What’s in a Name?

Well, alot!

Few days ago I read an article that said ‘Lots in a Name’ and how Japanese new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba was elected not because of slowing economy or threats from neighbours but because of Japan’s marital law that allowed women to chose their own surname. In a developed country like Japan, a law like this, for a right that seems so inherent, does sound astonishing. And it reminded me of my own experience.  

I still use the name that my school certificate carries and my marriage never obliged me to change the same. I have always felt the discomfort in changing my name as if someone would snatch away the very identity that I had carried right from birth. Nor did any situation force me to change or adopt otherwise. However I have seen many educated, highly qualified women changing their surnames in my own fraternity and it always made me utterly uncomfortable. Can changing one’s identity and legacy be a trend? Can being included in someone else’s identity give us a sense of security? What need do they feel to associate with their married family through surname which the husband doesn’t feel at all? And specifically so!. Honestly, I fail to understand the reasons behind it. 

It so happened that when I became pregnant and had to get myself registered for appointments with doctors, the receptionist would regularly and rather forcibly ask me what my ‘actual’ name was. And then she would demand my husband’s full name. (my full name on paper goes as Manisha Manikrao Awhale, that of my husband says Harshit.) When I would tell her it is what it is, she would look rather confused and of course not convinced. She would again ask me to reconfirm and to which I would repeat the  information. Once it so happened she called the on duty resident doctor and said that as a pregnant woman carrying a child she needed father’s name (included in my name). Otherwise how would a woman explain her pregnancy. Now funnily my husband doesn’t carry any surname officially and has no middle name too nor did I change mine. So the entire doc team was aghast. Unable to accept what came before them, they decided to  write my name as ‘Manisha Harshit Awhale.’ I didn’t want to fight a futile battle as it didn’t matter what she wrote on her case paper. But it made me realise that what an exceptional situation the health functionaries faced. As a norm and in day to day working, it is presumed that no married woman would think of her name being not attached to her husband’s name. 

Patriarchy has it’s own control mechanisms to undermine positions of women in society and one surely is the secondary position in marriage institution. One also needs to understand that patriarchy not only marginalises women but anything that has such feminine qualities for example queer groups/LGBTQ, lower caste, lower class. An upper caste, upper class male would surely be placed at a higher pedestal and be attached with higher respect in such societies. When I explain this point what I want to convey is when modern laws and regulations offer women a chance to rid themselves of such misogynistic practices, how is that they come with new mechanisms to establish old norms into new forms in a stronger manner? Sticking to our theme of article of being what’s in a name, it tells us exactly that women these days would like to attach their husband’s surname at the end of their own. Carrying the role of dual identities they might be performing.

In India, there’s no law, rule that mandates women to change their names or surnames after marriage but to obtain certain documents and in peculiar situations, women are demanded to prove their marriages beyond doubt. I wonder where does this obsession come from and how men are never ever questioned on this account. Perhaps that’s what patriarchy does to women and it perpetuates and deepens further by reducing the very identity and visibility that name carries. School certificates primarily asks children to provide father’s surname and what if the child chooses otherwise? 

Maharashtra Government mandates schools to provide father’s name as middle name and a surname. Understanding the lacunae, it was only few years ago  it decided to include mother’s name as well to be included in the entire scheme of things. But doesn’t that presume that all mothers would have adopted their husbands surname?  It poses many questions and doesn’t really answer anything wholly.  At times, mostly it gives rise to more questions and dilemmas. 

With that we as parents had decided to include both our surnames in our daughter’s name. But I don’t know if she will be happy to want those both surnames from us!? Shakespeare may have questioned the very existence and importance of name, ironically to write it below his own quote.