A while ago, following this display of progressive parenting, I wrote,

A quip that resulted in some rumblings on the topic of marriage and shared surnames, or the lack thereof. In the comments, Steve E noted,

And Ray added,

As I said at the time, I don’t have strong feelings on the subject, but it occurs to me that not taking your husband’s surname, ostensibly as some Assertion Of Progress And Enlightenment – while retaining what is presumably your father’s surname – does create complications.

For instance, having different surnames can confuse people as to whether you’re married or not, and if so, to whom. And any children with hyphenated surnames – a fashionable statement of the aforementioned Progress And Enlightenment – will then face the issue of what to do when they get married, especially if it’s to someone whose own name is also modishly hyphenated. Do they ditch some of the accumulated names – and if so, which ones? Or do they go for multiply hyphenated surnames, which would very quickly become a bit much?

Say, if Derek Williams and Sarah Anderson get married but retain their own surnames, and their children’s surnames are hyphenated as Anderson-Williams, they may enjoy a sheen of modernity, and perhaps connotations of aristocracy and status. But what happens when little Annie Anderson-Williams grows up and wants to marry James Houghton-Clompington? Do we get a brood of Anderson-Williams-Houghton-Clompingtons?

I’m exaggerating for comic effect, of course. But only slightly.

As a new, supposedly more equitable tradition – at least outside of the Spanish-speaking world – it seems scarcely less prone to complication and trade-offs. When hyphenated offspring come to name their own children – and if they follow the same rules as their hyphenated parents – the whole thing rapidly becomes unworkable, and, at risk of causing offence, names will have to be cut. Lest each child sound like a law firm.

Though I suppose one could take it as a kind of unintended symbolism, a measure of modern progressivism. In that, the problem it allegedly addresses doesn’t seem to be much of a problem for most of those it supposedly oppresses, and the solution offered is somewhat short-sighted and soon results in something close to absurdity.

In the original thread, pst314 added,

Also, among gay couples. Though gay couples tend not to result in children, thereby sidestepping the issue of escalating hyphenation and a society-wide overhaul of stationery, due to the need to enlarge the ‘print name’ and ‘signature’ boxes on every official form.

What brought to mind the above was this:

1) A family is a unit and should all share the same name, however that’s decided. You could choose the mother’s name or you could choose a random name, I guess, but they need to share a common name.

2) There’s a strong case that you really want to throw dads a bone with respect… https://t.co/xjCFIctVop

— wanye (@wanyeburkett) April 22, 2024

And subsequently, this:

Anytime I hear somebody say within earshot of a new father anything that sounds even remotely like, “he doesn’t really look like him, more takes after his mom” I’m filled with the sense that we have lost touch with some very basic and important loadbearing structures.

— wanye (@wanyeburkett) April 22, 2024

According to Finnegans Take, above, “equality requires sacrifice,” and it’s “honestly insane” that the husband and father’s surname is commonly the one taken. A convention that is, we’re told, “obviously misogynistic” and “obviously a practice to move away from.” “I’m proud to say my child will be taking her mother’s name,” he adds. Which, while aired in overheated terms, at least avoids the Looming Hyphenation Crisis.

Though I’m not sure why pride should be a factor, or why perpetuating the mother’s surname – but not the father’s – should be construed as any more equal, or somehow more fair.

Update, via the comments:

In the Atlantic article that prompted the exchange embedded above, its author, Michael Waters, notes,

This is announced almost mournfully, and the term “habitual and unconscious” is deployed, much like the claim by Finnegans Take that the matter “gets basically zero attention,” as if people getting married never, ever consider the issue at all. Rather than the possibility that many people do consider the matter, but may simply arrive at conclusions that suit themselves and their families, rather than pleasing an Atlantic columnist whose “constellation of personal obsessions” include “queer history,” and who, inevitably, lives in Brooklyn.

This is followed by the sombre news:

Failed, you hear. Failed. How disappointing you people are.

We’re also told that “the rate at which parents are choosing not to marry has risen dramatically over the past 50 years.” With one quoted sociologist adding, “I think you can say with a very high degree of confidence that unmarried parents are less likely to pass down the father’s last name.”

So there’s that, I guess.

As suggested by Wanye Burkett, above, the mother of the child is generally rather obvious. The identity of the father, however, his connection with the child, is sometimes less so. As a result, some nod of affirmation – or papering over the cracks – may be in order. And given current rates of fatherlessness, and the typically suboptimal consequences, publicly affirming a connection of child and father, or step-father, or adoptive father, doesn’t strike me as an obviously bad thing.

Or, as Mr Burkett puts it,

Again, this is not a subject on which I have strong feelings. I don’t spend my evenings being vexed by it. But it seems to me that the custom isn’t “obviously” without a function, or that it’s “obviously a practice to move away from,” or that its existence is “insane.”

As a footnote of sorts, it may also be tricky to deviate from such a tradition without the risk of that deviation being construed as rather pointed, perhaps even insulting. Not unlike the young, progressive woman, featured here recently, who, at her wedding, didn’t want her father to walk her down the aisle. Because that would look too patriarchal and old-fashioned, and insufficiently progressive. While still expecting him to pay for everything, obviously.

Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.