[onesociety2022]

Not only is it strange, it’s obviously very sexist in practice. In majority of the cases, it’s always the woman who changes her last name. The husband gets to keep his. I still find it very strange and shocking that powerful women with successful careers in modern society still keep changing their names after getting married.

[charcircuit]

By such a definition any tradition related to gender would be sexist. The tradition is that the wife will change her name. This tradition is why it makes up the majority of cases.

[kelnos]

No, any tradition that favors one gender over the other is sexist. Which is absolutely the case with the tradition of women taking their husband's family name when they get married.

[47282847]

Any tradition had to be introduced as new at some point. Matriarchies were a thing. And still are in some regions of the world.

[onesociety2022]

Not really - this “tradition” as you call it obviously started back in the day when women did not have equal rights in society and only the husband’s lineage mattered.

[meitham]

How do you propose fixing that? Let the kids take both parents last names? In few generations you end with kids having their entire family tree as their last name! It might even make marrying within the tribe attractive again to keep last name single word!

[onesociety2022]

First there’s absolutely no real reason for a spouse to change their name just because they got married.

You can do hyphenated last names for a kid and let the kids decide what names they want to carry forward for the next generation. Or they can make up their own. The point is it’s up to them and they can choose whatever they want and not be coerced to do something because of some tradition that is rooted in sexism.

[iknowstuff]

Portmanteaus

[bigstrat2003]

It is not sexist at all, let alone "obviously very sexist". Don't impute malicious motives to people like that, it's extremely rude.

[krainboltgreene]

Come on man, I think it's safe to say a tradition that favor's men over women is reasonably sexist, especially given the time the tradition established women were property.

I don't think Belgium's feelings will get hurt, besides wait until you learn about all the other things that Leopold II did.

[vedmakk]

I changed my name to my wife's name when we got married. Where I live, everyone can choose if they want to keep their name or change it to either ones. So its a free choice.

AND: Hope gmail will rollout this feature asap, so I can FINALLY adjust my email address too.

[Ferret7446]

These traditions stem from pre-contemporary patriarchal societies, where the man leads the household and thus his name is retained.

There have been matriarchal societies in history, but they all ceased to exist. Make of that what you will.