in countries with a western culture it is usual for a woman to change her family name to that of her husband when they marry
why is this done? what is it supposed to signify?
also, western countries allow men to marry each other. what do you do then? do the two men decide who is most female and he has to change his name?
Re: wife taking husband's family name
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 1:34 pm
by Army of GOD
submission of the wife to the man.
honestly when I marry I wouldn't mind taking my wife's last name, assuming it's not generic like "Jones" or some stupid shit.
Re: wife taking husband's family name
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 1:48 pm
by Haggis_McMutton
yang guize wrote:in countries with a western culture it is usual for a woman to change her family name to that of her husband when they marry
why is this done? what is it supposed to signify?
also, western countries allow men to marry each other. what do you do then? do the two men decide who is most female and he has to change his name?
It's done to avoid the bitter arguments about who's name the kid gets.
When it's two men I believe it is decided via national lottery.
Re: wife taking husband's family name
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 1:48 pm
by yang guize
sometimes in very traditional (read: backward rural) chinese family the wife address her husband as 'mr. smith' or whatever, not his first name. do your wives submit in this way?
when your wife submits and takes your surname does the husband get to order her around?
Re: wife taking husband's family name
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 2:21 pm
by Army of GOD
yang guize wrote:sometimes in very traditional (read: backward rural) chinese family the wife address her husband as 'mr. smith' or whatever, not his first name. do your wives submit in this way?
when your wife submits and takes your surname does the husband get to order her around?
depends on who controls the sex
Re: wife taking husband's family name
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 2:25 pm
by yang guize
i don't understand. controls the sex?
Re: wife taking husband's family name
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 2:30 pm
by Army of GOD
watashi namae wa Richard desu
Re: wife taking husband's family name
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 2:33 pm
by yang guize
i am not japanese
Re: wife taking husband's family name
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 2:44 pm
by natty dread
yang guize wrote:in countries with a western culture it is usual for a woman to change her family name to that of her husband when they marry
why is this done? what is it supposed to signify?
also, western countries allow men to marry each other. what do you do then? do the two men decide who is most female and he has to change his name?
Tradition/social convention stemming from an archaic remnant of a patriarchal culture. Not everyone does this anymore. Lot of the times, people either keep their original surnames, or take the wife's name, or use a combination of both with a hyphen in between.
Gay marriage has no such established cultural traditions so they get to make it up as they go.
Re: wife taking husband's family name
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 2:47 pm
by Army of GOD
yang guize wrote:i am not japanese
Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these
Re: wife taking husband's family name
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 2:47 pm
by Upgrayedd
So you can trace family lineage obviously.
Re: wife taking husband's family name
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 2:49 pm
by DiM
when me and my wife got married we couldn't decide who should take what name so we decided on a fair compromise. we went to random.org and generated a random string of letters and used that as our family name.
sadly as just as the dice, the letter generator is also streaky so now i'm called xxxxxxxxxxxx.
Re: wife taking husband's family name
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 2:50 pm
by Haggis_McMutton
natty dread wrote: or use a combination of both with a hyphen in between.
Oh god, exponential growth.
Re: wife taking husband's family name
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 2:53 pm
by natty dread
Haggis_McMutton wrote:
natty dread wrote: or use a combination of both with a hyphen in between.
Oh god, exponential growth.
No problem! The algorithm can be adjusted by adding a loop counter which resets the surname every 16 generations into something generic like "Smith" or "Humperdinck".
Re: wife taking husband's family name
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 6:33 pm
by MeDeFe
Haggis_McMutton wrote:
natty dread wrote: or use a combination of both with a hyphen in between.
Oh god, exponential growth.
German lawmakers anticipated that and put an upper limit on the number of hyphens you can have in a surname, it's either one or two.
Re: wife taking husband's family name
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 7:36 pm
by yang guize
ah germany. a country where you are not allowed to have a long surname but where 'siebentausendvierhundertfünfundfünfzig' is a perfectly acceptable word
Re: wife taking husband's family name
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 8:00 pm
by MeDeFe
yang guize wrote:ah germany. a country where you are not allowed to have a long surname but where 'siebentausendvierhundertfünfundfünfzig' is a perfectly acceptable word
It contains only 15.2% more letters than "seventhousandfourhundredfiftyfive" and has only one syllable more. It's hardly a monster of a word.
Re: wife taking husband's family name
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 8:03 pm
by yang guize
but in english you say 'seven thousand, four hundred and fifty five'. not all one word as that is not correct.
in german joining it all up into one word is correct.
Re: wife taking husband's family name
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 8:07 pm
by john9blue
Army of GOD wrote:watashi namae wa Richard desu
wow dude
Re: wife taking husband's family name
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 8:14 pm
by notyou2
MeDeFe wrote:
Haggis_McMutton wrote:
natty dread wrote: or use a combination of both with a hyphen in between.
Oh god, exponential growth.
German lawmakers anticipated that and put an upper limit on the number of hyphens you can have in a surname, it's either one or two.
Leave it to the Germans to make incredibly long words comprised of several other words.
Re: wife taking husband's family name
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 8:14 pm
by Haggis_McMutton
Here's my contribution to the Germany discussion.
Re: wife taking husband's family name
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 8:23 pm
by isaiah40
Here's my contribution to long names - Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. Means: St. Mary's Church in the hollow of white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the red cave.