this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2025
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Originally Posted By u/HumusSapien At 2025-04-15 07:27:15 PM | Source


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[–] cobn@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Do they need to? No, my wife has a fun first and last name and she kept hers after marriage. But there is a cultural norm of doing it.

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 6 points 1 week ago

The tide is definitely changing on this front, but the pressure is still strong. I saw an engagement fall apart because a dude was largely okay with his fiancée keeping her surname, except for a bit of sadness that he felt they'd feel like less of a family if they didn't share a surname (especially after kids). She (mostly jokingly) suggested that he could change his name to match hers, and to everyone's surprise, he blew up about it, saying some stuff that seemed super out of character for him. She didn't care much about the surname thing, but was thrown off by how much this had touched a nerve, so tried to broach the topic a few more times, to understand why even the idea of changing his surname to hers was so upsetting. The answer was fragile masculinity

He seemed like a solidly progressive guy, so the entire friend group was surprised by some of the shit he spouted. What really blew me away though is that after the engagement fell apart, a lot of guys I knew said that although he was clearly out of line in his behaviour, that they could sympathise with him to some extent because "[his fiancée] should have known not to even joke about it". I realised that many of them held the contradictory position of considering it degrading to change one's surname when getting married (especially for men), whilst simultaneously hoping (or expecting) their future wives to take their name.