What Will Be My Husbands Name Read It

"Rebel without a cause" aka how African feminists are viewed. hee-haw.
June 2nd.

I beloved my husband. He is comfy with me being myself and making my own choices, no matter how it is viewed in a misogynistic society like Nigeria's. We try our all-time to simply do what works for united states and drown out all the noise. Years ago, when we start began dating, I told him I would never change my name, a decision I had fabricated long before we e'er met. He shrugged and said information technology wasn't that important to him.

Just it seems of import to everybody else.

Immediately later on our union, the jokes and questions nigh my name remaining the same soon followed. In these modern times, immediately following the vows the bride is expected to run to her social media handles and begin to exterminate her old identity. Anything addressed to us no longer fifty-fifty bothered to add my name in, simply "Mr & Mrs 'insert husbands full proper name'," similar I had become some sort of appendage to him, and any insistence that i take to be addressed by my 'maiden' name is met with head shakes and eye rolls. I take zip against answering your married man'due south name. I understand the logic behind wanting to have one family unit name for you and your time to come children, and I understand that information technology is an age old custom that signifies that you and spouse accept joined together to form a new unit of measurement.
But I don't desire to modify my proper name.

I do not want to be passed on like a canteen of whisky from father to hubby, switching names co-ordinate to which human I now belong. The first time, I had no choice, I was born with that identity, but now equally an adult I have a selection of whether I choose to alter my identity along with my marital status.

My husband is from a dissimilar indigenous group than I am, and so I would be losing my identity in more ways than one.

I am super uninterested in the shitload of paper piece of work required.
I am very close to my family; I am secure in my name. I know that my family has my back.
Heaven forbid, if something were to happen to my hubby, or in the instance of a divorce? I then hastily erase his name and tack on whatever new name another human being has blest me with? Women are out here getting re-branded more times than Google.

I Similar my name.

I do not understand why only men seem to take the privilege of dying with the name (and title) that they are born with. If marriage was truly a union, then in my opinion, both partners either cleave their names and form an entirely new name, or join both names to become their new last name. I remember posing the question on my Facebook page once; I was met with outrage from some men (and as well, some women — the yada yada "you feminists" are always bitching about something blazon). To some men, it was completely out of the question that their wives would not answer their name. Take you ever asked yourself WHY? Is information technology because that is what you have known and been taught? What you take come to admit as normal and acceptable? Does it signify some validation of manhood (read: sexism) and why would information technology be so abhorrent for you to imagine changing your own last name?

In an old fashioned and closed minded guild like Nigeria, the importance of adult female is determined by who she is attached to. Any married woman can attest to beingness treated with more respect and reverence than our single counterparts, and consequently, about women are chomping at the bit to be *elevated* from 'Miss' to "Mrs so so" (while men comfortably remain Mr all their lives), and are quick to cluck disappointedly at women who do non choose to follow the cultural norms and traditions, even while acknowledging being wholly oppressed by them. I believe in the dazzler and freedom of pick and I believe in women exercising their right to choose. If women do not finish acting like we are just pawns and property to be exchanged, used and silenced, null will e'er alter. Let us non forget that this is the same lodge in which women once were non allowed to drive, vote and work, amongst other extinct traditions. Irresolute your proper noun should be something yous are excited most and have called to exercise for your ain personal reasons, not something that you lot are obligated to exercise equally a "practiced christian married woman" or a "proficient Nigerian wife", and certainly not something that is the God given (read: lodge given) correct of any man.

My identity is not the God given right of any human.

So no, I have no intention of changing my last proper noun. If I practice, it will be my (miraculous) choice. No, the world wont come shattering down if my children and I don't take the same concluding name. And, when the time comes, who is to say our children cannot double barrel our last names? When you change your proper name, you cease to have the aforementioned final proper name every bit your siblings or parents and I'one thousand sure yous do non feel any less related to them. Sensitive male chauvinists may pout in fury and deem me "uncontrollable" but, luckily, my husbands masculinity is not so delicate that it hinges on me beingness branded with his logo. Mayhap he might like for me to reply his name. But he respects my choice not to.

I know that I volition continue to be met with resistance when I ask to be addressed properly, just that does not offend me. They will continue to address me, and I will proceed to correct. Once more, the beauty of this all is the freedom of choice.
In the words of an eloquent rapper:
"Do you and imma do me."
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This commodity was beginning published on Ozzy Etomi's Medium page – @OzzyEtomi

Photo Credit: Dreamstime.com

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Source: https://www.bellanaija.com/2016/06/ozzy-etomi-no-i-am-not-taking-my-husbands-name/

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