What’s in a name?
Apr 21st, 2009 by Katie
What’s in a name? Quite a lot it would seem.
The debate in the Ethical Weddings forum on taking your other half’s name is hotting up.
Does it make you a closer couple to share the same name?
Do you lose your independence when you give up your original surname?
Or does it make no difference because your surname came from your father anyway?
In the middle of heated debate, we realised that while the decision for a woman to take or not to take her partner’s surname is a personal one, the legal structure behind it is outdated and smacks of inequality.
A woman can take her husband’s surname, no problem – she can do this as soon as she has the marriage certificate to prove their union.
She can keep her own name – with a few more problems from some of our venerable institutions who will assume she has taken her husband’s name!
But if the man wants to take his wife’s surname, or the couple wants to create a new surname together, it involves deed poll and a payment.
Our petition
Recognising this inequality, we have started a petition to the government to make the surname decision (whether to keep current surnames, take the husband’s or wife’s, or create a new surname) part of the marriage certificate.
This is what we say in our petition:
It is outdated and seems to contravene equal rights that a woman can automatically take her husband’s surname after marriage but that a man wishing to take his wife’s surname must pay to do so by deed poll.
We propose that the surname decision (whether to keep current surnames, take the husband’s or wife’s, or create a new surname) be incorporated into the marriage certificate. Once signed, the certificate would then provide legal proof of the name change or the decision to keep current surnames.
* Sign our petition at petitions.number10.gov.uk/changingnames *
20 people have signed so far – can we make it 100? Then we’ll try to get it tabled as an Early Day Motion and pushed through parliament… watch this space!
Want more? Read the debate on equal rights on surnames on Facebook.
Katie
