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When researching the Offbeat Bride book, without a doubt the hottest topic among my labs rats was women changing their last names. One increasingly popular method of dealing with this feminist minefield is both the bride and the groom assuming a new last name. Seems to solve all the problems, right?
Well, turns out that in many states it's significantly harder for husbands to change their last names. As in, hundreds of dollars harder. And now, one brave offbeat groom has teamed up with The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California (ACLU/SC) to sue the state over a law that makes it easy-peasy for women to assume their husbands' last names — but a pain in the ass for grooms to change their last names. Check out this article from Salon:
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As Michael Buday saw it, the road to matrimonial bliss was a nontraditional one that included taking on his wife's last name, reports the Feminist Daily News Wire. Problem is, according to a lawsuit filed on his behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union, in California men are required to pay upward of $300, file a court petition and advertise their name change for a month in the local newspaper; a woman, in contrast, can change her name through marriage by simply paying a $50 to $80 filing fee. Buday also says he was ridiculed when he tried to legally take his wife's last name at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
The suit, filed Dec. 15 in Los Angeles, complains: “No important governmental objectives exist in making this classification between men and women. Rather, the unequal treatment is nothing more than the mechanical application of traditional, inaccurate assumptions about the proper roles of men and women.” Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the ACLU of Southern California, told ABC News, “California has the perfect marriage application for the 17th century. The laws reflect a mind-set that the wife is to be subordinate to the husband,” he said. “At every junction, the message is ‘select the name of the husband.'”
I'll keep my celebration brief — my hyphenated last name already gives away my stance on nontraditional approaches to the marriage name game. (In fairness, it was actually my hippie parents who decided on my surname; they each kept their respective last names and lobbed them together to create a new one for me.) I have no real beef with women choosing to take on their husband's last name. But, naturally, leveling out the name-changing playing field would help relieve some feminists' queasiness at the continuing pressure for women to take their spouse's last name. Not to mention that under the current system, it seems that men who might like to take another name are getting an awfully raw deal. Now that the inequity is being addressed, a little fanfare is in order: Woo-hoo!
Advice for dudes changing their last names
I know a couple men who've taken their wives' last names in two different ways (one got rid of his last name, the other hyphenated),... Read more
How a man can change his last name after getting married
If you're changing your last name to a hyphenate after getting married, we suggest going the easy route using HitchSwitch.
They make the name change process simple, guiding you through the process step-by-step.
Prices start at $39, and they make way easier than dealing with all the paperwork on your own.
However it works out, we wish you all the best!
Just so everyone knows, the law in CA has been changed now. It is just as easy for a man to take his wife’s last name at marriage as the other way around.
It’s not just offbeat. There are many practical reasons a man might want to take the last name of his wife. Such as, if she is in a career that requires a license and he doesn’t, it makes much more sense for him to change his last name than for her to change hers and then pay the price for changing all the licenses and such. My minister kept her last name and her husband changed his.
The link to read more appears to be broken, which is sad. Is there an alternative access point to the article, at all?
The original article is no longer online, but I tracked down the text and updated the post to include it!