no boys allowed in the room!!!!

laurel you are starting to make sense. it's neither one nor the other -- you have to find the solution that is right for you. you should do whatever you want; only you (will) know what that is. it's really hard to know what to do (what you would do) until you can evaluate your own unique individual circumstances.

i changed my name and did not do it because i am a devout xtian (not even a xtian at all) or because my husband asked me to (he didn't care) or because of the children (there are no children) or because any other reason you can probably think of. i did it for my own reason which is mine to know and has nothing to do with anyone who has the audacity to ask me why or question my decision to do what i want with my own fucking name.

ur not necessarily the reactionary one imo, keeping your name is pretty normal now

there are many options and they are all more or less normal in 2010 imo

I don't think I am either, harb, but a certain amount of this IS about compromise and how far am I willing to take my principles/what am I trying to achieve?

I do care about my name, am proud of it etc but it was acquired through adoption in a prev generation so it's debateably not even rly "mine" and etc etc. I'm not making excuses for giving it up, in fact I can't imagine giving it up, but just saying it's not black & white to me anymore.

It does seem like a load of shit. I once heard that Mrs means Mr's. I wonder if there is any truth to this. It got my fires burning hearing about it and it made me completely averse to the name change thing when I was pretty apathetic about it before. Of course it is a highly personal decision and who knows what I'll feel about it by the time I get married, if that even happens. Right now I think it will be based mostly on how cool the last name I'm supposed to adopt is compared to mine.

Plus if I hyphenate and maybe keep the maiden for career, that's 2/3 more than my own mother even thought about doing. I'm not saving the world here, maybe I could be content w a step in the right direction and trust that through all parts of my life I'll be teaching my own kids to believe something another step further away.

Not finding anything about the mr's. thing. Wish I could remember where I heard that.

yes! Good attitude Laurel.

Seems iffy to me because the Mister/Misses/Mistress/Master/etc formation has roots that goes through several languages, probably took a slightly different form in each.

nah it's not world-saving either way it's just a reflection of what you think marriage is supposed to be
mrs. is an abbrev of "mistress" i thought

so wait second -- is a decision to change one's name (a decision made freely and without coercion of any kind) a step in the wrong direction, then? i thought modern times had afforded us the freedom to make our own choices, not the freedom to keep our names.

Yes, this is what I found out in my brief research. Maybe I made it up? Looks like you've got it figure out now, though. Now you can joyfully celebrate being engaged!

I'm sorry, A, I fell into that hole AGAIN, prob because my conflict is all one-way. You're right, what we should be pursuing is personal freedom to choose.

But on the whole I think the ideal sitch would be one in which there's no expectation that either partner will change names.

but hey, the way I look marriage is about unity, why NOT identify yourselves with the same "brand" so to speak? (Even if as noted upthread you both agree on another name.. )

I say this with one of the most awesome last names in the world: Dick$ - which I love and might make into a middle name, at which point my name will sound like a sentence: Al3xis D1cks $teph3n - since his last name is a first name usually. Dirty!)
(Sorry about obnoxious googleproofing)

no expectation
^^ the important part

Hey, you could be married to the British gov't guy Ed Balls. Count your blessings. xpost

My Dad dated a woman whose last name was Ball :) Unfortunately the woman he fell in love with and married became.. Pat D1cks. *groan*

Woah - Laurel - congratulations!!!

Uh, thanks! It's supposed to be a secret right now b/c we don't have rings yet but it required pre-proposal discussion b/c we will BOTH be wearing engagement rings and I don't let anyone pick out ANYTHING that I have to wear every day. :D

I'm more bothered by the part about the engagement being off if you don't take his name. You do sound like you are desprately trying to convince yourself that your desison in this was right. Was this his idea, or his family?

Incidently, I not only kept my own very, very rare last name (which is not Indigo), I also was the one to propose.

What happened was more or less what I knew would happen -- we had the emotional version two nights ago, and a more reasonable discussion yest eve.

He retracted all the absolutes and asked me nicely and I am mollified, and of a much better mind to compromise in the first place.

ahhhhhhhhhhh much better
now you can start getting excited!!

OMG SQUEE no, jk.

of course, proceed calmly and rationally ;)

We sort of mutually agreed to it, no one really "asked" anyone so it's a little anti-climactic. If anything, having witnessed my sister's wedding preparations a few years ago has given me a new motto: Save the (wedding-related) drama for someone of no relation; your mama deserves better.

Laurel: awesome!!!! congratulations!!!

sort of related: am I the only person not 100% enthusiastic about men asking the fathers before they propose?

Uh yeah there was no consultation with any male parent involved.

I don't want my dad "giving" me away at the wedd, either. Partly because I think a lot of the wedding script is silly and why bother, and partly for very considered reasons such as: I am not leaving my father's household to go straight into the arms of another budding patriarch. That's some nonsense and I'm not going to play-act that that is what's happening.

OTOH I think Dad might be genuinely hurt, and that'd be awfully unfair and bad so I'll have to approach carefully w him.

Yeah, I didn't think you would be one for that tradition .

I was a party last month, and a guy was telling us about his proposal plans and he was going to ask the father AND the brothers. Which was struck me a bit much.

xpost - ooo yeah the "giving away" business.

My brothers would put the kibosh on that, no questions asked or answered. lol just thinking about their probable responses....

awwww, my fiance asked my Dad which I thought was very sweet & old fashioned & etc. Maybe my worldview is 2010 enough that I never expect any of these kinds of old-fashioned things, so it means more? Asking my Dad never said to me 'can I buy your daughter from you?' but more of a 'Do you feel I am good enough for your daughter?' My dad's response, awesomely, was something like "Sure, if she wants to" :) I got a no-ring proposal too because my Dad is a jeweller and they both knew I wanted him to make my ring. Been engaged a year now without the "official" ring, wearing a loaner from Dad in the meantime.. can't wait for mine, the idea is a bird's nest with a bird on either side of it and diamonds for eggs.. hope it works out!

Frankly my dad would prob be like, "Are you sure you've thought this through completely? You have met my daughter, right?"

"I mean if you think you're ready..."

LOL Dad waited til after the engagement to start ripping on him for picking me :)

congratulations Laurel!!!

yeah, asking the dad tradition bugs me, too. i knew a lot of Muslim girls growing up who were really into/romanticized it.

omg laurel!! i always forget to read this board but finally i remembered and whoa! congratulations :) i will now start the process of adjusting to the idea of you as really-not-single

i think i am just going to marry bulleit bourbon tbh but live in separate cities so i don't tire of it

my two cents:
i was happy to change my name when i got married, but i have little attachment to my maiden name (i've had about 3 different ones, due to complicated family circumstances). my husband wasn't too concerned what i wanted to do, but it was my way of making a symbolic gesture towards the idea that we were about to start 'our' family together, and to start our lives together. i don't think everyone should do this, but as said above you should do what feels good for your situation.

oh, and we thought it would help our immigration case that i had changed my name, too.

the only thing i wish i'd done differently: i had no idea you could change any part of your name when you got married. it wasn't until the day, when we were signing the paperwork, and i didn't have any time to think about it. but now i wish i'd gotten rid of both my stupid bland middle names and moved my maiden name into the middle.

also, laurel: i hadn't thought twice about my dad giving me away at our ceremony, when the moment rolled round i decided that i wanted to actually walk down the aisle with my husband, since that made more symbolic sense to me (and also bc we'd spent pretty much the whole day together beforehand). but my dad got all butthurt so we went with the original plan.

and also: congratulations!!!

whoa i missed this thread: congratulations!

(I don't quite like the 'it's traditional for the woman to take the man's name' thing purely cos on my dad's side of the family there are at least two cases i know of (in the 1800s) where the man had to take the woman's name or at least double-barrel it because hers was more prestigious or more fiercely held on to. Which makes it totally traditional among my people (i.e. the dirt poor but still snobbish english gentry). And my momz uses her maiden name for academic-y writing but my dad's name for other work. So I don't particularly think of it as a feminist thing, more... a question of what you want to do with the names life has given you. It is supremely unlikely that i get straight married, so it's all moot, but i doubt I'd even combine my name with someone else's, mostly cos it's 1. super rare and 2. already double-barrelled.)

watching padma lakshmi talk about endometriosis on the today show

Thx, everyone. It doesn't feel very real, or at least not like anything is different. But I've always had trouble feeling what I was "supposed" to feel about things (<--- why I left organized religion).

What was Padma saying?

Congratulations, Laurel!

she said you can have laparoscopic surgery every few years to remove the bits of uterus lining that seep into your abdominal cavity and it's like no big deal, sounds great

gyaaaaaa

there's this hilary mantel interview where she talks about having endometriosis and people thinking it was just some psychosomatic hysteria* thing and putting her on antidepressants instead: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/sep/12/hilary-mantel-booker-prize-interview

terror.

* after all, as we all know, hysteria is caused by the floating womb

yeah she said she had undiagnosed pain for a long time before they figured it out. my mom had it so i guess that means i will have it :(

oh hi, thread.

Laurel, hope you figure this out. I remember being totally struck by the feeling of WTF i'm meant to change my NAME?? when I got married - not so much any expectation, more that people do it all the time and yet to me it felt like this massive deal. It's your *name* ffs, one of the most personal things you have!
That said, I changed it to my husband's name even though changing it (to anything) felt weird. My old surname didn't fit too well with my first name and looking at it completely analytically I wanted to do the thing that would cause least hassle - I didn't want to be Mrs "Maiden name" because that felt like I was my mother (considered "Ms Maiden name" which I think would have been my second choice), and I didn't want my husb & I to have separate names just because I can't be bothered to correct the inevitable wrong names people will give us in the future, or work out what to call any future kids. It didn't seem like there was any perfect option - which sucks- but I quite like my married name now.

A friend of mine kept her maiden name professionally but her married name personally but ended up changing to the married name after a few years because of having a bebe (and general simplicity, I guess).

i had a lot of hassles travelling internationally, recently, bc my passport is still in my maiden name. my husband booked my tickets in my married name bc he figured the most important thing was being able to get back into the US (my gc has my married name). but now i realise it was all backwards: leaving the country and getting into plus exiting new zealand, they wanted to see that my passport matched my boarding pass; coming back into the US they just really only wanted to see my GC and it was totally fine that my passport was still in my old name. i carried my marriage cert with me, but it was all a real pain in the ass.