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16 year after my grandpa’s death, my grandmother is still Mrs. Donald Simmons. When she got married, she gave up her own name (McGregor, I think? I’m not even sure), assuming his name and her role as his wife (his property?) Society nodded in approval.

Two generations later, we men don’t have it so easy. Truth is, most of us would still like to maintain our patriarchal dominance of family names, but for different reasons than you might expect. My pragmatic reasons included:

- easier to identify us (on paper, in group introductions…) as a family

- simpler identity for the children

- easier to fit the last name on soccer jerseys, registration forms, etc

But there is also the “continuation of the line” motivation. Whether I’m proud or embarrassed of my ancestry, I sure don’t want the family name to end here. Why on earth that would matter to me I don’t know, but it does. Maybe it’s an evolutionary thing; an extension or intellectualization of the root instinct to propagate my genetic inheritance.

As modern and “evolved” as we like to think we are, we’ve still only come half-way. We might accept or even intellectually embrace the fairness of a hyphenated name, or kids with different last names, or the wife keeping a professional identity. But to take her name – that doesn’t even come to the bargaining table. Come hyphen or high water, somehow my family name is going to live on as atleast part of the equation (and presumably the First of the hyphenated-names…)

I had pretty much accepted that any woman brave enough to marry me would also expect to keep her own name. Imagine my surprise when Sarah actually wanted to assume my hard-to-spell-or-pronounce Swedish moniker. She liked the name, liked the family, and embraced the idea of fully becoming part of the clan. And she had the confidence I apparently lack to know that she could do so without in any way betraying or letting down her own family history and legacy.

She didn’t have to do this. As a semi-evolved man I was begrudgingly prepared to accept a hyphen or even a clever morphing of our names. But deep down, there’s a caveman in me that wanted this, wanted my family’s name to “win,” and wanted the convenience of a single name for all of us. I’m not proud of that – it evokes in me feelings of failure, of lack of full acceptance of equality, lack of strength to overcome the historical/societal/evolutionary drive for dominance of my particular strand of our species. I stand guilty as accused in Tammy Wynette’s country classic – “After all, he’s just a man.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_By_Your_Man)

Every time I hear my partner introduce herself with our family name, I am honoured by her gift and humbled by her strength. But in the end I also have to accept that I got what I wanted. The pragmatic convenience of a single name, and the primal satisfaction that it’s my name.

Maybe somehow we can support our boys to go a step further in recognizing that women have the same right to pride in their names. Maybe they’ll be just as ready and reluctant to give up their family name. But for now, ladies, please accept that when we say “Of course she doesn’t have to change her name,” that many of us are underneath whispering, “but I sure hope she does, cause I sure ain’t gonna.”
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