Why Margaret Mead Kept Her Maiden Name

Why do women keep their maiden names? Some of us take the answer to that question for granted: Those names are the ones we were born with. Others go ahead and swap when they get married. I don't have a big political wind up for this one: It's a deeply personal choice, there are a lot of factors to consider, and if my maiden name was something I thought dreadful or dull, I might have jettisoned it. After all, it's just as patralineal as my husband's name. Just from a different generation.

I'm interested, though, in the women of the last century who broke with convention by keeping their names, in a way that nothing we do can really match now. In 1923, Margaret Mead wrote a letter to her grandmother in which she says: "The Pressmans weren't a bit shocked at my keeping my name. Mrs. Pressman...was perfectly willing to call me Margaret Mead." (Can anyone make out all the words in the ellipsis?) In her autobiography, Mead later wrote that she kept her name because of her "mother's belief that women should keep their own identity and not be submerged, a belief that had made her give her daughters only one given name, so that they would keep their surnames after marriage." Which suggests, I think, that Mead's mother expected to use Mead as her middle name after marriage. So maybe she had some support from her mother, and then took the idea a step further.

Photograph of Margaret Mead by Edward Lynch, World-Telegram staff photographer

Tags: margaret mead; maiden names

Emily Bazelon is a founding editor of Double X, and a writer and editor at Slate.

Comments

I wish we had a better solution

By: Kim Kettner | Fri, 07/10/2009 - 11:03

I wish it were conventional to keep your own last name. Then give all your daughters your name and all your sons your husband's name. That seems more fair.

But it would be very hard to change course now... As some of the comments have mentioned, deviating from conventional naming leads to confusion. My own mother kept her maiden name and it was sometimes a problem when I was in school, and other issues would come up, for example buying plane tickets was sometimes tricky. Also, my mother's maiden name is not a good piece of information for security purposes.

Still, I think I would keep my maiden name if I ever marry.

P_Sterling, How fascinating

By: mobull | Fri, 07/10/2009 - 09:26

P_Sterling,

How fascinating that the maiden-name debate left you without a middle name. I found myself in the opposing position of the frustration of TWO middle names to accommodate my parents' negotiations after my mother chose to keep her name. As my mother kept her own name, they were conflicted in which name to give the children. The compromise was to give each child a *second* middle name of the opposite sex parent and the last name of the same sex parent. This resulted in my brother and I having different last names. This caused no end of confusion in elementary schools as my teachers would insist that my name was the same as the older brother who had already been through their class, or confusedly trying to hyphenate the names.

As a child, it made the possessive nature of naming progeny very clear, and I hated being in the middle of that fight, even it if was now resolved in my parents' eyes. At 18, I went to a judge, and chose a single last name and middle name for myself, aligning my name with the aunts and grandmother I was closest to. I chose a patrilineal name, but it is the one I chose to connect with the matriarchs of my family. I won't trade it for a married name but will give the matter consideration when I choose the names for my own children. I know that I will not force hyphenated names on them, or divide the children as property of each genetic line. If my children end up with their father's name, I might consider taking my children's name, but I'm rather attached to the name I chose for myself.

No middle name

By: P Starling | Fri, 07/10/2009 - 08:12

How funny. My sisters and I also weren't given middle names, in the assumption that we would use our surname as a middle name when we marry. What was empowering to Margaret Mead is a recurrent irritation to me. Being incomplete in a matter as basic as a name until I find a husband--the idea doesn't sit well with me. Of course, the family culture shapes perspective here. In families where no middle name is the norm, it's not a big deal. But in my family, where my brothers all have middle names and where I was encouraged to scale back my ambitions and aspire to be a good wife and mother, the tradition has distinctly non-feminist implications.

It bothers me enough that I've considered changing my name legally to add a middle name. And it's made me completely set against taking my husband's name when I marry. In that, Margaret Mead and I are in agreement.