The tradition of the wife taking the husband's last name

Patriarchal origins of the tradition

The tradition of the wife taking the husband's last name upon marriage stems mainly from long-standing patriarchal family values, where families' surnames reflected the male head of the family, and men were encouraged to marry and reproduce in order to carry the family name forward through the generations.  Girls were considered the property of their fathers until they got married, and then when they got married, they became the property of their husbands, and so took their last names to reflect this.

Legitimate reasons for following the tradition

I regard the patriarchal arguments to be somewhat dubious arguments for preserving and following this tradition and I hope that most readers will agree.  However, the wife taking the husband's last name is one of many legitimate ways of resolving the "family name" problem, where groups of close relatives (especially the traditional nuclear family) become known by a family name and have to choose what the family name is.  A wife can consider taking her husband's last name as a positive way of reflecting the fact that she is now part of a new nuclear family, and she may prefer his last name to her birth name.  Or, we can just say, if it's traditional, it's one of many legitimate options, and all parties are happy with it, why not?

Legitimate alternatives

However, note "one of many legitimate ways".  The husband can take the wife's name, they can agree to use a hyphenated/combined family name, or take on a different family name altogether which is not associated with the birth names of the husband or wife.  Another option is for the husband and wife to both keep their birth names and remain socially known by their birth names, but also have a family name which may be named after the husband, wife, both, or neither- this procedure is commonly used by homosexual couples and cohabiting unmarried heterosexual partners for example.

So what's my problem with the tradition?

In short, it is the way that society enforces it.  There are many women out there who would rather not take their husband's surnames upon marriage, but feel obliged to because "that's just the way it's done".  It is an example of where creative thought and individuality is suppressed on the basis that "rules are rules"- married couples are pressured into doing things in a narrow, traditional way, rather than in the way that works best for them.

Also, although we don't like to admit it, for many of us the patriarchal origins of the tradition still linger in our subconscious.  The wife taking her husband's surname is seen as a mark of respect for his authority and the fact that she is now married to him, so if she doesn't take his name, it can be perceived that she isn't fully honouring her marriage.  Men who do not mandate that their wives take their surnames, and especially those who take their wives' surnames, can be labelled with all the usual macho, homophobic slurs- queer, gay, cissy, etc- and told that they need to stop "trying to be too politically correct", "toughen up", and "just accept that traditions should be followed because they should be followed".

I would never argue that the tradition should be outlawed, for as I established earlier, it is one of many legitimate ways of resolving the "family name" problem, and as far as I'm concerned, if it has widespread legitimate uses, its legitimate uses should not be banned.  What we need to do, as a society, is be more questioning of why we expect everybody to follow it, especially as many of the reasons are, in reality, dubious.  There is no need for traditions to be imposed on everybody- there are many examples of traditions where groups of people happily follow them, but also happily tolerate others who choose to do things in a different but equally legitimate way.  The tradition of the wife taking the husband's surname should be applied on that sort of basis.

Traditional family values

The modern-day concept of "traditional family values" in the UK and America is based mainly on an idealised perception of the traditional family structure of the 1950s.

Some aspects of so-called "family values" are certainly beneficial to society.  According to the Wikipedia article on family values, in a 1998 Harris survey, two common "values" were perceived to be, "loving, taking care of, and supporting each other", and, "knowing right from wrong and having good values".  We could certainly do with more of those two values in our society.

But many people also associate "family values" with an idealised perception of the traditional family structure that dominated in the UK and USA in the 1950s.  Children were mainly brought up in traditional nuclear families where the father was the breadwinner and the mother stayed at home and raised the children, and there is a common myth that this family structure encouraged those sort of loving and caring "family values", and that the breakdown of that family structure is mainly responsible for the recent "loss" of those values.

But in reality, the majority of evidence suggests that those values were also deficient in the 1950s.  Instead of either embracing modern-day trends or trying to bring society back to how it was in the 1950s, we would be better off looking for ways of encouraging new modern trends that do a better job of encouraging these values than either present-day trends or the cultural norms of the 1950s.

History behind the 1950s family values

I have done a fair amount of research into this- you can find more detailed summaries of the history elsewhere, but I will outline what I see as being the most important points.

• The nuclear family has always been an important part of child-rearing, but in many past periods, children were often brought up within less narrowly-defined "family" structures, where extended family members, close friends who were treated as part of the family, servants and others contributed.  In the Victorian era, the narrowly-defined nuclear family consisting of a married couple and their children became more dominant.
• In World War II, there was a temporary breakdown in this structure, for many men served in the war and women were required to take up work in their native countries.
• After the war, there was a strong social backlash, and people were heavily encouraged to return back to traditional family/gender roles and heavily stigmatised if they did not.

Common misconceptions about the 1950s family values

"The 1950s family arrangement encouraged people to love and care for each other."

My experiences overwhelmingly suggest that it only encouraged people to apply these values to people that they considered to be "family", i.e. related to within a few generations.  People who were not considered family members were often not entitled to the same amount of respect (an issue that recurs in my articles on friendships, but was worse in the 1950s than it is today).  In addition you were only "loved and cared for" if you conformed to a narrow way of doing and thinking.  If you were left-handed, black, homosexual, a single person in your 40s, or a mother with a high-flying career, forget it.

I am all up for people loving and caring for each other, but it should be an all-inclusive thing, not something that is reserved only for limited groups of people and comes at the vast expense of others. 

"The 1950s family arrangement encouraged people to know right from wrong and have good values."

In the 1950s, most people generally "conformed" a lot more than they do today and were more likely to obey and accept authority without question.  This meant that people were less likely to disobey good rules, but it also meant that they were more likely to accept bad rules without question on the basis, "Because authority X said so", which, for example, made it easier to justify persecuting vulnerable/minority groups purely because they were considered different.

Since the 1950s we have progressively moved away from blind obedience of authority, and there are some areas where I feel there is considerable room to progress further.  For instance, customs like the wife taking her husband's surname upon marriage, and businesses working 9 till 5, Monday to Friday, are frequently imposed on people on the basis, "Because society says so", despite being unnecessarily limiting in many cases.   However, there are other areas where we have gone too far, i.e. people feel more able to disobey most rules, including rules that prohibit particular behaviours for good reasons.  What we need is an increased sense of rules being based on wider moral considerations, and respect for those considerations, rather than an acceptance that "rules are rules".

"The 1950s family arrangement, where fathers were the breadwinners, and mothers stayed at home and looked after the children, encouraged children to be cared and looked after properly."

This works as long as the family is affluent enough to get by easily on just one income, both parents are happy to conform to these roles, and the family gets on well.  

But if the family is not affluent enough then it can be tough to feed the family, and fathers may end up pressurised into working long hours, meaning that they end up stressed and over-worked and don't get to spend much time with their children.  Mothers who want to have some independence can end up unhappy due to feeling trapped in domestic roles.  I often come across a view that parents should be prepared to sacrifice everything for their children, but the "100% sacrifice" model can result in unhappy parents, which detracts from the chances of their children being brought up in a loving, caring environment, and can result in sacrifices being made that hurt others, such as friends being dumped because they aren't considered part of the family and "family/children come first".

Today's problem is that the rise in working mothers has not been accompanied by measures to make it easier for fathers to spend less time at work and more time with the children, so we are left with a model where many households have both parents in full-time work.  Rather than promoting the 1950s family structure, we should be looking at a shift towards more flexible working hours, and more scope for parents to work shorter hours (say, 25-30 hours/week rather than 35-40) so that they can job/child-share, both having fulfilling careers but enabling at least one parent to be available for the children for most of the time.

"Traditional marriages should be encouraged and cohabiting discouraged.  Statistically, married people are happier on average than unmarried people."

I would argue that people in a long-term committed partnership are likely to be happier, on average, than people who are not, because they are guaranteed to have at least one emotionally-fulfilling and stable relationship in their lives.  The association with marriage stems from the fact that people in long-term committed partnerships are, statistically, more likely to get married.

The real problem is that too many people "take on" too much in their sexual partnerships before they are fully committed and know that they are really right for each other, resulting in repeated damaging break-ups, which is particularly problematic when couples have children before they are strongly committed.  Marriage is one way of trying to enforce commitment, but unlike in biblical times, when it was about a physical and emotional commitment, today it is a primarily legal commitment- couples sign legal documents and are discouraged from breaking up because of the legal repercussions of divorce.  I am uneasy about this, plus the marginalisation of unmarried couples who are more committed to each other than most married couples.  If we were to change the definition of marriage to something more similar to the biblical version, I might agree with encouraging more couples to get married.  But as our definitions currently stand, I suggest that it is "long-term commitment" rather than "marriage" that we really need to be encouraging.

"But maybe we can bring back the traditional 1950s family structure without bringing back the negatives associated with enforcement of it?"

My feeling is that this would be very difficult, if not impossible.  For example, how do we encourage women to stay at home and raise children without marginalising working mothers, and triggering knock-on effects that result in increased enforcement of conformity to traditional gender roles, and increased marginalisation of "sensitive" men, independent/career-minded women and homosexuals?   I cannot see a way out of that problem.  Too many people think idealistically about one parent always being there for the children, think of the most obvious way to get to that scenario, and don't think of the negative knock-on effects that it would most likely cause.

I will go back to the two sets of so-called "family values" that came up at the start of the article:  "loving, taking care of, and supporting each other", and, "knowing right from wrong and having good values".  That's what we need to be striving for, and I don't see how bringing us back to a more 1950s style society would help to bring us any closer to it.

Friendships in the "Western world" part 4- Relational aggression

What is relational aggression?

One of the biggest challenges that a friendship can face is relational aggression, which typically involves one or more of the following techniques, which serve to damage the recipient's friendships and reputation.  Some of the most common techniques include:

• Encouraging members of a social group to ignore and/or exclude a recipient, e.g. threatening them that they will be isolated from the group unless they withdraw from friendships with the recipient.
• Spreading negative rumours about the recipient, to damage the recipient's reputation within the group.  For example, spotting a man hugging a female friend, and then spreading rumours accusing him of having ulterior sexual motives for doing so, or making out that he groped her.
• Giving recipients the "silent treatment", i.e. treating them as if they don't exist, giving them a sense of being in trouble but keeping them guessing as to why, and how much.
• Isolating recipients from participation in social groups, e.g. arranging events where everybody else is invited but the recipient is excluded.

The negative impacts of this type of aggression are "invisible" and thus are harder to spot than with physical and verbal forms of abuse, and are easily overlooked.  Another problem is that people sometimes apply these techniques inadvertently, with neutral or positive intentions, and don't realise how damaging they are.  For example, some use the "silent treatment" on the basis, "I'd rather not hurt X's feelings by giving X bad news, so I'll say nothing", or see giving "old" friends the "silent treatment" as part of "moving on" from the "old" to the "new".  Social groups may isolate recipients without realising that they are doing so.  Someone may express legitimate concerns about the possibility of a non-sexual friendship turning sexual, and inadvertently trigger a series of damaging rumours that circulate around associated social groups.

This behaviour tends to escalate into a form of bullying, even when it starts off well-intentioned, and it is often very damaging regardless of the intentions behind it, and sometimes even a one-off incident can cause a lot of damage, and so recipients need help.

The perception that friendships are disposable contributes to relational aggression not being taken seriously enough

When people suffer from relational aggression, and it threatens their relationships with "family" (people who are related to within a few generations) it is often taken very seriously, but in my experience, it is often dismissed if the recipients are "only" in danger of being isolated from friends.  Here are some responses that I am used to coming across:

"If you're suffering from relational aggression, just walk away."

The problem with this type of aggression is that it is often hard for recipients to walk away from the perpetrators without also withdrawing from the social groups that they are in danger of being isolated from, thus effectively surrendering to the problem.

"So what's the big deal?  Friendships come and go anyway, and you can always make new friends.  If you're having to fight to keep friendships, they aren't worth persevering with- just leave them in the past, move on, focus on making new friends."

"Once you have been isolated from a group and had your reputation ruined, you have to just accept, that's it, they don't want to associate with you any more.  People 'move on' from 'old' friends, and if you try too hard to repair the damage to your social status and reputation, you could get done for harassment, for repeated unwanted attempts to re-connect with past friends who have decided to permanently leave you in the past."

Ouch.  So, not only do the recipients not get help with the relational aggression, they are told that if they try too hard to take a stand against it, they will get into trouble.  And, pairs of friends are encouraged to blame each other for the pain that the perpetrators of relational aggression are inflicting upon them, which plays perfectly into the hands of the perpetrators.

"Just accept, some friendships don't work out, and that's life."

Some friendships do fail for reasons that can't be helped, but others fail for reasons that can be.  A friendship failing because it was targeted by relational aggression, and the recipients were unable to get help because too many people just stood there saying "That's life", is an extremely painful experience.

"A true friend would stand by you no matter what, regardless of outside pressure.  Therefore if you lose a friend as a result of outside pressure, he/she wasn't a true friend anyway."

This unrealistic definition of a "true friend" (a classic example of the No true Scotsman fallacy) serves to blind people to the amount of damage that relational aggression can cause.  The argument goes, relational aggression can't really cause much damage, for either the recipient is not under threat of social isolation or reputation damage, or the people that the recipient is in danger of being isolated from are not "true" friends.

In reality, "true" friendships can be associated with the most damaging break-ups, especially if the friends make a strong effort to stand by each other, but the friendship then cracks, leaving them with a strong sense of having let each other down in a big way despite their best efforts.  In the worst cases, people can go abruptly from being close friends to being enemies, which can be far worse than bereavement (for rather than merely losing a relationship, a good relationship is replaced with a bad one).  Recipients in these situations generally find that others refuse to acknowledge their predicament, arguing, "No, this cannot possibly happen to anybody- if you are isolated from friends, it means that they weren't true friends."

Relational aggression can and should be addressed

As I know from experience, experiences of suffering from relational aggression can damage our confidence in making and keeping friendships- after having had experiences of "old" friends being lost, where relational aggression was a significant factor, and was allowed to go ahead without opposition, there is a tendency to fear that any "new" friendships that we make will be vulnerable to being lost in the same way.  This can trigger a vicious cycle of social and emotional isolation.

I am not necessarily suggesting that perpetrators should be dealt with harshly, because while sometimes relational aggression occurs as part of ongoing bullying, sometimes the perpetrators have neutral or positive intentions and genuinely don't realise how much harm they are causing.  But regardless of the intent, recipients need to be able to get help, rather than having their predicament dismissed, as the impacts can be significantly worse than those of physical and verbal abuse.  And, since we do often deal effectively with relational aggression when it is directed against "family" relationships (between people who are related to within a few generations) there is no reason why we can't with "non-family" friendships.

Friendships in the "Western world"- Part 1- Introduction

Introduction

Friendships are a very important but often somewhat under-rated aspect of human life.  In modern Western societies, many people have problems making and keeping meaningful friendships.  For example, the Wikipedia article on friendships points to a decline in the quality and quantity of friendships among adults since at least 1985, and while I feel that my generation in the UK has done a better job of making and keeping friends than the past few generations, there are still studies out there in the UK suggesting, for example, that adults have an average of only two close friends.

Thus, I feel that it is important to identify the main challenges that face friendships in the Western world, and, having identified them, take steps to address them, so that friendships can flourish more widely.  Some of the challenges are unavoidable to some extent, but others, particularly the cultural norms that date from the Victorian period, are largely unnecessary and survive purely because "this is the way that we've always done things since the late 1800s or maybe the 1950s".

What friendships are, and why they are important

A friendship is typically a non-sexual relationship characterised by mutual affection.  It often features common interests, similar outlooks on life, mutual trust and understanding, sympathy and empathy, among other factors that contribute to the formation of strong bonds.

Humans generally have a fundamental need for social interaction and emotional bonding, and for a sense of "belonging", and are likely to feel lonely and unhappy if they do not have relationships that are both meaningful and stable.  Having numerous friendships helps substantially with these needs.  It presents opportunities to spend time with a wide range of like-minded individuals, and reduces the risk of becoming heavily dependent on particular individuals- if individual friendships are lost or damaged, there is more chance of being able to fall back upon other friendships for support.   It also increases our chances of feeling that we "belong" to multiple social groups and communities, which tends to increase self-esteem and general happiness.

Don't confuse acquaintances with friends

It is useful to have numerous acquaintances, whose relationships are characterised by social bonding and shared interests, or just shared company, but have little or no shared affection, but acquaintances cannot make up for having no friends- people who rely only on having acquaintances tend to end up emotionally stunted as they lack relationships where they can share affection with others.

Myths relating to contemporary definitions of "family" and "friends"

"Family" often refers to the nuclear family, typically consisting of a couple and children, and can also refer to the extended family, who are "people that we consider ourselves to be related to", typically connected via blood and/or partnership ties to within a few generations.

There is a popular misconception that family are related to us and friends are not, but in fact, we are almost certainly all related to each other.  The catch is that we tend not to recognise people as being "relatives" unless they are related to within a few generations, so to find blood and/or partnership ties between people who are recognised as "friends", we typically have to go back numerous generations.

There is often a significant difference between friendships and relationships within a nuclear family, as sexual partnerships and parent-child relationships tend to contain additional bonds and dependencies.  But when comparing the extended family with friends, the difference is often largely or entirely arbitrary.  I can love a close friend just as I love my own sister, with the only difference being, my sister is related to me to within a few generations, whereas my friend is not.

Friendships are vulnerable to being perceived as disposable because the friends are not recognised as being "family"

Unfortunately, one of the biggest cultural barriers that faces friendships is the perception that relationships between people who are not related to within a few generations are disposable.  Even if I love a close friend exactly as I love my own sister, there are various social situations in which others will treat my friendship with far less respect than they will treat my relationship with my sister, purely because she is related to within a few generations whereas the friend is not.  This perception can also contribute to difficulties in finding trustworthy people who are not recognised as "family", as even people who appear to be "real" friends can be tempted to think, "You're not in my family, so you're disposable", when complications arise in the friendship.

This problem is primarily a legacy of traditional Victorian/1950s family values.  I have heard very depressing arguments from people raised on those values, such as, "You don't need friends, all you need is family.  A man can't have a close female friend unless she's his girlfriend and can't have a close male friend because then people might think he's gay, but it doesn't matter because your family are your friends."  I go into more detail on the reasons why these sort of beliefs persist in Part 2, but it suffices to say for now that these mentalities encourage people to restrict close friendships only to people who are considered to be relatives, thus severely limiting the range of people that they can potentially be close friends.

I think, though, that there is quite a straightforward solution.  It will be easier said than done, as it requires a cultural shift in attitudes, but it runs as follows:

Relationships should be respected according to how close and rewarding/positive they are, and how dependent the individuals are upon each other, rather than according to whether or not the individuals concerned are related to within a few generations.

"Normative" bullying part 2- Gender and relationships

Gender differences- Nature or nurture?

The simple answer to this question is, "both", but a more challenging question is, how much of the observed differences between males and females is nature, and how much is nurture?  I think the "nurture" component has definitely declined since the 1950s, but it is still there, and I believe that the main problem with it is that it often tends to be enforced through "normative" bullying techniques.

A frequent personal experience of mine is that, culturally, men are expected to be X, and women are expected to be Y, but I tend to be a mix of the two.  I tend to be particularly exasperated by contradictory arguments like the following:

"Like it or not, men and women are different.  There is no peer pressure to conform to gender roles- that has died out since the 1950s- there is only pressure not to conform.  Fundamentally, men are X and women are Y, and if, as a man, you aren't X, then it means you probably have something wrong with you and so should be regarded with suspicion, for a civilised society has to have norms/rules and if you don't play by the rules you should be punished.  Most other men are happy to be X, so why can't you just be X like everybody else?  Vive la difference!"

This argument is extremely contradictory, arguing that there is no peer pressure to conform to gender roles, but then saying that if you don't conform to gender roles, you should be punished for being different because "rules are rules" (if that's not a form of peer pressure to conform, what is?)

Examples of cultural differences

In many developed countries, notably the USA and to a lesser extent the UK, it is normal for men's friendships to be based on shared interests, particularly competitive hobbies, and for women's friendships to be based on emotional bonding.  Men are not expected to bond emotionally with people other than close family and men who hug close friends can be regarded with suspicion, whereas women can hug close friends without any worries.  These gender divisions are harmful for both genders, since they make it difficult to find friends who will provide both shared interests and emotional bonding (male friends tend to provide the former and female friends the latter).  The lack of emotional bonding in men's friendships, in particular, tends to result in them being perceived as short-term and disposable.

For men

The norms relating to "Men don't bond emotionally with friends" have no biological basis.  They stem from the way that close friendships involving men were stigmatized during the Victorian era due to the fear of being accused of being homosexual, as there were strong criminal penalties for homosexual men, as Oscar Wilde found out to his great cost, for example.  The stigmatization of emotional bonding in men's friendships relates to the idea that men are not emotionally sensitive, and if they are, they are unnatural and probably have something wrong with them.  This issue has significantly fuelled the recent paranoia over child-molesters in the UK, where every man who behaves inconsistently with his gender role in the vicinity of a child is suspected of wanting to molest the child.  But it is at odds with biological evidence suggesting that about 15-20% of humans, both male and female, are born "highly sensitive".  

I suggest that this is an example of what I call "normative" bullying.  Men who are more "sensitive" than the expected norm end up feeling compelled to hide their sensitive traits, for fear of being socially rejected for being different, and even suspected of wanting to molest children.  In today's culture of "the minority spoiling it for everybody else", when there is a perceived threat to our safety, we look for innocent people to target by association with the likes of rapists.  Homosexual men traditionally used to be the easiest targets, but now that homophobia is becoming recognised as a significant problem, it is becoming easier to focus on "sensitive" men instead as they are not widely recognised as being vulnerable to discrimination.

For women

"Women don't engage in competitive hobbies/interests" does have a limited biological basis, as women tend to be less aggressive and competitive by nature.  However, much of the gender division is still caused by social conditioning.  From an early age, girls are taught that females "grow out" of competitive activities like computer games (especially violent games), chess, ten pin bowling etc., and that females who persist in doing them are acting unfeminine and childish and stooping to the males' level.  Another, related, problem is the patronising, "macho" type of reaction that females get from some males who are strong at such activities, like, "She can't be as good as us- she's female." or "I'm not playing against her because I couldn't stomach being beaten by a female."

I remember cases from my childhood where people applied the rule, "Boys shouldn't hit girls, but it's OK for girls to hit boys" (which is dubious in itself, for while girls are, on average, physically weaker than boys, the rule doesn't take into account the individual-on-individual variations from the average, or the fact that it is possible, up to a point, for weaker people to inflict significant harm on stronger people) and but then decided that it was OK for boys to hit girls who took part in these competitive activities because "they aren't real girls as they do boys' things rather than girls' things".  An extreme case admittedly, but one that strongly highlights the problem.

So, again, a significant reason why many girls don't engage in these activities is because if they do, they will be socially rejected for being different. This is reflected by the fact that once it becomes relatively "normal" for females to do a traditionally male-dominated activity, we usually get a sharp rise in the number of females who take an interest in it, and by the fact that many girls who take up these activities tend to give them up during their teenage years, which is when peer pressure tends to be at its most rampant.

All of the above is strongly relevant to areas where there is a problem with women being under-represented in the workforce- sometimes the above attitudes are quite prevalent, and tend to be accepted without question, such that people (both male and female) bully women out of wanting to be part of them, without even realising it.

I am not a fan of positive discrimination

I am a believer in equality of opportunity, which is not the same thing as equality of attainment.  There are some areas where biological differences between the sexes will result in there being more men than women (or vice versa) succeeding at a particular activity, e.g. men are at an advantage, on average, in activities that require a lot of physical strength.  And we get variations either side of the mean, so Company A may find that most of the best applicants for a job are male, while Company B might find that most of the best applicants for a similar post are female.

I can see that positive discrimination can go some way towards addressing the problems that I described above.  If women are under-represented within a group, and we push to get more women involved, then it will become perceived as relatively "normal" for women to take part, and therefore, less likely that they will be socially rejected for being different, and thus discouraged.  

However, positive discrimination can result in the jobs not going to the best candidates, with inferior candidates getting priority because of, say, their gender and/or skin colour.  It can also result in us unrealistically trying to aim for a 50-50 gender distribution in an organisation, where there may well be a genetic difference that, if we left "nurture" out of the equation, would make it more like 70-30.  These issues put a lot of people off from supporting what is a very important cause.

Once again, the problem that we're dealing with here is normative enforcement of "rules", i.e. the "If it's normal, it's OK, and if it's different, it's not OK" mentality.  I feel that it would be most beneficial to try to tackle this directly.  People should be punished for doing things that are likely to be detrimental, not purely for being different.