So, recently I was drawn into a discussion regarding marriage with one of my friends. And it was dragged on and we were discussing about the fact that many times the women do not change their last names to that of the guy they are getting married to. Not to be politically correct or anything but, many people in the society take it for granted that the girl will change their last name to that of the husband's, and the only reason that any one has to backup this argument is that, "Its the culture" or "It is going on for ages".
Well too be true, that is not a substantial argument for any girl to change her last name and in the present era women are more independent and many want to keep their last names as before and it is also not frowned upon by many open minded people. I even asked few of my friends, if they care about their wife's last name issue, and all of them were least bothered about it. The answer was, "Come on! I don't really care."
So far so good... But when I took the question a step further, "So, what about your kids?". Do you care about the kid's last name. And suddenly, the whole "open mindedness" thing was gone and the guys answered, "Obviously ! the kid will have the father's last name". The problem is there is nothing so obvious about it. We tried to come up with supportive arguments for either cases, but really were not able to reach any definitive answers.
An argument in support of the guys were as the kid is nurtured in the father's house (well at least looking from a perspective of many oriental society structure), the kid's nature is more inclined towards the father's upbringing. But, this fails in the case of a nucleus family, as both mom and dad of the kid has equal contribution in the kid's upbringing.
Another way to look at it is, what is more important allocation of resources by the father for the kid, or the mother's 24X7 for the kid. This again is not quite good enough, because in present times, well both parties equally contribute.
So, at the end one can leave upto the kid without the last name for 16 years, when he can legally choose his last name. But, that is not a reasonable scientific solution if someone has to decide for the first 16 years :)
Well I thought about it a lot and couldn't reach any reasonable conclusion... So, if any of you readers (however few you are), let me know what you think...
Thanks
Even though it makes sense that women can retain their last names after marriage, there are some legal hassles involed with changing or not changing. Let's say wife is applying for a GC through her husband there could delay during the verification process. On the other hand, the pain of changing name after marriage in passport, ration card, PAN card etc, is another headache. By convention since changing is the norm, i feel the process of changing is a lot easier in the system than retaining. It's a matter of personal choice. To me it really doesn't matter, since in the most people don't have a family name.
ReplyDeletemost people in the South I mean
ReplyDeleteWell thats the whole argument... Its not about changing last name of the girl... The argument is all about whose last name should the kid take...
ReplyDelete