[net.women] Last names for married types

vange@stolaf.UUCP (Erin L. Vang) (02/11/84)

There are countless options for the last names of married people; here
are some interesting possibilities for the couple Mary Jones and Bob Smith:
	Switch last names--Mary Smith and Bob Jones
		In this case, any children would have to take one or the
		other of the last names, again causing the difficulties
		cited in previous articles.  Therefore, a better solution:
	Hyphenate, using some random factor such as alphabetical order
		for determing which name will come first--Mary and Bob
		Jones-Smith

Then again, we could be creative, inefficient, and otherwise typical by
going with Mary Bobswife and Bob Maryshusband.  

On the other hand, we could just be rational, efficient, tolerant, and 
otherwise atypical by continuing the traditional Mary and Bob Jones
system, with the understanding that it's merely a trivial custom which
need not reflect our actual beliefs regarding roles, etc.

Flame if you must, but realize it won't make any difference...

Erin Vang
...ihnp4!stolaf!vange