Women: Change You're Last Names!

How important is it for a woman to take on her husband’s last name, upon marriage? My class touched on this briefly earlier this week. In Chapter eight of The Namesake, Moushumi does not take on Gogol’s last name, “Ganguli” (227). Not only does she not take on his name, but, “the thought of changing her last name to Ganguli [had] never crossed Moushumi’s mind” (227). It bothered me that the only people we got to hear from in discussion, answered no to the importance of the tradition. I have to disagree. I feel that if two people marry, and the woman does not take on the husband’s last name, she’s going into the bond with a fear of how the relationship will turn out in the future. How so? Well statistically, woman that get married younger tend to change their last name, and woman that marry older do not. The older and later married woman reason they have an entire life in their own name, in a personal and professional sense. Moushumi did not take Gogol’s last name and her jumbled priorities, between work and her spouse, have now brought her into a secret affair. I would go as far as to claim the lack of women taking on their husband’s last names, mirrors the increasing divorce rates. How could it not? When two people marry, they jump head first into an entirely different lifestyle living together. Why not put a label on that togetherness! The common last name, ties together kids with their parents, and those parents with their parents. What if the kids take on the father’s last name and the mother does not? That mother, by name, has not entirely sacrificed what all necessary of her previous life, to become a member of her new family. One of the families I babysit for, the mother kept her last name. The instant I met her, I thought she must have gotten a divorce. Why else would her and her kids have different last names? I found out, she writes, and kept her last name to maintain her profession under the same name as in the past. Whatever the reasoning for woman, rebellion against tradition, or a long lived profession, I think taking on the husband’s last name trumps any circumstance in importance. Renaming one’s self upon marriage signifies the newly formed alliance and togetherness of the couple. In Moushumi and Gogol’s situation, they quickly and blindly fell in love with the idea of one another, but not actually each other. Moushumi did not change her last name despite Gogol’s silent wish, and now as we read on, they grow further and further apart.