One of the problems with double-barrelled surnames is what happens when Mr Funnell-Webb marries Ms North-Sydney. Do their children become North-Sydney-Funnell-Webbs, or a more abbreviated North-Funnell, North-Webb, Sydney-Funnell or Sydney-Webb?

Our son-in-law changed his surname to that of his wife, mainly because he liked that name better than his birth-name. It caused some consternation among the very conservative colleagues where he worked; but they soon got used to it.

So what's the contemporary significance of the traditional practice of the female ceding her birth-name?

In the old days, women teachers had to resign their permanent position when they married. They could continue to teach, but could not have superannuation or promotion rights.

Does anyone know if couples with double-barrel surnames are more likely to divorce? I suspect they are more prone to divorce because the woman is more concerned about self instead of seeing herself as being one of a couple.

And Roscop takes it!

I was wondering who would get in first to make some petty anti-feminist comment about an article which is just about names and the right to keep them. I thought it would be a more regular contributor, but I guess I was wrong.

Yes, she said feminist. But take a deep breath and relax, there was no male-bashing.

(To answer your question roscop, it's probably a similar number of divorces as occur in cases where men feel the need to have docile wives).

I've always like the idea of merging names, though it doesn't seem to get much traction. Funweb? Webbell?

The 'merging' option would actually resolve the problems of hideously long hyphenated names, as well as resolve issues of equity.

Any man without the courage (not that it would take much) to insist on his family name being carried on is not worth marrying. Unfortunately to many males have been emasculated by this feminist crap. Thankfully their are still many ladies out there who don't have to use a foul mouth and are very content to allow their children to grow up with some sort of stability.

Humanly speaking, I think to give up one's surname is a gargantuan prospect.

Is it not true that all of our identity as people is tied up in our family history and personal place in that network?

If we had an accepted cultural expectation of either the man or the woman adopting the surname of the other.. then most of us would not question it.

That's why it has worked for so long.

I think some of this boils down to the nature of love.

If the union is based on a more 'political' than romantic love, then... the name issue might figure more prominently.
But it seems to me that when you meet that person with whom your spirit merges and joins... it would not matter which name was taken.
For convenience I think one or the other should be adopted for reasons clearly shown by Nina's article.

NINA...sounds like we could be related.. Funnell.... that's part of our family :) Did you have a 'Norm' (long since past away) who was a commercial artist/printer you know of? (Melbourne, Vic)

The Old testament was strongly concerned about carrying on the family name and this connected to the patriarchal system. If a man did not have offspring, he was permitted to father them through the servant of his wife or if he died, his brother was expected to father them in his name.

The New Testament does not seem to have any specific teaching whatsoever about the importance of family name, so.. I'm not too rigid on it.