Where did women changing their name when they get married come from? and why?
by 
shopaholic
ANSWERS: 5
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This practice began with marriage. Marriage began as a way of tracing property and wealth through maternal lineage. Only through tracing motherhood could you be assured of true blood-line. At least it was this way before genetic tests. In this manner, women were the "carriers" of wealth and property. They did not ever really own anything, merely transmitting these from one man to another. This is also where the concept of dowry originated, and is really just the evolution of marriage. Women were born into a family and were given that surname. Naturally, when they were later "acquired" or "absorbed" or married into another family, they took that family name. This is why women first began taking their husband's name.
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I agree with teknimage's answer wholly, but would like to go one step further. Even before the tracing of wealth and blood-lines, the marriage 'contract' was actually just that, a contract. A man "owned" the woman he married and to mark that, she took his name. It became vital to a woman's livlihood (and to the future wealth and support of any children she would bare) in the manner teknimage described.
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not sure, but i kept my maiden name and added my husbands name on the end so it is hyphenated. my maiden name is also been used in my kids names. it is put of there middle names, but they have only their fathers name as a surname. why, because it's apart of me.
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As a lawyer, I can say that this comes from the roots of the paternalistic societies that have always caused men to own women's vaginas. I'm not meaning to be crude here, just truthful. Did you know that in ancient Rome, if a man divorced his wife, he got the right to keep the children (and often did, because oddly ENOUGH, the Romans seemed all into their kids, though often indifferent to their wives.) Afterall, they had his name, right? His wife has his name: she is his. His children have his name: they are his. I'm pretty sure that the dogs were named things like Rex Caesar, so that they were his too!
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It began with last names. In small communities, everyone had a name. But as communities grew and the pool of names didn't, it became necessary to add the last name in order to identify people. Thus Kevin, son of John, became Kevin Johnson. We also used trades to identify people, thus, Kevin the taylor, became Kevin Taylor. Then we could tell the two Kevins apart. So, enter a woman, Jill. She was born Jill Johnson, and we knew that she belonged to the head of the Johnson family. Then when she married Kevin Taylor, we knew that she was Jill who belonged to the taylor. It's all about who belongs to who. Always the man "owning" his wife and children. Apparently there have been societies who traced their lineage through the women, but I don't know too much about them, seems more sensible, if we were tracing lineage and not ownership. Our system wasn't really based on the idea of lineage as much as it was based on "ownership".
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