What Is…Taking His Name

I’m not one who often follows celebrity gossip, but it was hard to ignore the elopement of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck last week. Much has been written of their love story and the romantic idea that a couple can find love 20 years after their original courtship (gosh, that word sounds so old-fashioned!). But another surprise came out of their union last week: She decided to take his last name.

I’m not the first person to be taken aback by this decision nor am I the first to write about it. Both Slate and the New York Times published opinion pieces about what it means that a woman of Jennifer Lopez’s fame, status, and success has decided to change her last name to Affleck. As a woman who chose to keep my maiden name after marriage, I have to admit that I am fascinated by both this topic and the fact that JLo would decide to make this change at this point in her life.

In the Jennifer Weiner piece in the New York Times, she writes about how she, as well as most professional women she knows, kept her name for professional purposes. These women were already known for what they did and didn’t want to interfere with that. I guess you could argue that JLo is so well known that there is no danger of anyone forgetting her last name and that the act of taking his name was a gesture of love.

As someone who isn’t known for anything, the professional status of my name had nothing to do with my decision to not change my name. I often joke that I didn’t change my name because I was lazy: It is a pain in the butt to legally change your last name. You have to get a new passport, change it for your social security number, and change absolutely everything that has your maiden name on it.

But the truth is, I never wanted to change my last name. I never understood the point. Teresa Vilaseca is my name. Why would I change that? Isn’t the act of marrying someone enough of a gesture of love?

The fact that I do feel the need to joke about it says a lot about the pressures of society for a woman to change her name when she marries. I understand if you have children that having a different last name can be confusing, inconvenient, and occasionally a safety issue. But if it wasn’t so expected, then maybe it wouldn’t be such an issue?

You may think, is this really that big of an issue, Teresa? It’s the 21st century, and women can choose to do whatever they want. Well, after Roe vs. Wade being overturned, we all know that’s not the case, and the idea that a woman should take a man’s name is more ingrained in society than you may think. When I was planning my wedding and dipped my toe into some wedding forums, I was shocked at the number of women who asked for advice on this exact topic because their fiancés, and sometimes the fiancé’s entire family, became very upset when the bride mentioned that she didn’t want to take his name. For some men, it was actually a wedding dealbreaker.

Thankfully, my husband didn’t give a sh*t (his words) if I took his name or not. And although we have pets, we don’t have any kids to worry about in terms of names. As far as I could see, there was no reason to take his name. Does it get confusing sometimes? Sure, it does. I’m the one who books all of our vacations, so when we get to the hotel, we are almost always addressed as Mr. and Mrs. Vilaseca. Again, my husband doesn’t care. Occasionally we are addressed as Mr. and Mrs. Yan (my husband’s last name), and that’s fine too. And then there are the people who, once they find out I’m married, say (and this has actually happened), “So you must have married a hot Latin guy!” To which I answer, “Nope, the hot Latin name is mine.”

Maybe I never considered changing my last name because I am half Spanish. Women in Spain don’t take their husband’s last name when they get married. In fact, children in Spain take both parents’ last names. If I had been born in Spain, I would be Teresa Vilaseca Seegers. This system makes so much more sense to me because it acknowledges both parents in a child’s life and does not single out the male. It also allows a woman to keep her own identity. For me, it represents the true purpose of marriage: a partnership.

Listen, I’m not judging women who choose to change their name. I have plenty of friends who chose to change their last names or hyphen their names when they got married, and they are bright, independent, strong women no matter what their names are. And, like Heather Schwedel in the Slate piece, I do think a woman should be able to choose whatever makes sense to her.

But because of what has happened so far this year, I also think we should be curious about this idea of a woman changing her last name, the history of it, and why the tradition continues.

All in all, I can’t help but agree with the suggestion that both women made at the end of their articles: Wouldn’t it have been nice to see him change his name for once? Wouldn’t that be a truly original gesture of love? Ben Lopez. Now that’s a name change I can get behind.

So, what does it mean to take his name when you marry? Like most things, what it means to you is probably different than what it means to me. The least we can do is, as always…

Stay Curious.