Should Women Take Their Names Research Paper

Women have been taking the names of men that they have married for centuries. As stated in the question, this at first began as a “transfer of ownership”. From childhood up until marriage, a woman identified with the last name of her father, signifying that she belonged to the father, that she was his property. When married, a woman takes the name of her new husband. This changing of last names symbolized the transfer of ownership of the woman from the father to husband. This cycle would than continue generation after generation, and generally continues to this day. Although today it is not a definite case, a good majority of women who marry continue to take the name of her husband upon marriage. Some instead choose to combine each of their names, often with a hyphen between them, while some simply do not change their name at all. Although there are some irregularities such as these, it is much more common for a woman to take the name of her husband. …show more content…
We as a society focus heavily on tradition, as we learned early on in this course, tradition is a key defining factor of your culture in society. The changing of names has been done for centuries, most all of our ancestors participated in this tradition, and it continues to play a key role in shaping our culture today. I feel that even if this tradition had not begun on the basis of “transfer of ownership”, but something more simple and less offensive to woman, it would still continue today, as it is tradition. The origin has little meaning, I’m sure most do not even know of the origins, I sure didn’t. We as a society continue this practice largely due to