RingChen

Sometime back, I was listening to a couple of married girls engaged in a heated discussion with friends of their counter parts. The argument in question was the importance or stubborn-ness: call it what you will - of their keeping one’s maiden name. My pet peeve however is an entirely different topic and deals with the M word although as such I have no issues about anyone’s last name, be it mine or someone else’s.

What was funny was that during the entire course of the argument rocking back and forth, I observed no spouse was having a direct verbal lashing with each other in the group. Guess no one wanted to have a grand finale of a fight later on when by themselves most probably.

One opinion as to why girls should vehemently retain their maiden name was that she should be proud of the name given to her by her parents and be that as it may the offspring will definitely be a product of the male lineage of her wedlock, she should at least have the courtesy of retaining the one symbol of pre-marriage identity.

Another opinion was that its all too complicated having to go change one’s name and then having to do all the legal paperwork. There’s this complication of having to justify your double surnames when you are in the process of applying for a new job and all? Its not something thats happened to me but sounded like a good argument nevertheless.

Whatever may be the reason to change or not to change anything, I think its an individual decision and something that should be respected by both sides of the couple. If you do decide to keep your middle name though, I still claim that there’s nothing more irritating than stupid people coming up to you and asking you how is Mr. Your-maiden-name.