Quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
You have to remember that surnames are a product of a patriachal society. As I said earlier, all Western surnames originate with a male at some point. Though the tribal, clan and land inheriting issues have disappeared, the family linkage still remains. Bucking the system TOTALLY defeats the modern purpose of having a family name. Working within it, and creating the additional name for female lineage creates additional linkage.
The issue of family names creating unity is I believe, emphasised in your post regarding unified family. "surely the act of living together..... is telling enough."
A family is more than just the people living together.
With the industrial revolution and the move to urban rather than rural/village living, the extended family's unity and impact has been severely lessened. "It takes a village to raise a child" is the sagelike quote. Extended families do NOT live together in western urban cultures, Yet your post only seems to acknowledge a family as people living together!
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Obviously by family I meant parents and children - immediate family. We don't generally refer to the whole gammit of grandparents and aunts and cousins with mother's uncommon maiden names as simply 'family', they are extended family. At least I don't. Further, your post seems to think that having the same surname is important for extended family purposes - how then would my side of the extended family fit in if I change my surname to my husbands' - they have a different surname!? And also obviously by 'living together' I meant living
as a family, as for instance, my family lived, with parental roles and children's roles and all that goes with it. I simply can't see how if my mother had had a different surname it would have made any difference to how much of a mother she is to me and how much she is part of our (immediate) family. So yes of course, family is more than just living together, otherwise boarders and flatmates and houseguests would be family, it's living as a family. Which has very little to do with surnames. IMHO
Cloudy I don't think marriage is 'leaving my family' either - just that to me that's what changing my name implies (because traditionally, that's what it DID mean!). Us having different surnames to me is as you say, the beginning of a new family made up of our shared families with both names factored in [img]smile.gif[/img]