Just Ask JR: Maiden Names

Dear JR,

I'm thinking about marrying my longtime boyfriend, but I'm hesitant because he wants me to change my last name. I want to keep my maiden name as my mother did. Most of the women I look up to in my life kept their names.

My boyfriend says my wanting to keep my name tells him I am not committed. He says he'd be really hurt if I did it. I feel that retaining my name is the ultimate in female empowerment. The tradition of women changing their last name goes back to when we were treated as property and not educated. What do you think I should do?- Sally Rogers

Dear Sally,

First off, I don't agree that dropping your maiden name and accepting his means you are being treated as "property", or that you aren't educated. At the same time, your boyfriend's belief that you aren't "committed" because you wish to keep your maiden name is equally as ridiculous.
Do what you want Sally. This is about you. It doesn't have a god damn thing to do with him or his views on traditional marriage.

If you want to keep your maiden name, hyphenate it and add his at the end, that's it. End of discussion. Besides, what's he gonna do about it, leave you? Good! Because that says a lot about the kind of dick you were planning to marry in the first place. At the end of the day, it's none of his fuckin' business. In marriage, his only business is to love you unconditionally. I mean you aren't even married yet and he's acting like a spoiled 3 year old who isn't getting his way.

If I was a woman I'd keep my last name too. It's amazing how some of us guys can't understand how a woman wants to be proud of the family she comes from. To the end.

Look, tell Fred Flinstone to back off the gas pedal and learn to accept you for the woman you are, understand and appreciate the choices you make, at the same time making sacrifices of his own for the woman he loves.

Otherwise he'll have you out in the field pickin' berries.