthful and doesn't really sound that good." And she responded with mild disdain, "Well, I'm not taking *your* name. I don't want one of THOSE marriages."
I later related this story to my grad school officemate, a guy with the humor and sensibility of Woody Allen. I said, "...and she said she didn't want one of THOSE marriages." Without missing a beat, he replied quizzically, "I.e., successful?"
Yeah, we will never return to 19th century sex roles. That's overwhelmingly a good thing, since those roles really screwed women over in a lot of ways, and made everyone poorer as a result. (I suspect I'm richer in a world where more women raise their own kids rather than hiring it done, but I'm damned sure I'm richer in a world where the Basslers and Lindquists get to be scientists instead of housewives.).
How about something totally new, and really old? Let everyone continue to pass the father's name down to the kids, as it tracks nicely with the Y chromosome (unless the mother was unfaithful), but there is no family name to track the mtDNA. How about we start including clan affiliation? A quick DNA test would establish it and then a guy could be John Smith of the Katrine clan.
I find the Anglo obsession with wife taking the husband's name odd. I much prefer the old Norse naming convention where the son takes the fathers name as a surname and the daughter, the mothers. The Arabs practice a similar custom, though they tend to include the grandfather's, the great-grandfather's, the great-great-grandfather's and so forth. So you end up with very long unwieldy names almost like a Hapsburg.
I think the Italians and the Chinese have the best way. Wive's simply keep their "maiden" names and all children take the father's. What could be simpler?
Could it have something to do with legal complications? A new portmanteau name assembled out of the man & wife's will surely require a deed poll name change on the part of both. In the event of divorce, under the old law a woman could resume using her maiden name whereas now she would need a further deed poll name change.
Chicks least likely to take their husband's name are also least likely to marry and have a bunch of kids. Therefore, it is a self limiting phenomenon.
As Wes said, there is a reason the patriarchy is so durable; it works.
The joke is on her, shes supporting the patriarchy twice.
Hyphenated names are lame, but there are good reasons to keep maiden surnames in the middle. It can be a pain to prove who you say you are when you drop your maiden name (as I did).
Keeping family maiden names as first or middle names is kinda cool. Rich elites have been doing that for generations.
The LA mayor was the most snobbish/PC; he adopted a new portmanteau last name. "Egalitarian" is not the descriptor that comes to mind... But politicians feel the need to cover their tracks too.
The only good thing about the retention of a woman's maiden name after she has married, and one not easily dismissed, is that it makes tracking her down possible. I can't tell you how many friends I've managed to re-locate (and they, me) because in one form or another, they have placed in print their maiden name.
Try finding a Joan Machado Bates, for example, if all you have to go on is her married name. W/out a private eye, fugitaboutit.
Could Spanish naming customs also be pushing the upper class back towards tradition?
Hyphenated names aren't a big deal if your nanny's family has been keeping both names for centuries. They might even be a sign of low class.
Taking the husband's name is just a token gesture to make him feel like he's still the man wearing the pants
I don't think it's a gesture to their fiancés. Aside from the practical aspects that Maya describes, I think women change their last names because they like to demonstrate that they're married. In that regard, changing the last name is kind of like having a big, formal wedding - another thing 70s feminists disdained that has made a comeback with a vengeance. (The absurdly elaborate wedding is also a function of society's greater level of mindless and excessive consumerism, but that's a topic for another day.)
For some reason Brixton ghetto blacks are very keen on double-barrelled surnames
This is true in the US as well among working- and middle-class black women. It has reached the point where, in my part of the country, a hyphenated surname on an application for a mid-level clerical job invariably means the applicant is black. I don't know their motivation, except that black women are very feminist in their own way. Also, perhaps the dismally high divorce rate among blacks leads them to take only a half-step into marriage. Dunno. Anyway ...
This practice is in contrast with the white, upper-middle-class women I work with, who either take their husbands' names upon marriage or keep their maiden names. The latter group consists of older women who married decades ago or re-marry after divorce - not common in this group, who marry late and tend to stay married - and a very small number of young women.
In general, I think it's more practical and socially cohesive if wives take their husband's surnames. On the other hand, if my surname were something lovely and prestigious and WASP-y, while my fiance's name was something like Lipschitz - a very likely combination these days, after all - I might think twice about it.
There's another hyphenated name tradition--Hebrew names. In this case, however, the hyphen does not indicate two names cobbled together. Ben-Adam is just the Hebrew for Adamson, since the "Ben" just means "son of".
Reg Caesar:
"My wife's maiden name is Ubiquitous"
Really? I would hardly think she'd be invisible with a name like that!
Very likely as both the public education system starts to collapse, from K-12 through post-grad (i.e. "star" winners on Wall Street with connections or massive quantitative skills, every one else in low-paying McJobs with huge debt), and the welfare system goes to overt rationing, there will be an emphasis on beta male providers.
In one sense the hyphenation of the names indicates a market (for marriage/mating) where women had the upper hand, note Demi Moore called herself "Mrs. Kutcher" because he was more desirable than she, Jolie (then) probably thought she not Pitt was the prize (likely not, now, given her emaciated condition).
With divorce rate what it is a lot of women must be aware that there are pretty good odds that they will be wrangling to get support out of the father for years to come. Giiving the kid the dad's last name will get the dad more psychologically invested in the child and make it easier to extract resources from him.
As far as the woman's last name thing goes, I wonder how much the sexual revolution has affected the gene pool. It may be that women who liked the idea of keeping their name or hyphenating held those desires in part because of some genetic component and simply didn't have enough children to keep militant feminism going generations forward. The women with more man-center genes may have gotten married, taken names and had more children. Of course I doubt this is the case.
"Anonymous said...
If my name were something like "Smith" and my wife's name were something both beautiful and rare I might've considered doing that."
So if you get divorced, who gets custody of your balls? You, or your wife?
i totally ignore hyphenated last names and just use the first name listed. i do this deliberately, and i don't care if it upsets people. i call somebody named "smith-jones" as just smith and i use just smith in all communications and verbal exchanges.
hyphenated names are stupid, and need to be ridiculed. i don't care if women want to keep their names, that's fine. but don't give kids hyphenated names.
there's a guy in the NFL named benjarvus green-ellis. that sounds like 4 names. i just call him "law firm".
"I think the Italians and the Chinese have the best way. Wive's simply keep their "maiden" names and all children take the father's. What could be simpler?"
this is how i see it.
"The women with more man-center genes may have gotten married, taken names and had more children. Of course I doubt this is the case."
I'm not so sure. Here's what I wonder:
Women like manly men, and men like feminine women. But manly genes (big shoulders, muscle development, dominant personality) should affect both daughters and sons, making the sons more attractive but the daughters less attractive; the converse ought to be true for feminine genes. So where's the equilibrium here, or is it just one of those ways you maintain a diversity of personality types? (which probably is useful, unlike some other types...too many macho men and you'll pick stupid fights with other tribes, too many sissies and you'll lose all your fights)
(Cliff Arroyo)
Naming customs and patriarchy are two separate things.
There are many cultures throughout the world in which a woman doesn't change her name at marriage including some pretty patriarchal ones. In fact, in some cultures it's respect for their fathers that cause women to keep their birth names after marriage.
In many (or most or all) Arab countries a woman does not change her name when she gets married.
Technically neither do women in most Spanish speaking countries. A woman might add her husbands name to her own for very formal or ceremonial purposes but it doesn't supplant her birth name.
I've also been told that in Belgium women don't change their names.
I'm pretty sure in China, Vietnam and Korea women doesn't change their names either. I'm not sure about Japan (they do in Thailand but family names are a recent western borrowing there so they probably borrowed the name-change convention at the same time).
Many of my female friends are getting married, and using facebook to announce every tedious detail of the build-up to the world. "[woman] can't wait to become Mrs [husband's surname]", expressed exactly thus, is one of the more common statements. If a woman really desires a man, she'll generally desire his surname too.
I think women have a hard time perceiving how little this matters to men, in the scheme. Maybe some would do it as a way of "testing" the groom but there are few who are really offended over a surname strategy, as if that could determine the future somehow. (Easier to just let her have what she wants)
The Tuhus-Dubrow op-ed is not concerned with anything of true importance to society. Don't they already have Maureen Dowd to write these?
"Unless you are British; then it means you’re posh"
Used to. Now it means "parents not married and have probably split up by now, but Dad's name is on the birth certificate".
Love the comment by anti-gnostic. Excellent summation of black practices except left out the honorific title as name: i.e. Sir Marcus LeRoy Givens the Third. Sir or Prince or King; I've seen them all. Just another way to trumpet their pervasive self-esteem and demand obeisance by Whites.
One of my flatmates back in grad school in England had a double-barreled name; her father changed it from Smith to add a link to a famous, purported ancestor. She was a bit of a fake, too - hardly posh, but from London as opposed to Yorkshire.
Drunk Idiot's post is slightly off-target. This is very typical NYT reporting, but it's hardly a reporter and her sorority sisters. It's typically a NY Jew whose entire social and professional circle is other East Coast Jews. One interviews the others and declares, with absolute certainty, that their experience is the epitome of Americana, and thus typical and instantly applicable to fly-over country. Tuhus- DUBROW and SCHINDLER-Williams are merely emphasizing their prized ethnicity - mustn't give up grievance rights by sounding too White.
The college friends who kept their names upon marriage are those I've deliberately cut contact with; they all became devotees of the halfrican, and I have better things to do with my time than associate with them.
"You can't be seriously suggesting that we are returning to patriarchy! As a young woman, I can't really think of any rights that men have in 2011 that I don't.
Including the right to go extinct, which is the trajectory for feminist society."
No, the reason (educated and productive) people aren't reproducing is idealism, not feminism. Although a society that values equal rights is also likely to be idealistic. For example, i wouldn't want to bring possible daughters into a world where they'd be most likely miserable, silent and powerless, but no one would ask me, so they'd come to be anyway. In the West as it is now, responsible people are reluctant to have children if they aren't sure of their own ability to provide a wonderful childhood. I know that's why I haven't had those thousand babies that I wanted as a little girl. Many of the young couples I know wait for the same reason: housing,school quality, making sure that they are mature and stable enough.
Oh, and from what I understand, women are a lot more keen on having babies than men. If the "beta" men who cry over the falling birth rates really wanted to have kids, they would. There are plenty of chubby, acne-ridden, plain-faced young women who would go with them. But those men are idealistic too. They envision themselves actually happy, with a wife that they can fall in love with and a life that looks like a happy ending of a movie, and they aren't willing to settle. In the same way, many young couples aren't willing to settle when they plan for their future kids. Usually, by the time they set the nest just right, biology won't allow them to have a lot of children.
Sheila, the worst I've seen is Yourhighness Morgan, the name of a football player at Florida Atlantic University.
Maya, if by "idealistic" you mean "hypergamous" then you are spot on wrt young women.
I don't particularly agree with the extent to which Roissy attacks you, but you do have some typically female blind spots.
"Maya, if by "idealistic" you mean "hypergamous" then you are spot on wrt young women.
I don't particularly agree with the extent to which Roissy attacks you, but you do have some typically female blind spots."
I thought it was pretty clear in the comment to which you are responding that I was talking about high standards. It was in response to a comment about low reproduction rate in today's Western society. (I quoted it in my response.) My main point was regarding young, functional couples who put off having children because their standards for proper child rearing environment are very high. I did also mention those who misuse the term "beta" because I was responding to a person decided to randomly lash out at feminism, so I guessed he was one of them. You are right, of course. People try to get the best partner they possibly can. Nowadays, idealism (high standards/expectations) gets in the way of reproducing for a lot of people. So, everything I said about the so called "beta" males is true. They have very high standards/expectations as well. They are mostly angry because it's hard to mate up, or practice hypergamy if you will(that includes physical appearance), and they are not willing to settle for a plain chubby girl in order to have a family.
Roissy knows who I am? Weird. I thought I read somewhere around here that he disappeared.
Feel free to point to my blind spots. Dismissing something as "typically" anything instead of addressing what the person said specifically tends to be a sign of a fanatic. Reminds me of the multi-culti zealots ;) Cheers!
ben tillman said...
Sheila, the worst I've seen is Yourhighness Morgan, the name of a football player at Florida Atlantic University.
Prince Michael jackson?
And I'm channeling Whiskey here, but could it be that women who "settle" for marriage to beat the biological clock take the husband's name so as not to signal that they've settled for a beta?
Is there good data anywhere on peoples' reasoning for how many kids they have and how early they marry and such?
In my social circle, a major constraint to marrying early is school--most people want to be done with their undergrad or maybe with all their schooling before they marry and certainly before they have kids. But obviously, that shortens the window of time for women to have kids.
I wonder how much impact student loan debt and credit card debt have on when people decide to have kids. Certainly, having a kid when you've got a reasonably good job and aren't in much debt is going to feel much safer than having a kid when you've got $50K in combined student loan debt and another $20K in combined credit card debt. If you're waiting till you have a steady job and are mostly out of debt other than your mortgage, you may be waiting till you're both 40, and the window is closing fast at that age. (Along with being harder on the mom than a pregnancy in your 20s, the risk of Downs is a lot higher, and fertility problems that are expensive and difficult to treat are a lot more common--around here, it's fairly common to know couples where the mom was pregnant only once, and gave birth to twins or even triplets--presumably this is the result of fertility treatments.)
"And I'm channeling Whiskey here, but could it be that women who "settle" for marriage to beat the biological clock take the husband's name so as not to signal that they've settled for a beta?"
Can something so insignificant signal anything?
Oh, and I've had students named King, Legend, Lumboirginii, Artful and Priest.
I can't believe I forgot Senator! He is quiet and mild mannered...
Nota,
The reasons for waiting to have kids in your social circle pretty much match those in mine. Even the very religious country girl I befriended in college waited to be done with her education before getting married. She now has 2 kids, but it was understood that she and her husband will live with her parents until they can afford a place of their own in some distant future, and starting a family was the first priority. They still live with the parents.
As for the rest of us... It's not so much the debt as feeling generally secure in one's finances. Most of my friends were able to constantly work in this economy, since graduation, but it's hard to stay put in place. It's always contract work, fellowship, consulting work, or a lot of people just get laid off after 6 months, and it's on to the next one. I went to a flagship state university and have minimal debt, but I don't know where I'll be next year. Teachers get sent back into the pool all the time, and because I had to pay for my own master's in teaching (reduced cost, but still) I haven't saved anything.
The most obvious problem with name-hyphenization is that the names double in length with each generation.
When Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow marries Gussie Fink-Nottle, does she become Rebecca Tuhus-Dobrow-Fink-Nottle?
The notion that the woman not taking her husband's name is some grand anti-patriarchal gesture is remarkably idiotic -- the kind of thing only someone with no experience whatsoever of foreign cultures could have come up with. In Korea, it's been the tradition for centuries that women do not take their husband's name on marriage, and you'd have to be absolutely potty to think that made ultra-Confucian Korean society one jot less patriarchal.
It's the same with that daft notion about abolishing gender specific pronouns in English. Neither Japanese nor Korean regularly uses gender specific pronouns (as, in fact, neither makes much use of pronouns at all), but the Japanese and Koreans are (both historically and in the present) considerably more chauvinistic than the English-speaking peoples.
Is the insertion of the wife's maiden name sometimes done retrospectively? Was Mary Todd Lincoln so called in her lifetime?
I have some old vinyl Hot 5 records where the pianist is listed as Lil Armstrong when she was married to Louis and Lil Hardin when she wasn't. On a recent CD of the same tracks she's Lil Hardin Armstrong throughout. Makes things clearer.
I believe Jaqueline Bouvier Kennedy became J Kennedy Onassis on her 2nd marriage. So what's the rule - last male keeper's surname?
When I meet a black British person with a double-barreled name my first assumption is their family is from Sierra Leone, where everyone has such names.
Is this practice wrt married names at all related to the practice of American men having the surnames of grander families on the mother's side as given names - Winthrop Cabot Wossname, etc?
it's funny how many female commenters this post brought about.
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