Husbands can use wives' surnames

In California, under legislation approved on May 7th, 2007, men will be granted the same rights to change their surnames as women do. Normally in California, when a couple gets married, the bride signs a marriage certificate to take her husband�s surname, but the groom could not do so in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.   The new legislation now �...allows married and domestic partners/couples to choose the last name of their choosing�, said the bill�s author, Fiona Ma of San Francisco, who is the Democratic Assemblywoman. So now, men can take their wives� surnames and vice versa. Now that�s equality!

Source:   http://english.pravda.ru/news/world/08-05-2007/91097-california-0

Sometimes I wonder if I would take my wife's name, if it really was better than mine ;)   I can't decide if it would be unfair to my somewhat obscure family name though.

I like my last name...It'd be hard to find find a girl with a better one, but who knows? 

I believe, in some circumstances, men did take their wives surnames in medieval times.  However, this occurred when the only heir to a title was a female (no surviving male heir), and so rather than the title dying out, the husband took his wife's name.

 

Wow, I would've thought you'd have been able to do this a long time before the 7th of May.

The Imam of our local Mosque took his wifes name when he married. That was probably something like 30-35 years ago and back in Palestine. Which is kinda odd actually, since in Arab culture neither spouse takes the name of the other.


Edited by Omar al Hashim - 19-May-2007 at 04:08

I am going to make my wife to take my name, just so she NEVER forgets to whom she belongs. Oh yeah.  

Here it is normal for women to add their husbands name to the front of their own, so that all married women have double last names. Sometimes this gives odd results as the woman called 'on top' who married a man named 'Flat'...

I think a guy shouldnt have a choice, but to except her name, if he truely Loves her.

Let's hear it for equality of the sexes.

Here it is normal for women to add their husbands name to the front of their own, so that all married women have double last names.

God! I have always hated that, hyphenated names are so stupid.

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Personally I don't really care either way whether a woman takes my last name or not. I do think that my children should have my last name since it is one of the ways a man claims his children as legitimately his.

Well, the common practice here is that the women adopts the husband's surname, unless they go out of their way to do it the other way around this happens automatically. For my own part it would be depend on what kind of surname she had. My surname is very common and therefore very boring, if she had a rarer name I'd be happy to adopt it.

Originally posted by Dan Carkner Sometimes I wonder if I would take my wife's name, if it really was better than mine ;)   I can't decide if it would be unfair to my somewhat obscure family name though.

I was married once, for all of about half a year. Had I taken my wife's last name, I'd be Teddy Bear. My now ex-wife didn't like that idea, though.