I recently reverted back to my maiden name on Facebook, and I'm thinking about making the change official. I have been divorced since 2011; even my daughter thinks it's time. I've never felt any great urgency, however, and I still don't.
I haven't held onto my married name for years because of a lingering attachment to my ex-husband. We get along well now, but the split wasn't exactly amicable. In similar situations, a lot of women would have run to the courthouse, trying to cleanse themselves from the foul stench of association with that...that THING they were married to, but I had other priorities, chiefly my two young children, who were understandably unmoored by the divorce, and my freelance schedule, which became instantly more complex when I got full custody.
A slight compromise
I should clarify by adding that I started calling myself “Thompson Corley” years ago, as a (slight) nod to my new independence. In a way, this compromise has been the best of both worlds. One positive byproduct of having the same last name as my children has been that we are instantly identifiable as a family. My main reason for staying a Corley, however, is that I've had that name most of my professional life. As a freelance pianist, I'm concerned that people looking to hire me won't know where to find me if I change my name.
In addition to my fear of losing business, part of the reason I'm still dragging my feet about officially becoming “Maria Thompson” again is that, to be honest, my last name hasn't defined me in years. I felt a bit of a twinge when I changed it after my wedding, but that soon subsided; in the end, it mattered far more to my ex that we both be Corleys than to me that I remain a Thompson. What's the difference, I reasoned, when I am a person, not a label? After all, my first name is “Kirsten,” which I have to use on my tax return, but basically means not much otherwise. “Maria” is important, because "Hey, Maria!" creates less confusion in a crowded room than "Hey, you!" might. But, to get a bit philosophical, what does “Maria” really mean when there are so many Marias in the world? My personal brand of being Maria is based on far more than those five letters.
Why is my father's name more important than my mother's?
Speaking of meaning, aside from demonstrating a backbone, what would resisting my ex-husband by holding onto “Thompson" have signified? I love my dad, who died recently, and can certainly embrace the idea of being associated with him more definitively. That said, I also love my mother, whose maiden name was “Caisey.” How is choosing my father's name over my mother's a sign of liberation?
I understand the need to choose, because if everybody went without a surname, it would be confusing, and if everybody hyphenated their kids' names, it would take exactly one generation for things to get unwieldy. One solution would be for married couples to take on a completely new name—maybe my ex and I could have been the Corsons, or the Thompleys. There would still be the pesky issue of whose partial name would come first. Then again, couples with those sorts of power struggles probably shouldn't even be thinking of marriage in the first place.
Last names were originally about ownership
To go in another direction, my ex-husband and I could have taken an African name. This brings me to my next point: “Thompson” is associated with accomplished, wonderful people of whom I'm very proud, but it's also the name of a slave owner. Rather timely, then, that I hold a less than bone-deep attachment to it; with Roots returning to TV, I can't help being reminded of the scene where Kunta Kinte is brutalized into answering to "Toby." I don't know exactly what part of Africa my parents' Bermudian and Jamaican ancestors were from, so Thompson and Caisey are as close to ancestral names as I've got. Then again, if I knew what my parents' forebears were called before their identities were forcibly erased, I'd still have to decide which of the possible names to adopt. Or hyphenate.
Even if I chose an African name, how much impact would that choice have, since that name would pass on to exactly nobody? l have a radical idea for women who keep their birth names as a sign of individuality/feminism/ownership of self—insist that your children take your name, even if their fathers are actively involved in their lives. If that's going too far, perhaps women could insist that their female offspring take their names, and their male offspring take their father's names. Or vice versa.
Would any of this change anything? Actually, a shift in thinking would have to have already taken place for matrilineal naming to become commonplace. Possessing the same name as your spouse or children can reflect the solidarity I originally took it to imply, but if you scratch the surface and go back a few generations, the purpose is the same as giving slaves their masters' surnames: showing ownership.
I don't belong to my ex-husband; I never did. In a sense, though, I don't belong to my father or my mother, either. We are bonded, but not because of our names. Which is why, at least for the moment, I don't feel a deep need to be Maria Thompson again. I'll probably switch back soon, though, because even though the exercise will be inconvenient and tedious, I still live in a society that assumes carrying my ex-husband's name, years after the divorce, means something deeper than it does. Since most of society won't read this article, becoming a Thompson again is a lot easier than explaining.