On Marriage

Since marriage is dwelling on my mind since the, to me, incomprehensible passage of Proposition 8 in California -- I still don't get that here in America, a coalition of religious and other bigots managed to write something into a state constitution to take a specific group of people's rights away -- here are some musings. After I say that, if you can amend a constitution to take one group of people's rights away, no-one's rights are safe. Of course, we in the U.S.A. do have a long and not very lovely tradition of founding documents with mythologized reputations that began by limiting rights to a very few (propertied white males), and a constant need on the part of marginalized folks to fight to be included in the category "fully human."

Which leads me to one of my pet peeves: reading the Sunday Styles section of the New York Times on a weekly basis and encountering the widespread phrase "The bride is taking her husband's name." Even women in their 50s and 60s are becoming "Mrs. His Name." Now, I understand this if it's a means of getting rid of a former husband's name, but still! The whole phenomenon is like a retro DEvolution. I've gotten to the point where I cheer whenever the announcement says "The bride is keeping her name" or its equivalent!

It's not a coincidence that there's a convention that all but demands that women who marry (and any children of that marriage) take their husbands' last names. It all harks back to thoroughly patriarchal law, as expressed by a famous 18th-century English jurist (William Blackstone) who said, centuries ago, "In marriage, two become one, and that one is the husband." The idea is that women's only claim to social significance (and still, quite often, to economic survival) is as the "helpmeets" (to use biblical language) of their husbands. Every woman's first duty is to create a nurturing cocoon for "her" man, in other words, to serve as his support system, taking care of pretty much every trivial, repetitive chore so that he can shine, at whatever cost to her own individual career (if she aspires to one) or creative work or simply time and room to breathe and be as herself.

Of course, the women are stuck in a bind. If they keep their "maiden" names (wince), they're almost certainly hanging on to another patronymic (father-derived moniker). If they opt for their mother's "maiden" name, they're pretty sure to be choosing her father's handle. Some like to make fun of the '70s feminists who renamed themselves "Sarachild" or "Mariedaughter," but nearly the only way to claim a female-derived name in the dominant U.S. culture is to create one. Something not true of every culture, by a long chalk. For example, Iceland's citizens generally add a suffix meaning "daughter" or "son" to the first name of one of their parents. It used to be standard practice to use the father's name, but it's not necessarily that any more!
I like to think that if I'd been a more evolved life-form when I got hitched, more than two decades ago, my partner and I might have considered choosing a mutual last name we both identified with and which had nothing to do with our family trees. Instead, each of us just kept our own last name, which works very well in our immediate circle of friends and didn't cause any major ructions among our family members.

But living in the Southland, it's amazing how much energy a woman has to devote to getting people to call her by her own last name rather than her husband's! It's a none-too-subtle attempt at social policing that reminds me of a visit to the Bahamas we made about ten years ago. On our return journey, a U.S. customs agent claimed he couldn't give us the family allowance for duty-free purchases. Since we had two separate last names, how could we prove we were married? In that particular situation, I ripped my wedding ring off my finger to show him my partner's name inside -- since then, I've carried a copy of our marriage license just in case anyone else decides to try to make us cry "uncle!"

And I do mean "uncle." Because human beings are really more than flexible enough to commit more than one name per social unit to memory. No, the idea is that women, once married, are supposed to be subsumed, to disappear as independent beings, while men are not. It's just like being labeled "Mrs." No-one expects men to be defined by whether or not they're married. It's "Mr." whether single, wed, straight, gay -- because men are seen as individuals under any circumstances. This is why "Ms." is so useful, and why we should fight to maintain its use. It serves the same purpose for women. (Although one could argue it might be interesting to find a universal honorific or title that doesn't immediately point to gender at all...)

Why "Mrs." or "Miss"? Actually, "Miss" is something that gets awkward if used for any female above the age of about 12. Let's compare our situation with that in Germany, where the titles are really interesting. Men are referred to as "Herr," which means "Gentleman" ("Mann" would be "man.") Women used to be called "Fraeulein" for "Miss" and "Frau," which just means "woman," for "Mrs." In the last two generations, the use of "Fraeulein" has all but ceased (except for little girls), and all women (above the age of say 14) are usually called "Frau." But isn't it interesting that men are ranked as "gentlemen," while all women are just the generic "female"? But at least, with current usage, women aren't automatically classified as derivatives of their male partners, if they have such. (Although it does give one pause to consider that well into the 20th century, a German woman would only be called "woman" if she was married, while she'd remain a "little woman" (Fraeulein) into her 90s if she stayed single!)

OK, must quit while I'm behind. I have to be somewhere in twenty minutes. But these surely won't be my last ruminations on this subject!