2006-12-24 - 5:38 p.m.

I'm going to randomly talk about surnames today. Trum ta la di! So, the two people who accidentally came across this while searching for "christmas tree porn" (oh, I don't know, okay?) now get to hear my thoughts on names. Why I feel the need to justify my position, I don't know.

Okay! Surnames. Or, rather, why people change them upon marriage/whatever, and whether I will.

Firstly - the assumption that a woman will change her name to that of her husband upon marriage makes me furious. It's based on an idea of a woman either belonging to her father, or to her husband, and that her identity is made up of her role as wife or mother. That makes me angry.
Being in a gay relationship means that there isn't that assumption, but it doesn't mean we're free of gender roles. Being a lesbian doesn't save you from the fact that you live in a patriarchal society. There's always going to be someone who thinks that if one of us changes our name, that means she's the "woman" in the relationship, and the other is the "man". Huh. Yes, of course, because all romantic relationships emulate heterosexual romantic relationships.
Away from the ownership issue, it also takes away a part of identity - but in my case, at least, this isn't a huge deal. I mean, I was born Blank(first name) Blankety(second name) Blank(family name), at seven I became Same-Blank(first name) Same-Blankety(second name) New-Blank(confirmation name) Same-Blank(surname), and by this age, I refer to myself as Derivative-of-Blank(nickname[variation of first name]) Same-Blankety(middle name) Same-Blank(surname). (Because I like the nickname better, it's easier and over time has come to be used by default, and because I'm an atheist and so the confirmation name doesn't really have any meaning anymore.) It's not as though I've had the same name my whole life.
Still, my surname has been one of the big parts of that. It's the thing that decided which group I'd be put in when classes were split up; it's decided where I sit in exam rooms; it's spurned some pretty lame jokes that were a part of my childhood; it's the name I share with my siblings, my parents, and my paternal grandparents (whom I am closest to).
The thing is, I don't think changing name by default is a fantastic idea - I mean, there are some sticky issues around surnames anyway - why did I take my father's name by default? (NOT that I'd want my mother's father's name) Why is there this idea that once you have a permanent romantic partner, you're somehow less a part of your first family than you were before?
Plus, if we don't keep our original surnames we still haven't sorted out how that would go. When I brought it up we both immediately said, "Yeah, I'd want to take your name"... which is a bit of a problem! When it comes down to it, sheer familiarity has made me feel fonder towards my own surname, so I'm probably weakening and would be more "you should take mine" than she would be. (Other options: no surname, which is just too much trouble; a new surname for both of us, which seems too try-hard; a hyphenated surname, which I've always found tacky, and even then you'd have "who comes first?") But then, I sort of feel like my own siblings and parents draw her in more than her family does to me, so taking her surname would be a bit more "yeah, I'm part of your family".
Sorry, this is stream-of-consciousness so even the way I split paragraphs makes no sense.
But - here is a point! I don't think I need to change my name as a romantic gesture (or that She-Who-I-Kick-In-Bed needs to change hers), or to show that I really love her. There's no question about it. I love her. I adore her.

Chances are we're going to end up having kids together. And BAM, that's the reason why the changing-names thing comes up. I mentioned it to her: "I want both of us to share our children's surname." because 1- cohesive family ties, and we'd all have the same surname, hooray! and 2 - I think at this point, at least, it's more likely that if we did the pregnancy thing I'd be the one who got pregnant, and thus, biologically, it would only be my child and not hers. In most places I think it's not too difficult to get around it, I THINK you can give a kid whatever surname you'd like - but I don't want ANYBODY to think that one of us is the mother, and the other is not. I mean, if biological-mum has one surname, kid and non-bio-mum have another surname, that still leads to the "she's the mum, and she's the stepmum" thing. (But on yet another tangent, we do look kind of different in a couple of ways that might mean people could figure out by looking whether we had a biological link.)
BUT - we also have tentative plans to foster kids. Interim/respite care? Foster-to-adopt? Long-term care, seeking permanent placement? Babies? Special needs? Really screwed-up teens? We haven't really discussed it. But there are obviously different issues there, as well. Foster care services do their best to place Aboriginal children with Aboriginal carers, for obvious reasons. But what if we ended up with a kid in our care, who was available for adoption, and Aboriginal and we thought "yes, we're completely in love with hir, let's go for it"? Do we change the kid's name? Because, unless the kid keeping their name may cause them danger, I'd really want to veer away from taking away that connection with the child's roots. If it was a tribal name then no, full stop, I don't think I'd really even consider changing the child's name even though (or perhaps because) it was already firmly established that that was OUR kid. So what's the point of the two of us having the same surname if it's not to share it with that child?
Or, you know, we end up with a seven-year-old, we adopt him or he is placed with us until he is 18 and, for all intents and purposes, our child - is it fair to ask him to make the decision of which surname, or for us to make that decision for him? Just because you're a child's parent doesn't mean you should pretend you're the only parent they ever had, and an acknowledgment of their background is definitely necessary. But how far does that go? "Wow, sharing your book with your sister is so nice. Your mother is really generous too, you know" is, I think, pretty damned necessary - even if you hate the kid's previous parents, you'd have to find good things to say about them in encouraging your kids. But is keeping the surname? Yeah, I know, it depends on the individual case, and obviously I'll know more about it if I ever come to such a situation - but when there's a chance that there are children who would not end up with that surname, and the only reason you're both taking that surname is for the children, then that sort of throws a stick in the gears, if you will.
And finally, of course, there's the fact that if our family is made up of Michael Jupurrula, Sean Gates, Billie Surname, Owner Surname, and Girlfriend Yet-Another-Surname, it's more like saying "we come from different backgrounds but we're a family" than if Owner, Girlfriend and Billie share the same surname, and the other two are just "other".
I don't know. I know that this comes across sounding excessively arrogant, especially as I've never had kids and have very little experience with foster care (so what the bloody hell would I know?) but that's just my random wandering wonderings on surnames.

Blah. And now I'm done.