Customs Relating To Maiden Names in Marriages
In many cultures, traditionally a woman inherits her surname or birth name from her father and changes it to match her husband's surname (which he inherited from his father). This name change custom has been criticized for a number of reasons. It can be construed as meaning the woman's father and then husband had control over her, and it means that lines of male descent (patrilineality) are seen as primary—that a child has no inherited name tying him or her to female ancestors (matrilineality). Moreover, it means that women have no matrilineal surnames of their own, but only "place-markers" indicating their relationship to men. However, for a further treatment of matrilineal surnames or matrinames, see Matriname.
In the remainder of this article, birth name, family name, surname, married name and maiden name are always patrilineal surnames unless explicitly stated to be matrilineal surnames.
Read more about this topic: Married And Maiden Names
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“We set up a certain aim, and put ourselves of our own will into the power of a certain current. Once having done that, we find ourselves committed to usages and customs which we had not before fully known, but from which we cannot depart without giving up the end which we have chosen. But we have no right, therefore, to claim that we are under the yoke of necessity. We might as well say that the man whom we see struggling vainly in the current of Niagara could not have helped jumping in.”
—Anna C. Brackett (1836–1911)
“It is by teaching that we teach ourselves, by relating that we observe, by affirming that we examine, by showing that we look, by writing that we think, by pumping that we draw water into the well.”
—Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881)
“This is the maiden all forlorn
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn”
—Mother Goose (fl. 17th–18th century. The House That Jack Built (l. 22–23)
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—Jim Shahin (20th century)
“If common sense had been consulted, how many marriages would never have taken place; if uncommon or divine sense, how few marriages such as we witness would ever have taken place!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)