House of Eratosthenes

We went to apply for our marriage license at the county office. What a fascinating custom, you fork over eighty bucks of your hard-earned loot, for that the clerk starts brow-beating your soon-to-be-wife about the possibilities of diminishing your manhood for the rest of your life by hyphenating her last name.

Fuck that. I did not relay her sentiments to the office in those words, I think I said something like “Yeah, I don’t think she’s too interested in that” — in a calm, soothing, but commanding and most patriarchal baritone. And there were giggles all around.

Had a casual conversation over on the Hello Kitty of Blogging about this, and discovered that I am by no means alone in this; I don’t care who it is, I’m not marrying anybody who’s keeping her last name or going in on that hyphenated crap. A lot of guys are of the same mind, it turns out. And that list of misgivings is not in sequence, I can certainly see the practical benefits of “just keep using the maiden name” if the woman in question has a career or some other tangibles built up around the identity she’s been using. If there are special expenses involved in a change, who am I to criticize? But that’s certainly not for me, she can marry some gelding somewhere, and I’ll stick with what I have. Wasn’t meant to be.

Think of it as a guy-competition thing. Other guys, within world history, have gotten married; some of them have been real stinkers, and I figure if they were good enough to foist their last names onto their brides, then so am I. Besides of which, for a surname that’s only 98 years old “Freeberg” is very hip and modern and with the times: You can type it in with your left hand while holding a beer in your right.

I absolutely detest hyphenated names. They represent, to me, a determination to ignore time. I mean, think this through: You’re a maiden losing her maiden-ness, getting married. But you’re such a hard-ass that you refuse to be subjugated by the patriarchy or whatever, and what to keep your name, so you’re first name, space, maiden-name hyphen married-name. That should show ’em! Alright, and your kids’ names are going to be what? And your grandkids’ names? And your great-grandkids’ names?

So the way I see it, since that’s impractical and it takes only about four or five decades to be exposed as such, this is all about living in the moment. It’s all about secularism, defining the ultimate goal of life as “being happy,” feeling-over-thought, who gives a rip about about tomorrow…

There is another thing going on here which I think I could call “agreement fatigue.” Right or wrong, I perceive that there is a new culture rising up within this thing we have taken to calling “feminism,” and its dictate is that males who lack aggrieved-minority cred — read that as, males who are of full height, hetero, Catholic/Protestant and Caucasian — are essentially binary; they can stick to a pure-passive role and simply agree with everything that comes along, or else they’re some kind of “ist.” It’s an all-or-nothing proposition, there is no in-between on this. Our sometimes-blogger-friend Margot Magowan made that abundantly clear, when it comes to looking at how a female is dressed & styled & presented and drawing inferences about what it all means, chicks get to do that and dudes don’t…unless the dudes are simply expressing agreement with the chicks. My observation with this sub-culture has been, this seems to be the way it works, across the board. Chicks get to have opinions, dudes get to have opinions that are aligned with the opinions the chicks have already expressed. Other than that, the dudes aren’t allowed to have any. So of course the expected reaction is going to be “Okay honey, hyphenated is just fine with me, whatever you say.” And, of course, once again I am going to fail this cultural expectation. As 2012 reaches a close, I’m all “whatever-you-say”-ed out, I’ve done used it all up.

So hyphens are not for us. But I do have to say what impressed me the most, was making all these options available to the li’l lady as if she hadn’t already given this some thought. My gal’s brain is considerably bigger than that. Uh, who’s isn’t? How does that conversation go…”Oh, I hadn’t thought of that, I could hyphenate my name!” No need to discuss it with the schmuck standing next to you who’s promising to raise any whelp that pops out of you, and pay all the bank fees on your bounced checks along with your overtime parking tickets.

This is one of many reasons why I don’t like to see government involved in family stuff. Government has a tendency to promote the dysfunctional, the living-for-today stuff. The self-destructive, lefty-hippie stuff. That’s where it goes. Conquest Rule.

Congrats on being licensed by the State.

As for the name game… I found it amusing that The Second Mrs. Pennington reverted to her maiden name when we got divorced; she also kept it when she remarried a couple o’ months later. OTOH, The FIRST Mrs. Pennington is still “Mrs. Pennington.” Go figure.

It’s a pretty complicated life, innit?
- bpenni | 11/22/2012 @ 11:10
It is a little difficult for people that knew you by your maiden name to find you by your married name. My gut feeling is that people that hyphenate their names have marriages that don’t last. Mine lasted 37 years without hyphenation. The difficulty I’ll have is when I marry again. I might keep my first husband’s name as a new middle name.
- teripittman | 11/22/2012 @ 12:14
That should show ‘em! Alright, and your kids’ names are going to be what? And your grandkids’ names? And your great-grandkids’ names?

Is THAT how we wind up with MEN who have hyphenated last names? Seems like I’ve seen a few pro football players on TV who have them.

Seems also, that at some point in adolescence these men would have turned to their mothers and said, “Mom, a guy running around with a hyphenated last name is just ridiculous. I’m taking your name (or Dad’s name) and am going to get rid of the hyphen. Henceforth I shall be known as John Smith or John Jones, but not John Smith-Jones.”
- cylarz | 11/25/2012 @ 04:41
It is a little difficult for people that knew you by your maiden name to find you by your married name.

Not since the advent of Facebook. I have noticed (for instance) that many of the girls I went to high school with – the ones who have since gotten married – now call themselves “Jane Maidenname Marriedname” even though they go by “Jane Marriedname” in the offline/real world. My cousin has also done this, and she even inserted her nickname in there along with her legal first name. When I teased her about long the resulting moniker was, she explained it was so people from her past could find her. (Of course, I already knew that.)

One girl I went to school with seems to have gotten it backwards, however (I’ve changed the names for privacy): Tamara Smith married Danny Johnson, and Tamara’s brother Chris Smith married Heather Jones.

Heather has it right: She calls herself “Heather Jones Smith” on Facebook.
Tamara, on the other hand, seems not to realize that she has it backwards: She calls herself “Tamara Johnson Smith.” To make matters even worse, Tamara isn’t even married to Danny Johnson anymore.
- cylarz | 11/25/2012 @ 04:50
I think that doing it just to be all modern and progressive, to seek the approval of the like-small-minded, is a sign of deeper unhealth. OTOH, I do know a family that hyphenated, who swore they’d never do so (they’re solidly traditional folks)… but they had a good reason to do so, one that started outside of the self and the ego, and their explanation works for me.

As they say, hard cases make bad law; I wouldn’t follow their example because I don’t have their reasons. A lot of people probably would, and use it as an opportunity to practice their sophistry: “A. There exists a good reason to do this; B. I want to do this; therefore C. my desire is just as good a reason.”
- nightfly | 11/26/2012 @ 10:59

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Thursday, November 22nd, 2012