194: Marriage, Surnames, and Power - Conversations About Autonomy in Marriage

Roula (00:00)
Okay, Rosie. I don't know how it is with gay marriages, but when a gay couple gets married, who takes other one's name? With straight people, women take the man's name, last name. How is it in the gay community?

Rosie (00:16)
Mm.

good one because I guess there's not a convention is there but when I was engaged to my ex she was like well I'll take your last name and I went I don't want you to take my last name and I don't want to take yours I just want to keep our own and then there was a discussion of well should we create a new last name that we both have that was my experience of it I think when you are already not

when you're already like in the minority and not following convention by being in a same sex relationship, there's more scope to have those conversations because there is no convention. Whereas men and women getting married has been happening, I don't know how long, what hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, centuries. And it has always been the woman takes the man's name, which by the way, I hate. And if you want to hear our thoughts about marriage, go back to episode 38 because

We have a good old rant in there.

Roula (01:30)
I love you're so

good at this calling out the episodes.

Rosie (01:33)
But I'm

doing so well Roula, I'm using the search function on our website listeners. Please go to our website. have over, Roula what episode are we up to now? We've almost got 200 episodes. So there is a big catalog. Please go back and look through it. We love our episodes and we know you're gonna love them too. But back to the question. Roula I wanna know why, why was this on your mind? Where did this question come from?

Roula (02:00)
From a personal experience. ⁓ All right, so most of cultures, the culture where I came from, in Europe, women take their husbands name. And I know since I was young, 13, 14 years old, it bothers me because why, why is this necessary?

Rosie (02:02)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Roula (02:23)
Why can't each one keep their name or why can't the man have the woman's name? And all these were questions for me that impossible to ask because they will turn, how dare I ask this question? And because people don't know, they're just following the tradition, following. And the reason why it's like this is because in centuries back, it was a property. It wasn't a marriage. It was a contract, a transaction. And

Rosie (02:26)
Right.

How dare you?

Right! Yes! Yes!

Roula (02:53)
So he's owning whatever she owns and she's under his roof and under his authority. And this continued till today. Of course, it has a different ⁓ meaning now. It's more like so romantic. ⁓ I want to have your name. I want to be your wife. I want to have your name. It's like, why? Why doesn't he tell me, I want to be your man. I want to have your name if we necessarily have to have the name. And I have a big regret is that

Rosie (03:07)
you

Yes.

Roula (03:23)
in my second marriage. And how did I know I have it? I didn't know I had a choice. Never knew I had a choice and never even looked it up because I am convinced around the world there is no choice. You take your husband's name. And then when my husband, when my husband and I, we had very quick marriage. It was like half an hour and we finished during COVID.

Rosie (03:25)
Mm.

Right. Yeah.

Roula (03:52)
When we are finishing, the person marrying us asked, so I asked my husband, are you taking her name? At the same time, asked me, are you taking his name? And I didn't even stop and think, ⁓ I have a choice.

Rosie (04:05)
Yeah.

Right.

Roula (04:13)
I wasn't conditioned to allow myself to say, ⁓ I don't even need his name. I can keep my name. I didn't do that. And I regret it because, well, I should have thought about it before. And we should have agreed when we get married, you take my name and I take your name because we also had this option.

Rosie (04:15)
Yes?

Mmm.

True, I love that this person asked that question. I feel like that's not the norm, it's just assumed you take the man's name. Can I ask, did you take Rianto's surname or? Yeah. okay. So legally that's your, okay, yeah.

Roula (04:49)
I his name but I never use it. It is on all my official papers, legally that's my name,

but I personally never use it.

Rosie (04:59)
Wow! Yeah! And looking back you're saying, I wish I actually thought about it and realized I had a choice. Yeah!

Roula (05:07)
Yes,

I wish I took the time, I was smart and thought of myself, I wish I was selfish and think, hold on, I have a choice here? I didn't do this.

Rosie (05:19)
Mmm.

Right. And what's important,

I think, is there's not a right or wrong, but acknowledging you have a choice and thinking it through gives you power. You have autonomy. This is my noun. Yes. Yeah. Have you spoken to Rianto about this? Like, yeah.

Roula (05:36)
Yeah, she gave me the power and I didn't take it. I didn't take it.

Yes, he regrets

it so much that he didn't take my name.

So we both kind of, I mean, it's not like it's a regret, I don't know. No, but we both felt he also had this choice and he didn't know what to do with it. So it wasn't just me as a female, him as a male did not know he has also the choice. We didn't take the time.

Rosie (06:03)
Mmm. Yes. Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh. I want to hear from listeners who out there, because I'd love to talk to somebody like the man who has taken their wife's surname. I've never met a husband who's done that before and I think that's so cool. Did you? Yeah. Wow.

Roula (06:34)
I met someone who has his wife's name, yeah. And

I didn't, I, well, it's a family member, but we didn't have like a very deep conversations. But when I knew that he took his wife's name, I see him in a totally different light. I'm like this kind of, I mentioned this exactly the same words in our episode about marriage.

Rosie (06:46)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Roula (07:00)
I want to have this man in my life because he does not give a shit about societal expectations. He did what he think is right for him and for his thinking. And I respect that so much. But I don't know, maybe I haven't really asked if they thought it through before or it was on the spot.

Rosie (07:08)
Yes.

Yeah, surely.

Yeah, okay. Yeah. it's such a big thing. I think some people don't see the big deal. They're like, yeah, I just take my husband's name. But for me, it does feel possessive. ⁓ That's just my thing. That's where my head goes. I think it's cool that there are more people going, hey, I don't have to do that. And they're making a choice that suits them. I love that so much.

Roula (07:32)
Yeah.

This is why I wanted

to talk about this today, because if you don't know you have a choice, ask and know you have a choice. You don't have to take your partner's name. They don't have to take your name, but you can also take each other's name. And ⁓ this is something I want to give to my kids that you have a choice. Yeah.

Rosie (07:51)
Mm.

Yeah.

You have a choice.

Mmm. I love that.

Roula (08:14)
Please let us know who from you has your partner name and how do you think about it this topic?

Rosie (08:22)
And was there a discussion about it or was it just assumed?

Roula (08:25)
Thank you for listening. Bye.