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AUTHOR
HOW COUPLES NEGOTIATE MARITAL SURNAME CHOICE
Brooke Conroy Bass
Stanford University
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ABSTRACT
While married women and men today divide labor very differently than in the past, many of
the traditions surrounding engagement and marriage have changed less (England 2010).
Particularly perplexing to sociologists is the persistence of the patrinymic practice of marital
surname change. To date, analyses of women’s marital surname choices have emphasized
women’s individual characteristics as predictors of whether they retain their birth-given surname
or adopt their partner’s upon marriage. The voices and influence of men in the decision,
however, remain absent from scholarship on the topic. I draw on in-depth interviews with 62
middle- and upper-class individuals (who were part of 31 heterosexual couples) with largely
egalitarian gender attitudes to examine whether a gender power asymmetry, defined as the ability
for one partner to sway the preferences of another, shapes marital surname change decisions. I
find that invisible power operates at the macro-level when women and men together draw on a
narrative of tradition in shaping their shared preference to maintain the patrinymic practice. More
often, though, women and men in my sample diverged in their marital surname preferences. In
these instances, most women deferred to their husbands’ preferences for marital surname change
either by not initiating a negotiation out of fear of conflict or by acquiescing to his preferences
after attempting to negotiate with male partners. I argue this pattern and process is evidence of a
persistent symbolic inequality in marriage as well as the gender power and status hierarchy.
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Women’s advances in education and the paid labor market in the US have resulted in substantial
change in heterosexual marriage. For instance, in the last several decades, men’s participation in
housework and childcare has increased considerably (Bianchi, Milkie, Sayer, and Robinson
2000; Sullivan and Coltrane 2008), attitudes about gender roles in marriage have become more
egalitarian (Ciabattari 2001; Gerson 2010), and some research suggests married heterosexual
couples have become more socioeconomically similar on the dimensions of income (Schwartz
2010) and education (Schwartz and Mare 2005); however, this has also been contrasted in the
literature by those who find educational endogamy has been relatively stable in recent decades
(Rosenfeld 2008). But change across marital realms has not been uniform. Indeed, the personal
realm of heterosexual partnership, which includes such things as dating rituals, sexual scripts,
and traditions surrounding engagement and marriage, has seen much slower progress than its
labor-related counterpart (England 2010).
One aspect that remains particularly impervious to change is the gendered practice of marital
surname change. The practice, which has its origins in the patriarchal marriage and family
system, was law in the U.S. until 1975 (Scheuble and Johnson 1993); and while the law has since
been abolished, the gendered pattern persists. Indeed, an estimated 88% of women in the U.S.
adopt their husbands’ surnames following marriage, though this figure varies, nonlinearly, by
birth cohort (Shafer 2010).
Explanations of the custom’s persistence universally draw on women’s backgrounds and
experiences, highlighting the importance of the perceived dichotomy between self and family
(Nugent 2010), education and other professional histories (Goldin and Shim 2004; Shafer 2010),
and women’s sociopolitical ideologies and religious beliefs (Shafer 2010) in shaping the
decision. While valuable, these studies ignore men’s influence. It is also plausible that men’s
preferences supersede these characteristics. Meaning, given men’s dominant position in the
status and power hierarchy, women may be likely to defer to his traditional surname preferences
even when they themselves prefer nontraditional options. In this paper, I explore whether male
partners influence the naming choices women make following new marriage.
Drawing from in-depth interview data with 62 college-educated childless young adults (31
heterosexual couples) living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I find that power imbalances
between women and men shape the naming choices couples make in marriage. I apply the
theoretical framework provided by Komter (1989) to assess how three types of power—invisible,
covert, and manifest—shape couples’ surnaming preferences and negotiations. I find that when
couples’ preferences diverged, women overwhelmingly deferred to his preference either out of
fear of introducing conflict in the relationship and not initiating a conversation about it or, more
commonly, after discussing the matter with their partners and acquiescing following
negotiations. I also argue that even when both members of the couple preferred a traditional
surname option, power dynamics are still at play. This is because power is rendered invisible in
these cases when couples accept the conventional gender practice without question by adhering
to hegemonic notions of what constitutes gender appropriate behavior, thereby affirming
women’s secondary position in heterosexual marriage (see also Komter 1989; Sassler and Miller
2011).
My findings suggest that men still retain a distinct power and influence advantage in
heterosexual romantic partnership, at least with regards to this symbolic domain. They also
illustrate the continued importance of studying power relations in heterosexual marriage, despite
the spoken egalitarian ideals of most contemporary young adults (Gerson 2010) and the growing
number of dual-earner partnerships. Finally, they point to the potential for symbolic inequalities,
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a term I use to describe inequalities that are representative of the nonmaterial and nonpecuniary
aspects of partnership, to provide a window into understanding contemporary gender relations
and the gender hierarchy more broadly.
CHANGE IN INTERPERSONAL INEQUALITIES BETWEEN HUSBANDS AND WIVES
This paper explores how power differentials between women and men shape decisionmaking processes in heterosexual partnership. In it, I highlight the role of social power in
influencing the negotiation of marital surname choice and show the pervasive role that social
power continues to play in shaping the romantic partnerships of heterosexual couples despite
women’s educational and economic gains (Tichenor 1999).
Interpersonal dynamics between women and men have changed a great deal in the last
several decades, particularly within the institution of heterosexual marriage. For instance,
husbands and wives are more socioeconomically similar than ever before; and it is now more
common for women to have higher educational attainment than men in partnerships (Schwartz
and Mare 2005). The pattern is mirrored in heterosexual couples’ relative earnings. In fact, while
it was once true that the correlation between spouses’ earnings was negative, with high-earning
husbands being married to women who were not employed, the opposite is true today (Brines
and Joyner 1999; Schwartz 2010). Further, more coupled women are household breadwinners,
out earning their male partners, than ever before (Raley, Mattingly, and Bianchi 2006).
As exchange theory predicts, women’s advances in the workplace have resulted in changes to
interpersonal relations in the private sphere. Men in recent decades tend to do more housework
than ever before, though women continue to do more than men (Bianchi, Milkie, Sayer, and
Robinson 2000; Hochschild 1989). Further, men spend significantly more time doing childcare
than in decades past (Sullivan and Coltrane 2008).
What is more, attitudes and preferences for romantic partners have shifted concomitantly
with changes in women’s education and labor market standings. Indeed, support for separate
spheres ideals has declined sharply at the macro level and the vast majority of contemporary
young adult men having liberal gender attitudes (Ciabattari 2001). This finding is true across
socioeconomic backgrounds. Young men are also placing increasing importance on women’s
economic prospects in mate selection while simultaneously placing less importance on their
domestic skills (Buss, Shackelford, Kirkpatrick, and Larsen 2001). Additionally, qualitative and
experimental research both find that young adults now overwhelmingly aspire to having an
egalitarian partnership, where partners share the rights and responsibilities of paid and unpaid
labor (Gerson 2010; Pedulla and Thebaud 2013), though institutional constraints, such as rigid
workplace policies and practices, pose barriers to their attainment of such egalitarian aspirations.
It is clear, then, that the labor arrangements in and preferences for American partnership have
undergone substantial change in recent decades. However, it is plausible that these changes are
the result of economic and cultural shifts, such as the increased economic need for a dual-earner
partnership, and do not necessarily lead to women’s increased power in relationships or in
society at large. For instance, it may be that gender norms, which call on men to be leaders and
women to be deferential, afford men greater influence and power in relationships, despite
women’s increased access to resources through greater employment opportunities. I aim to
answer this theoretical question by exploring how new couples, all of which are middle- to highearning dual-earner couples, negotiate marital surname choice.
THE SYMBOLISM OF SURNAMES: A WINDOW INTO UNDERSTANDING POWER
ARRANGEMENTS IN HETEROSEXUAL MARRIAGE
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Despite the aforementioned gains women have made in the labor realm, the personal realm
of romantic partnership has seen much slower progress than its labor-related counterpart. For
instance, there remains an orgasm gap between women and men, especially in more casual
relationships (Armstrong, England, and Fogarty 2012); women continue to be disproportionately
responsible for contraceptive decision-making (Fennell 2011); and women continue to be held to
double standards in sex and dating (England 2011). Some of the most durable inequalities in
marriage include aspects of romantic partnership that are largely rooted in marital ritual and
tradition such as romantic partnership progression (Sassler and Miller 2011), the surnaming of
women and children (Nugent 2010; Shafer 2010), and rituals surrounding engagement and
weddings (e.g., who proposes marriage). However, the extant literature has yet to address
whether issues of social power, defined by Komter (1989) as “the ability to affect consciously or
unconsciously [emphasis added] the emotions, attitudes, cognitions, or behavior of someone
else” (p. 192), play a part in reproducing the aformentioned personal realm inequalities.
It is worth noting that while feminist scholars agree that change in women’s partnership
standings has been uneven across realms, pointing to the persistent inequalities in such symbolic
rituals as surname change despite women’s educational and economic gains (England 2010),
they disagree about whether symbolic inequalities are benign or harmful. On one hand, scholars
have called our attention to progress in the division of labor and asked: “are these symbolic
dimensions truly the critical ones?” (Graf and Schwartz 2011, p. 104). England (2011) counters
this argument, saying that any inequality in marriage, even symbolic, may be indicative of power
relations in heterosexual partnership (p. 115) and should be considered critical.
Recent research on the topic that lends preliminary support to the latter perspective suggests
that there is an association between attitudes towards symbolic marriage rituals such as surname
choice and benign sexism (Robnett and Leaper 2013), which reinforces the traditional status and
power hierarchy between women and men. Symbolic inequalities can also be considered
“critical” if and when they are reflective of a gender power asymmetry, as I will argue they are,
which could lead one to speculate that these interactional experiences, which occur in the privacy
of the family unit, may also extend to women’s greater likelihood of experiencing overwork,
intimate partner violence, and abuse.
FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH MARITAL SURNAME CHANGE
I have argued thus far that marital surname choice, like other personal realm inequalities,
may be indicative of the male-female power hierarchy. To date, scholars have largely excluded
interactional dynamics in their study of marital surname change, instead focusing on individuallevel characteristics as primary explanatory variables. Women with higher levels of education
and more liberal attitudes are more likely to opt for nontraditional surnames following marriage
(Hoffnung 2006; Shafer 2010; Twenge 1997). Women of color are also more likely to opt for
nontraditional naming choices (Hoffnung 2006; Shafer 2010; Twenge 1997). In a rare instance
where men were included in a survey of undergraduate surname preferences, researchers found
that women are more likely to hold nontraditional surname preferences than men (Robnett and
Leaper 2013). Scholars have also asked unmarried undergraduate women for their reasons
behind wanting to either change or retain their name in marriage. Identity and professional
reasons are most often behind why women opt for nontraditional name choices, while tradition
and family unity are the most common reasons offered for wanting to change surnames (Robnett
and Leaper 2013; Twenge 1997).
In other research that explores more process-related aspects of marital surname change
experiences, Nugent (2010) finds that women often feel trapped between the “false dichotomy”
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of self needs versus family needs. This self/other dichotomy is prevalent throughout other family
literature (Blair-Loy 2003), where researchers find women often experience a pull between two
conflicting domains, a tension that men are less likely to experience. While valuable, existing
research on marital surname choice, the empirical focus of this paper, has largely emphasized
women’s role and experiences in the marital surname decision, while men’s potential influence
remains absent. By including the perspectives and voices of men in the discussion of how marital
surnames are negotiated, this article aims to fill this empirical gap.
In addition, the paper addresses whether it is women’s acceptance of or lack of concern for
the patrinymic practice that contributes to the pattern’s persistence (Goldin and Shim 2004).
Along with others writing about the topic in the media (Holman 2014), Hoffnung (2006)
speculates that the lack of change in marital surnaming patterns since the 1980s is indicative of
women’s inegalitarian gender ideologies, saying it:
seems to indicate that feminist values are being maintained at about the
same level. […] Although many more women now are establishing
professional identities outside of the family, they are not necessarily
keeping their birth names. This raises the question of whether Third Wave
Feminists perceive the meaning of naming the same way as Second Wave
Feminists did. Perhaps because they have relatively easy access to
graduate and professional school, nontraditional occupations, and high
salaries, younger women are no longer concerned about using their name
to maintain their identity after marriage (824).
However, like many aspects of the personal realm, surname choice is a decision that is often
assumed or actively negotiated between partners—not a choice made in isolation by women; and
it may be that men’s desires, either explicit or assumed, affect women’s surname outcomes even
when women themselves maintain egalitarian attitudes about surnaming and yearn for something
different. Given men’s higher position on the power and status hierarchy, if women are aware of
male partners’ preferences, such awareness might be enough to sway women’s reported
preferences and agreement with choices such as surnaming, as was shown in one experiment by
(Zipp, Prohaska, and Bemiller 2004).
It is clear, then, that myriad questions remain regarding how women and men think about,
negotiate (or don’t), and decide how their surnames will or will not change after marriage as well
as how these choices can be viewed in the larger picture of women’s relative power in malefemale relationships. By asking how couples negotiate marital surname choice and whether male
partners’ preferences have an influence over women’s choices, this paper contributes to our
empirical knowledge of marital surname practices and patterns in the U.S. as well as theoretical
understandings of the link between gender, power, and interpersonal inequalities in
contemporary marriage.
METHODS
The data from this paper come from in-depth interviews with 62 childless young adults (31
couples) living in the San Francisco Bay Area and explore how couples negotiate marital
surname choices. The data are part of a larger study about gender dynamics in new marriage
among young adults who have not (yet) had children. Couples were either engaged and
cohabiting (26%) or married (74%) and sample members were between the ages of 25 and 34.
I recruited participants through Craigslist advertisements, referrals from friends and
acquaintances, and snowball sampling. The interviews, which were semi-structured and lasted
between 75 minutes and 3 hours, typically took place in respondents’ homes. All interviews were
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conducted separately with each member of a couple, usually in a private space where partners
were out of earshot. I did this so that respondents would feel comfortable relaying sensitive
information regarding their relationship and personal lives without feeling deterred by their
partners’ reactions to their responses. Of all of the topics I discussed with respondents over the
course of this larger study (anticipations of future parenthood; the division of household labor;
relationship progression; leisure time; partners’ work lives and their own; family planning; sex;
financials; etc), I was surprised to find that surname choice was among the most contentious.
This is likely because it was salient in many respondents’ minds, given that the study explicitly
sought couples who were either engaged or newly married. But it also reveals the importance of
the topic as one that produces conflict and emotional stress in a substantial portion of the
population of young adult couples.
Table 1 shows descriptive statistics for sample members. While I did not impose any explicit
education or income parameters over the course of this study, I sought to understand relationship
dynamics among a very specific group: engaged or married young adults without children. My
sample mirrors national patterns of this population in that it is populated almost entirely by
highly educated and high earning couples. Indeed, 95% of respondents had a college degree or
higher and the mean household income was nearly $150,000, which is consistent with average
salaries in the San Francisco Bay Area, given the high cost of living (U.S. Census Bureau 2013).
I collected demographic and attitudinal information in an online survey that accompanied
the qualitative portion of this study. In the survey, I asked respondents to answer a series of
attitudinal questions, including four gender attitude items taken verbatim from the General Social
Survey and one surname item borrowed from Hamilton and colleagues’ (2011) representative
survey on surname attitudes. As Table 1 demonstrates, as a whole, respondents were fairly
egalitarian in their responses to these attitudinal questions.
They also represented a surprisingly diverse set of surname decisions. While most studies
have categorized women’s surname choices as dummy variables in the past (changed name/did
not change name), I found doing so to be problematic for several reasons. Firstly, it treats
hyphenating as a traditional choice when, in fact, most hyphenated women felt it a nontraditional
choice (see Shafer 2010 for a notable exception). Secondly, it neglects the potential for
neotraditional surname choices, like retaining a birth given name without a hyphen and using
both last names in practice, which a number of women in my sample (10%) did. Thirdly, the
practice of only coding women’s choices into dichotomous variables ignores the potential for
nontraditional surname changes on men’s parts, which two men in my sample did and one was
seriously considering. Thus, it is clear that, on average, my sample members are fairly liberal in
both their attitudes and surname practices, providing a uniquely diverse set of opinions and
experiences from which to analyze. This is perhaps unsurprising given the Bay Area’s generally
liberal attitudinal tendencies; however, what is surprising is that, despite this, gender power
differences persist among the vast majority of my highly egalitarian sample.
I coded interview transcripts in Dedoose software for qualitative and mixed methods
research. Throughout the interview and coding process, I relied heavily on a grounded theoretical
approach (Glaser and Strauss 1967), focusing on themes that emerged inductively from the data.
I followed the guidelines outlined by Glaser (1978) and divided coding into two distinct stages:
open and theoretical coding, both driven by concrete indictors in the data. Open coding primarily
served to organize the data and begin the process of theme generation. Codes created during this
stage included surname choice; power dynamics; conversations; and conflict. The primary theme
of interest in this paper (power dynamics) was operationalized based on each member of the
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couple’s preference, their negotiation process, and their experience with negotiating (or not.) If
couples’ preferences diverged and one member swayed the other’s decision, this was coded as a
type of ‘power dynamic’. Theoretical coding crystallized themes and expanded on them with
more refined codes such as invisible power; covert power; and manifest power. Through
theoretical coding, I expanded my definition of power by including the type of power that stems
from adherence to hegemonic norms and beliefs and advantages men, also called “invisible” or
“hidden” power (Komter 1989; Sassler and Miller 2011; Zipp, Prohaska, and Bemiller 2004).
Theoretical coding also served to crystallize my understanding of the causes and contingencies
under which the core variable of interest (power) operates, such as exposure to alternative
practices and egalitarian experiences. The quotes presented here were chosen to represent the
salient themes and can be viewed as representative of the data at large.
GENDER, POWER, AND THE MARITAL SURNAME CHOICE
The goal of this study is to provide a theoretical account of gender power differences in a
middle- to high-SES sample and to explore, empirically, how couples negotiate marital surname
choice. Throughout these findings I emphasize the process of negotiation at the interactional
level, focusing on three main facets: (a) whether partners discussed the decision or whether it
was assumed, (b) whether partners’ individual surname preferences diverged, and (c) how
partners negotiated (or didn’t) discrepancies in preferences. I highlight the intersection of
different types of power present throughout the negotiation process and connect them to
outcomes, drawing on the framework proposed by Komter (1989) to show how social power
asymmetry in male-female relationships influences marital surname choice and perpetuates
inequality in hererosexual marriage.
Invisible power dynamics: “It was just kind of assumed.”
Like all potentially contentious topics in modern marriage, surname choice often required
negotiation between partners in my sample. One prerequisite for the occurrence of negotiation,
however, is that partners first question and then discuss the choice to determine on which end of
the spectrum each falls. Among the sample members, 13% (n=4) were engaged and had not yet
considered or broached the topic with their partner, though all anticipated they soon would.
While I have included their attitudes and opinions informed this analysis, they are not included in
the categorization of power dynamics that follows.
Of the remaining couples (n=27), who are the focus of this paper, 22% reported preferences
in surname choice rooted in “tradition” that were consistent with ideological hegemonic beliefs,
which can also be viewed as a type of invisible power (Komter 1989). Both members these
couples thus felt the decision was assumed and did not merit questioning, conversation, or
negotiation.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, respondents in this group all pursued a traditional name change,
wherein women dropped their birth-given surnames in exchange for their husbands’. These
respondents frequently reported that the decision was a “non-decision” or a “no-brainer” for
them. For instance, Betsy1, a 30-year-old white woman, described: “I wanted one name for the
family, and you know it never really occurred to me that he would take my name, so I was happy
taking his.” Another woman told me they hadn’t discussed the topic, largely because “it was one
of those things that was just kind of assumed.” Scott, a 25-year-old man said of the choice: “I
Respondents’ names and some identifying characteristics have been changed. Direct reference
to surnames in quotes has also been changed to “my name,” “his name,” or “her name” to protect
confidentiality.
1
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don't think it was even something we really ever talked about or made a big deal about. She took
my name and that was kind of it.” Scott continued on to say that perhaps his wife had a different
take on the topic, but given that they had not discussed it, he could not tell me one way or the
other. When asked how she and her husband handled the surname choice, Lacey told me: “I
would never have not taken it, I feel like. I’m very traditional.” Lacey’s husband, Zach, echoed
her sentiments, saying: “She took my name. She’s pretty traditional…no feminist tendencies
there.” Zach continued on to say that it wasn’t an issue between them, but had Lacey indicated
that she didn’t plan to change her name, “it would probably be important to me…I’d feel a little
rejected.”
Denise, a 27-year-old woman, similarly self-described her choice as traditional, saying:
I took his last name. I did that right after we were married just for us to make a
full transition…for me to identify with him now as family versus my family
growing up. It was important to me to do that. Very traditional. We didn't give
anything else any other thought.
This is consistent with survey research (Robnett and Leaper 2013), which has found that
tradition and family unity are both important aspects of women and men’s more traditional
surname preferences.
While the apparent agreement between partners complicates whether such a group can be
categorized as being influenced by power dynamics, that women and men rely on assumed
hegemonic norms to guide their surname choices, illustrates the persistent role of invisible power
(Komter 1989), or power that is void of conflict “because subordinate groups adhere to
hegemonic notions of what is natural and appropriate” (Sassler and Miller 2010, p. 485), both
with regards to surnaming practices and normative gender scripts, which prioritize his
preferences over hers (Zipp, Prohaska, and Bemiller 2004).
One piece of evidence that lends preliminary support to such an argument, despite any
explicit desire on the part of women to retain their birth given surname, is that women in this
group often described experiencing emotional difficulty with their decision to change their
names. For example, Hannah told me: “It was one of those things that just kind of was assumed,
but…I think it was something that was very important to him.” Hannah, who was Asian
American and had married a Latino man, continued on to describe the negative emotional
experience of changing her name, something that was particularly common among women in
interethnic marriages:
I felt like for me that was the only thing I have that made me Chinese because
nobody ever thought that I was. That was kind of hard in changing it because
now people just assume that I’m Latina…I don’t look Chinese. I don’t know why,
but people will think that. As a teacher it’s kind of hard because I speak some but
not a lot of Spanish. And people will just assume. It’s hard in that sense of it kind
of changed my identity, not just in being married but in the fact that I lost that
thing about me that made people know that I was Chinese.
For many couples, then, invisible power operates under the surface of their surname choices
to influence behavior and maintain symbolic inequality, even when they report overall
agreement.
Consistent with exposure-based explanations of gender ideology construction (Bolzendahl
and Myers 2004), childhood exposure to surname choices also appeared to play a role in their
thinking on the topic. For instance, Laura described that:
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It was like never, never a question. We always knew that I was going to take his
last name. I mean, that's always what our parent's did and there was nothing ever
weird about that. We kind of joked for a while that he would rather become an
Oliver, which is my last name, just because he liked my family so much…[But] it
was never a question that I was going to take his last name.
Charles also referenced family choices when describing he and his wife’s traditional
decision:
I think it was the assumed route because both of our families have done that. If
someone in her family had done the hyphenated name or kept her own name, then
maybe we would've considered something else, but that's just what we had grown
up seeing […] I didn't care that much, but if we had kept separate names, then
maybe I would've felt differently. If she would've asked to keep different names,
then maybe I woulda had more concern with it, but—yeah, I guess I just always
assumed that my wife would take my name.
That respondents felt so strongly that their families’ choices might influence their own
highlights the importance of social networks in shaping gender ideologies, as scholars have
described in earlier research (Risman 1998). I extend the concept here to scholarship on surname
choice and also expand on the discussion of family influence and exposure in the sections that
follow.
Conflicting preferences, conflict avoidance, and covert power
In the previous section, I showed how invisible power dynamics influenced sample members
vis-à-vis an assumed allegiance to hegemonic norms. In the remaining 78% of couples, surname
choice was not assumed; a finding that is vastly different from the portrait painted by previous
scholars regarding the persistence of the patrinymic practice. This finding also emphasizes the
importance of analyzing process in marital decision-making as opposed to only outcomes.
Couples in this group reported that the decision was questioned by at least one if not both
members of the couple. But the questioning of hegemonic surname rituals did not always result
in active negotiation between partners. In a notable minority of couples (11%), women
questioned the choice, but refrained from explicitly addressing the topic with their husbands out
of concern for how they would react. In these couples, it was only the men who described the
decision as a non-decision, which was in stark contrast to how their partners viewed the matter.
This type of pattern is consistent with Komter’s (1989) concept of latent power, also
occasionally referred to as covert power (Sassler and Miller 2011). According to Komter (1989),
latent power can be identified:
when the needs and wishes of the more powerful person are anticipated, or
when the reasons for not desiring or attempting change or refraining from
conflict produce resignation in anticipation of a negative reaction or fear
of jeopardizing the marital relationship (p. 192).
In all of the couples who exhibited latent power dynamics, women were either wary of or
adamantly opposed to traditional surname choices. In each of these couples, however, women
refrained from articulating their preferences to their husbands, instead internalizing male
partners’ preferences. The disconnect between theirs and their partners stories thus illustrates the
presence of latent power.
The majority of the women in this group opted for a traditional surname change, as opposed
to retaining their birth given name or blending their name with their partners. For instance, James
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describes he and his wife’s traditional choice: “That decision was made before the wedding and
it wasn’t part of conversation at all.” He continued on, saying:
Personally, I wanted her to take my name and she never said that she
wasn’t. She wanted to as well. […] I think from the beginning, I never
really questioned that Allie would want to change her name and she just
kind of followed what I thought she would do.
While James’ perspective is that Allie fully wanted to change her name, Allie described a
different scenario. During her interview, she discussed feeling torn about whether to keep her
name or take her husband’s name, feeling conflicted about her early childhood preference to
retain her name and her husband’s assumption that she would adopt his surname upon marriage.
And while she never initiated a conversation with him about her internal struggle with the
choice, she felt frustrated about his lack of awareness of her feelings on the topic, saying:
I have like three more months before I change everything over officially
because my ID's expiring. And I'm like super struggling. It's really hard
for me. I feel like I'm losing my identity. I don't think James realizes at all
that it's bothering me 'cause he doesn't really put two and two together.
Like, ‘Why didn't you change your cards?’ It's because that's my identity
and I feel like I'm losing it.
She continued on to tell me that she never brought the issue up to her husband because: “I
know that was something that was important to him. I don't think he would've been very happy if
I would've kept [my last name].” Another couple, Steven and Jessica, followed a similar pattern;
however, in this case, rather than avoiding the topic altogether, Tim describes a situation where
Jessica uses a more indirect approach, playfully joking instead of asserting her true feelings:
It was kinda strange the way it would be brought up because she would kinda ask me
in a playful way like ‘what if I didn’t change my name?’ I guess she—to me she was
kinda gauging my reaction to it, and she was also trying to see—I think she was
actually probably serious about keeping her own name. […] I’d always say, ‘You
need to change your name. You should change your name because it’s tradition.’”
When asked how he would have felt if she hadn’t taken his name, Steven told me
that he would have worried about others’ opinions of their relationship, illustrating the
importance of gender expectations in reproducing patterns of symbolic interpersonal
inequality: “Like in terms of talking with guys, like if your wife keeps her name and all
your other guy friends, their wives change their names, it’s like you can’t control your
wife.”
His wife, Jessica, described wanting to either keep her birth given name or form a hybrid
name with her husband in lieu of taking his name, of which she was not fond. When I asked
whether that was an alterative they had discussed, she replied: “He wasn’t gonna change his
name. I didn’t ask him, but I don’t think he would have.”
One couple in this group was unique in that they opted for a neotraditional surname change
as opposed to the more traditional route of the aforementioned couples. Gladice, an engaged
woman who said, “I like my name as it is now,” went on to describe a situation where she
considered broaching the topic with her partner to determine his comfort with her either retaining
her birth given name or with both of them assuming a hybrid name upon marriage:
He's expressed to me that he wants me to take his last name…So I honestly don't
know if he would have taken a blended name. I know that's probably a little more
like a step in sort of the more radical. Not radical, but a little more in the sort of,
Bass 12
you know, less common strategy. I think maybe he's…I don't know. I wouldn't
say more traditional than me, but sometimes I get that feeling for him. Like he’s
said to me, "Oh. Like I envisioned you taking my last name. I wanted you to take
my last name." I wasn’t actually surprised by that, but you know it was just sort of
a signal to me like, "Okay. He sort of has a more traditional view of this whole
name thing.”
Her partner, on the other hand, seemed less aware of her feelings on the topic. When I asked
how they arrived at their surname choice, he said: “It wasn't like one person had to convince the
other person – like she wanted to hold on to [her birth given name] and I'm making her take my
last name. I think we both just sort of feel the same way.”
Women in this group deferred to male partners’ surname preferences, which were different
than their own, out of concern for hurting his feelings or not wanting to “disturb the peace” so to
speak. Their responses illustrate how men’s preferences are often anticipated without any
explicit negotiation of the matter at hand, thereby resulting in women’s dampened voices in
decision-making. They also illustrate the continued secondary position of women in heterosexual
marriage.
Disagreement, active negotiation, and manifest power
As opposed to the previous sections, which demonstrated invisible and latent power
asymmetry in heterosexual couples, this section highlights the role of manifest power asymmetry
in surname choice, which was present in one third (33%) of couples. Manifest power, or the
power of one person to influence or sway another person’s choices, surfaced when couples’
surname preferences diverged and they actively attempted to negotiate the matter. In each of
these instances, men achieved their desired outcome, illustrating that women’s desires and
preferences carried less weight than their male counterparts.
For instance, Bobby described a situation where his wife preferred her name to his.
Nonetheless, he urged her to take his name following their wedding, which she did:
She didn't want to give it up, and I don’t blame her for it. I think I kind of
pressured her into it a little bit. I’d joke with my friends that I was taking her last
name, and they’d think that’s hilarious that I would even joke like that because it
can be seen, I think, as the woman being the man in the relationship if the man
were to take her last name. If the woman weren’t to take the man’s last name, I
feel like it shows not as much commitment. By changing her name, that’s a huge
commitment, so that was an aspect.
When I asked whether taking her name or doing a blended name was ever a consideration
for him, he replied: “I wouldn’t have ever considered changing my last name to hers,” despite
that he felt she had a “cool last name” that he liked better than his own.
Early in their courtship, Jasmine told her husband, “I’m not changing my last name,” but
said that he later “talked about how it was very important to him.” She eventually conceded,
saying:
I don’t know if it’s a traditional thing for him, but I just remember him being very
‘no, you’re gonna have this name.’ It was something—it wasn’t an option almost.
I think it would be—I imagine it would be almost hurtful if I didn’t. […] I’m not
sure why it was so important. I should probably ask him. I just remember him
saying that ‘no, this is really important.’ ‘What? You don’t want to be a [her last
name]?’ (Laughter.) He didn’t find that amusing at all. I was like, ‘Oh, okay. I
won’t push it cuz it’s not funny for him.’
Bass 13
At the time of the interview, another woman, Josie, had been married to her partner for
nearly a year. And though she preferred to retain her birth-given name, saying it was a piece of
her ethnic identity, her husband felt otherwise: “Caleb has expressed like a huge interest in me
changing my name to his.” She asked whether he would consider doing a blended or dualhyphenated name with her, as one of their friends had done, but said: “I’ve asked Caleb to do
that and he said ‘no way.’” When asked why she thought that was, Josie told me, “I think
secretly he's very old school in that way. Patriarchal. […] I think that the name change thing
is…He's been harping on it a lot and I know it's really important to him, but I don't really
understand why.”
Josie’s husband discussed how since their marriage he’d changed his perspective on the
matter, saying: “I have actually always thought I would never care and now I care a little bit.
Now I kind of like would like it if she changed her name.” He described a situation during their
engagement where friends of theirs had asked whether Josie would change her name, to which
she replied that she did not plan to. When they returned home, Caleb asked Josie privately:
"Really? You're never going to?" He continued on to tell her: "I more and more want you to
change your name." Eventually, Josie conceded and promised that she would change her name
once they had their first child, if not sooner, though she had not changed it at the time of the
interview. When I asked Caleb whether they had considered the alternatives she had suggested,
like a blended surname, he replied: “There's basically no way you could get me to do that.”
Another woman, Frances, felt strongly about her ethnic roots as well and described a
situation where she preferred to keep her birth given name, “Frankly for my own sense of self
[…] We had talked about it. I asked him, ‘Would you wanna take my name?’ He was like, ‘Oh,
hell no!’” Her husband was not open to changing his name, but felt strongly that she take his,
saying:
I know she wanted her name just cuz of uniqueness and also because that was part
of her family. I was totally fine with it. She wanted me to take on her last name,
and I was, like, "No, I'm not doin' it. My last name is Jones." She really did want
me to. And I was, like, "No." I was, like, "Jones was my dad's name." You know?
[…] If you wanna keep your last name [as a middle name], I’m 100 percent fine
with that. But you will have Jones at the end because you're my wife.”
Occasionally, men in this group relied on a rhetoric of “choice,” similar to that described in
research on women’s labor market choices following parenthood (Stone 2007; Williams 2000),
which implied it was solely her decision to make. Frequently, however, these men would qualify
the choice by insisting that while she could choose her own name, their future children would
have his name. This assumption is consistent with earlier research, which has found that 97% of
children are given only their father’s birth-given surname (Johnson and Scheuble 2002), and
speaks to the even more sticky pattern of patrilineal child surnaming. This strategy of offering a
choice for her but a non-choice for the children was often enough to prompt women partners to
concede to his desires and adopt a traditional surname following marriage.
For instance, Paula, who preferred to keep her birth-given name, said: “We had talked about
it […] I was like, ‘I just like my last name. Why don't you change your name to [my last name]?’
And he was like, ‘No. I'm not having any of that.’”
Peter says that while he “didn’t really care” whether Paula kept or changed her last name, he
felt strongly that his children have his name:
The only thing is like I want my kids to like have the same last name as me. It's
just that our society is built on, you know, the female taking the male's last name
Bass 14
and that's just traditionally how it's done […] It doesn't bother me at all for Paula
[to keep her name], but then if our kids have my last name then it becomes an
issue with traveling with our kids and stuff like that where Paula doesn't have the
same last name.
Eventually, Paula changed her name to Peter’s, citing future children as the primary
motivating factor: “We came to a decision because of the way that our kids would be named and
because he didn't want to take [my last name].”
In another couple that opted for a neotraditional surname choice, a similar pattern unfolded.
Tamar describes the situation, saying:
He really wanted me to change my name, and then, I really wanted to keep my
name, so I decided to just hyphenate […] It’s funny ‘cause like I remember him
making it sound like it’s really important, but now that I’m doing the name
change process, he’s like ‘No. I don’t think I even made it that much important.’ I
was like, ‘Yeah you did! That’s why I’m doing this.’
She continued on to describe the role that future children played in her decision to hyphenate
in lieu of maintaining her birth given name, saying, “It would be nice if we all had the same
names. Especially if we had kids […] I told him, ‘The kids can just use your last name. That’s
fine.’” Tamar and Ajay both assumed that the children would be given Ajay’s last name;
however, this assumption, along with pressures from her husband, swayed Tamar into
hyphenating her name when she otherwise might have retained her former name exclusively.
Another couple that was still in the midst of finalizing their surname choice was also swayed
by her male partner’s insistence for patrilineal child surnaming. Susan told me: “I was always
going to keep my name. That was always my truth.” Susan’s partner was ambivalent about her
individual surname choice, but was adamant about two things: (1) that he would not change his
own last name in any capacity and (2) that their future children would have his name. These
demands complicated her own decision and was weighing heavily on her at the time of her
interview:
I have tortured myself about this because it's like, you know, I…Well I'm mad
because I want him to take my name and he just won't do it. He has no interest in
it whatsoever. He’s just, “Nope. I'm not changing my name.” […] So it's just been
one of those things that like, you know, it does kind of irk me that I wouldn't have
the same last name as my kids. Because he won't let the kids have my name
either.
William also used children’s surnaming as a way to actively sway his wife from
retaining her surname, which she planned to do, to changing it; however, their experience
is unique in that much of his reasoning stemmed from his own racial identity. William
described that when “she asked me if it was important to me, I said it kinda was […] and
she ended up doing it. And I was thankful for that.” He continued on to say that “One of
my main reasons is that there’s a stigma in the African American community about men
not taking care of their kids. I didn’t want my wife in a place where my kid and my wife
had different names. Like ‘Oh, he’s not around.’”
In this group of respondents, women and men’s preferences diverged; however, unlike those
in the preceeding group, women here attempted to negotiate. In all cases, however, women in
this group failed to get what they wanted. This finding builds on earlier scholarship of marital
surname choice to show that in addition to the individual-factors identified by earlier scholars,
men’s preferences in conjunction with gender power asymmetry may play a key role in shaping
Bass 15
the surnaming decisions of women. It also lends additional theoretical support to gender
theorists’ claims that social power differentials between women and men persist despite
women’s advances in education and employment (see also Tichenor 1999; Sassler and Miller
2011; Zipp, Prohaska, and Bemiller 2004).
The negative case: Open dialogue, gender flexibility, and egalitarian men
Asymmetry in different types of power was evident throughout the majority (67%) of my
sample. Approximately 22% evinced invisible power, 11% covert power, and 33% manifest
power, all favoring men. The remaining 33% showed no power imbalances in their
negotiations—they were marked by an open dialogue, gender flexibility, and, ultimately, a
willingness on the part of male partners, from the start, to accept nontraditional surname
practices for their spouses, themselves, and future children. The vast majority of this particular
group (78%), who did not evince any kind of preference disagreement or adherence to
hegemonic practices and thus did not show power asymmetry, chose a nontraditional surname
path following marriage.
For instance, Wes, who decided with his wife that they would each retain their individual
surnames and who was open to his future children having nontraditional surnames, said:
There are couples I know where the wife has taken the husband's name because
when she becomes a mother, she wants to have the same last name as the kids,
thinking that that is something that will help avoid issues. For me, I don't think
that that is a strong need. I don't think that needs to be a huge motivation because
I'm more like, I'll make sure that people know I'm the parent.
Mark had a similar stance as Wes, saying in a joking tone: “I don’t have very strong feelings
about it, like ‘You must take my name. My kids must take my name.’” He and his wife each also
chose to retain their birth given surnames.
Often, men in this group had mothers who had not changed their surnames and they
frequently spoke about the lack of impact this had on their own childhood family experience
when describing their negotiations with their own partner, offering further support for exposurebased explanations of gender ideology construction (Bolzendahl and Myers 2004). For example,
Ian, whose mother had kept her birth given name when she married in 1980 told me: “Honestly, I
can’t remember it even being any issue. I can’t even think about it even being discussed much…I
guess I didn’t realize how unusual that was.” Though not yet married, he and his fiancée had
decided they would each retain separate surnames and would likely hyphenate their future
children’s names.
However, not all women with egalitarian partners and negotiation experiences opted for
nontraditional options. Twenty-two percent of those who discussed surname choice and
considered alternatives with their partner, still adhered to a traditional surname choice. These
cases were marked by women’s explicit desires to drop their birth-given surnames due to
strained parental and family relationships, citing marital surname change as an opportunity to
create a new, positive family identity following conflict-ridden childhoods as a motivating factor.
For instance, Diana whose father was verbally abusive and intermittently present in her life, said:
“My old name reminds me of my dad and I wanted to get rid of it for that reason.” Another
respondent described growing up in a blended family where she often “felt isolated” by her name
since it didn’t match that of her mother, stepfather, and half-siblings. She and her husband
discussed surnaming options when they got engaged and he made clear that he was “open to
whichever direction.” Nonetheless, she viewed adopting her husband’s name upon marriage as
an opportunity to have a unique family identity that she’d lacked in her childhood and chose to
Bass 16
adopt his surname. Notably, while several men in my sample also described tumultuous
childhoods, not a single one viewed marital surname change as an opportunity to shed a negative
family identity. This finding is consistent with other patterns of uneven progress towards gender
equality, such as women moving into male-typed occupations and fields of study at significantly
higher rates than the inverse (England 2010, Pp. 153-155).
And while the number of couples who fall into this particular group is too small to
generalize from, we can speculate that, in addition to power differentials between women and
men, early family history and male partners’ gender ideologies are also important in shaping the
marital surname decision-making process. These two factors have gone previously undetected by
researchers but are ripe for future research.
CONCLUSION
Through an analysis of 62 in-depth interviews with 31 heterosexual couples, this study
examined how couples negotiate (or don’t) marital surname choice. I ask whether power
asymmetry between women and men persists in heterosexual marriage and has any bearing on
the surname choices of women following new marriage. My findings suggest that men continue
to be advantaged in influence and power in the personal realm and that these advantages shape
women’s surname decisions. In a fraction of couples (22%), men’s power advantages were
hidden (Komter 1989), meaning they were influenced by macro-level hegemonic norms and
belief systems, but were not negotiated between partners; however, even among these couples
for whom the surname choice was a “nondecision,” women frequently reported dissatisfaction in
changing their name, citing identity loss as the primary factor. In most couples, though, men
retained a power advantage either by verbally influencing their partners surname choice
following marriage (33%) or by women’s silent privileging of their male partners’ preferences
over their own (11%) (see also Zipp, Prohaska, and Bemiller 2004.)
The study contributes to the extant literature on marital surname choice by showing that, in
addition to individual-level characteristics such as education, race, and gender ideology
(Hoffnung 2006; Shafer 2010; Twenge 1997), the process through which women come to decide
whether to drop or retain their surname can also constrain their choices. Women’s surname
choices are influenced by male partners, who, more often than not, prefer their wives to adopt
their birth-given name as a “family name” and retain the power to sway their decisions. I refer to
this type of inequality as a symbolic inequality, one that may seem innocuous in the abstract but
that is representative of broader social issues, inequalities, and power asymmetries.
Studies show that “surname-keeping” among newly married women peeked in the 1990s
and subsequently declined in the twenty-first century (Goldin and Shim 2004; Shafer 2010).
Some scholars (Goldin and Shim 2004; Hoffnung 2006) have speculated that the reason for the
decrease might either be due to a general decline in public support for gender equality or an
overall shift back towards more conservative gender attitudes, a largely individual-level
explanation. That the vast majority of my analytic sample (78%) did not accept the patrinymic
practice out of “tradition,” however, suggests these speculations may be inflated. As I have
shown, married women do not make surname choices in a vacuum. Male power advantages are
also a contributing factor, which, in many cases, override women’s own gender attitudes,
identities, and preferences.
The study also provides theoretical support for the gender theory, which, in contrast to
relative resource theory, argues that gender is an even more powerful predictor of marital power
dynamics than individual resources (Ferree 1990; Sassler and Miller 2011; Tichenor 1999; Zipp,
Prohaska, and Bemiller 2004). Indeed, 97% of women in my sample were employed and yet
Bass 17
when partner preferences for surname choice diverged, male partners’ preferences were
privileged in every single case. This is consistent with other family scholars who have found that
even in dual-earner couples men retain a distinct power advantage in determining relationship
progression (Sassler and Miller 2011) as well as in the division of unpaid household labor
(Bianchi, Milkie, Sayer, and Robinson 2000; Pyke 1994).
But this finding is not only problematic because of the bearing it has on the personal realm
of heterosexual partnerships. In fact, one can speculate that the male-female power asymmetry I
find between members of my sample is likely also present in the public sphere as well, such as in
politics and in the workplace. Indeed, social status and power advantages can shape women’s
influence in mixed-sex settings, their likelihood of attaining and succeeding in leadership roles,
and, ultimately, their ability to advance in the workplace (Kanter 1977; Ridgeway 2013), thereby
perpetuating inequality in both the public and private spheres.
One limitation to the study is in its fairly homogenous sample, comprised of newly married,
largely egalitarian, class-privileged couples without children. This prevents me from being able
to discuss whether the processes described here might vary by class, parental status, or in
remarriage, as I suspect they might. Further, as with most qualitative studies, the relatively small,
nonrepresentative sample precludes me from generalizing these findings to a broader population,
though conducting a similar study with a representative sample of married couples would be ripe
for future research.
Cultural gender norms afford men greater social power (Zipp, Prohaska, and Bemiller 2004),
posing barriers to equality in heterosexual partnership despite women’s advances in education
and earnings. Such power asymmetry affects the choices women make regarding their surnames
and, one can speculate, also has an impact on other aspects of the personal realm that extend
beyond surnaming. Additional scholarly and popular attention should be paid to the association
between marital traditions and power as well as to male power in other personal realm aspects of
heterosexual relationships more broadly. Without social awareness and attitudinal change, it is
unlikely that the uneven gender revolution will balance anytime soon.
Bass 18
Table 1. Demographic and attitudinal characteristics of sample members
Variables
Measures
Percentages and
Means
Couple-level
Couple-level
Combined income in $s/year
149,607
incomea
Relative earnings
Woman earns 60% or more
21%
Man earns 60% or more
43%
Partners each earn between 40%-60%
36%
Relative education
Woman has more education
32%
Man has more education
10%
Partners have same level of education
58%
Surname choice
Traditional
48%
Neotraditional
10%
Nontraditional, woman only
23%
Nontraditional, woman and man
6%
Undecided
13%
Individual-level
Age
Mean age
29
Education
Some college
5%
Bachelor’s degree
53%
Graduate degree
42%
Income
Individual income in $s/year
75,073
Race/ethnicity
White
63%
Black
9%
Latino/a
9%
Asian
7%
Other/Mixed-race
12%
% Who disagree
More important for wife to help with
98%
with the followingb
husband’s career than have one herself
Men better suited for politics than women
84%
A preschool child is likely to suffer if mother
93%
works
Better if man is the achiever outside of home
89%
Better if a woman changes her last name to her
71%
husband’s when she marries.
Note: Data come from surveys collected before/after the interview. Six sample members had incomplete survey data. I
filled in where possible (e.g., race or education), but otherwise, their data is treated as missing here. N=62; aDetermined
by summing each partner’s reported individual income; b Response categories (strongly agree, agree, disagree, and
strongly disagree) were collapsed to create dummy variables of agreement with gender egalitarian attitudes. Variable
names in GSS, in order, are: FEHELP, FEPOL, FEPRESCH, and FEFAM.
Bass 19
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