Giving up your maiden name…

Donna Webster, a twenty-nine year-old Journalist has been married for five years and she neither uses her husband’s name nor wears a wedding ring. Her reasons for doing this, she said is because she refuses to change her name unless her husband changes his.

“I retain the name I was registered with even though I am married. It is not for professional reasons but for identity. My name is me and I should not lose it for love,” said Webster who refused to be titled as a radical feminist.

“My problem is that it goes one way — I believe in total equality — I will change mine if you change yours. We can both go double-barrelled or get different names but I don’t see why I should be the only one making a name change,” she argued. Obviously very passionate about the issue she told All Woman that it took some time for her partner to adjust to her point of view.

“We have been together for nine years but married for five. The day I met him that was it for me but it took a while for us to get married because of the name issue. It took me about three or four years for him to see my view.”

“He had an issue with me taking his name and it took time to convince him that I was not rejecting him. I said how would you feel if you fell in love and it cost you your name. Love should not cost you your name. “We do not have arguments about it. If we go somewhere he will introduce me as his wife, Donna Webster,” she explained. Webster was born in Jamaica but spent most of her childhood in the United States before returning home.

In a separate interview, her spouse confirmed that he had adjusted to them both having different names.

“At first I thought it was really weird but our relationship is based on love and trust so you just leave it and let her have her way,” said Owen Davidson. “I was trying to convince her at first but after about three to four years I gave up. I don’t find it uncomfortable and I love and trust her and as she claims it is all about equality. “While Webster’s example may be more radical than most in Jamaica, All Woman discovered from several interviews that many professional women tend to opt for a double-barrelled name. A move which at times causes conflict in their relationship.

Another case is 35 year old writer, Sandra Brown (not real name), whose husband opposed her double-barrelling her name from the beginning of their five-year marriage and ten-year relationship.

“This name thing has been a source of conflict for years. But I double barrel for professional reasons as well as for my kids sake — it lets them know that they are part of a unit,” she explained. The couple has two children — one is eight and the other two years old.

“He has traditional Jamaican beliefs about the woman taking the man’s name and I always knew that. It was a major issue in the beginning but it is not so much anymore,” she said.

She argued that she had been a Journalist for fifteen years and had always used her maiden name as her professional name.

“I did not want to start all over again. I double-barrelled right after marriage. It is more an issue of practicality than submission for me but he sees it as rebellion and being a feminist,” she said.

The move to go double-barrelled is one that has brought a fair amount of criticism not only from church circles but also from many Jamaican men.

Recently renowned author and television preacher, Dr Myles Munroe, cautioned married women against retaining their maiden names as he said that it sowed the seeds for the parting of the union.

“… when you name a thing, you become responsible for it. That is why when God named something, He became responsible for it. God told Adam to name the animals, therefore God made man responsible for taking care of the earth. Notice God did not name Eve. He told Adam ‘You name your own wife.’ When Adam named her, he became responsible for her,” Munroe said in an interview in a local publication recently. “When a woman gets married, the reason why she loses her (maiden) name is because she transfers responsibility from her father to the man (her husband). That is why she takes on his name (surname).”

“When a woman refuses to lose her original name, she is literally saying that she is not completely under that new man. And that is why that man who she is married to, never feels that he completely has responsibility nor does he feel obligated in most cases to take responsibility for that woman,”

“The fact that she has two names, that is hyphenated names in most instances, communicates to him that she does not completely give herself to him. And that is why it is very important for women to surrender their (maiden) name when they get married,” the preacher said.

His view is somewhat supported by an active seventh day Adventist in his thirties, Rohan Oxin. “I don’t agree with it because I think it is foolishness. It is coming out of this Women’s movement. I am from the traditional school where when you get married you change your name,” he told All Woman. “The bible says that women must submit to their husbands — it could be a lack of submission but I won’t judge — to each his own. I don’t see where it is necessary for the woman to keep her name,”Oxin is married and his wife also uses a double-barrelled surname.

This view that not giving up one’s maiden name could be seen as a sign of not submitting was however knocked by prominent attorney, Antonette Haughton-Cardenas and gender consultant and activist Dorienne Rowan-Campbell.

“Those men seeking to get women to submit should be brought screaming into the twenty-first century,” said Haughton-Cardenas. “Women are not born to submit so those who do want women to submit should go out and buy a dog. Women are to be loved not made to submit.” She explained that she had chosen to double-barrel her name for practical reasons as well as respect for her husband.

“I practised law for a very long time before marriage so it was practical for recognition for me to add his name. It is also part of my respecting him. You find that those who marry very young tend to take their husbands name but generally women who marry older tend to go double-barrelled,” she said.

Dorienne Rowan-Campbell also offered the argument that marriage was not about submission but also about equal partnership.

“I don’t think we are made to submit. If marriage was about submission I would not be married,” she said. She has been married for 11 years. This is her second marriage. She does not use her husband’s name but sticks to her maiden name of Rowan-Campbell.

“I come from women with strong feminist backgrounds so I inherited a double-barrelled name. They write in my passport that I am married to Tony Fisher but they don’t do the same for him. That is where my problem is — it should go for both,” she argued.

According to Rowan-Campbell, woman had been written out of history because they lost their names.

“Women get lost through history because they lose their names. You can trace them through the male line but not a female line,” she said.

For her husband, Tony Fisher, the view that a woman renouncing her name is a sign of non-submission is something that the Jamaican male will have to outgrow.

“I have no problem with her not using my name. It being a sign of not submitting is something that men would have to get accustomed to — the ego part of it,” he said.

Jack, a public relations consultant, pretty much admits that it boosts his ego for his wife to have his name.

“My wife had initially wanted a double-barrelled name and I said no because as a man you want to feel she is a part of you. It’s traditional for her to take her husband’s name. We all grew up with our parents like that- my mother having my father’s name,” he said. “It does something to the male’s ego to know he has taken on a bride. He is responsible for her as she has his name. She identifies with him by taking his name.” Maybe, he said, if his wife was a popular person he would not have a problem with her keeping her maiden name “For someone like broadcaster Dorraine Samuels-(Binger) — everybody knows her as that already so it would be okay,” he said.

For forty-year-old entertainer, Jerome Ricketts, it was not so much ego but an issue of acceptance.

“It personalises our relationship. If you accept me, accept my name. For me it’s more acceptance than submission,” he said.

Pastors of two corporate area churches told All Woman that they would have no problem with women in their congregation using double-barrelled names.

“Whether you use the name or not you are still married. But I can understand that there may be some resistance to this in the Jamaican culture,” said Reverend Devon Dick of Boulevard Baptist Church in Kingston.

Similarly, Percival Palmer, a deacon at Fellowship Tabernacle on Half-Way-Tree Road said that he would deal with each situation individually.

“I would not condemn it overall. I would deal with it on a case by case basis. I would have to find out what the motivation was for it,” he said.

At the same time, Attorney-at-Law, Maurice Saunders from the Norman Manley Legal Aid Clinic in Kingston, shared some of the legal issues that could arise.

“There are two issues — one is use of name and the other is identity,” he said. “It is perfectly lawful. The law allows a married woman to use her husband’s name but it does not say that she must. It says that she may — so she is entitled to, it is not a must. It does not say that she must abandon her maiden name,”

“The other issue is identity — if she wants to do business somewhere she has to carry her marriage certificate or so to clarify who she is,” he said.

Policy Analyst at the Bureau of Women’s Affairs, Faith Webster, said that both sexes had to agree on and deal with the issue early to eliminate conflict in their relationships.

“It is a gender shift and we have to look at how both are coping with this paradigm. There can be conflicts and misunderstandings adjusting. There may also be understanding with couples so if that is the case then there is no problem,”

“But it comes down to how the couple deals with it. Some men are liberated and can deal with it. It can also be an issue of or about power relations. It is not just making a statement but showing that women have choice,” she said.

She argued that while some women viewed it as empowerment, it could also be seen as a threat to a man’s masculinity.

“To me women use it to show empowerment. I hope it is not a case where the man is feeling threatened by this advancement and the movement of women from the home and up the corporate ladder,” she said. “Put simply it’s about gender relations and partners have to agree on what they want.”

Some of the names have been changed on request of the interviewees.

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