Why exactly do we still use paternally derived fixed surnames?

[Pedro de San Patricio]

It struck me at work a few months ago just how deep the disconnect between our cultural institutions and our cultural mindset and lifestyle have become. Society expects couples to get married when an official marriage is becoming less and less common. Society still imposes his father's last name on her and her children despite the slightly over fifty percent chance that the relationship isn't going to last. We still hold the nuclear family as the stereotype when almost none of us even come from two-parent homes anymore.

Maybe the time has come to begin rectifying those institutions to better match our new culture. I've been thinking about it since, and can't really help but wonder if we wouldn't be better off dumping the whole "family last name" thing altogether as a relic of the previous system. Kids could just as easily take a matronymic. For instance, take Chester and Mary. They're the son and daughter of David and Sarah. Under a matronymic system, Chester would be Sarahson, Mary would be Sarahsdottir, and Dave and Sarah would take their last names from their own mothers. It could also work with a patronymic, but deriving from the mother would probably work better due to the general cultural zeitgeist and the facts that she's the only truly known parent and will end up being the one to raise them anyway.

I spit balled it to my coworkers and selected leadership. It achieved... mixed reviews, noticeably split by generational and ideological lines. The young and liberal were about as open to it as the older and relatively conservative were horrified. What does USMB say about it?

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Her children? It seems to me that there might be somebody else at least somewhat responsible for those children as well. Call me crazy.

 

[Pedro de San Patricio]

"Their" would have made that sentence readable as the children of his father and her. Using "her" exclusively also served to reinforce the fact that there is never any real guarantee he's actually the father of his children, which is another reason for the replacement of the current "this one name passes down the male line to each man's wife and children forever" to a matronymic system.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

"Their" would have made that sentence readable as the children of his father and her. Using "her" exclusively also served to reinforce the fact that there is never any real guarantee he's actually the father of his children, which is another reason for the replacement of the current "this one name passes down the male line to each man's wife and children forever" to a matronymic system.

It seems to me you just want to replace one tradition for another for no reason. Why not let the parents decide for themselves, or let the children decide when they're old enough?

 

[Delta4Embassy]

It struck me at work a few months ago just how deep the disconnect between our cultural institutions and our cultural mindset and lifestyle have become. Society expects couples to get married when an official marriage is becoming less and less common. Society still imposes his father's last name on her and her children despite the slightly over fifty percent chance that the relationship isn't going to last. We still hold the nuclear family as the stereotype when almost none of us even come from two-parent homes anymore.

Maybe the time has come to begin rectifying those institutions to better match our new culture. I've been thinking about it since, and can't really help but wonder if we wouldn't be better off dumping the whole "family last name" thing altogether as a relic of the previous system. Kids could just as easily take a matronymic. For instance, take Chester and Mary. They're the son and daughter of David and Sarah. Under a matronymic system, Chester would be Sarahson, Mary would be Sarahsdottir, and Dave and Sarah would take their last names from their own mothers. It could also work with a patronymic, but deriving from the mother would probably work better due to the general cultural zeitgeist and the facts that she's the only truly known parent and will end up being the one to raise them anyway.

I spit balled it to my coworkers and selected leadership. It achieved... mixed reviews, noticeably split by generational and ideological lines. The young and liberal were about as open to it as the older and relatively conservative were horrified. What does USMB say about it?

Should just use a hyphenated combination of both husband and wife's surnames when they get married. Whoever proposed gets their name first.