Last time, I spoke about the importance of names. Specifically, the names we give our children. Today, I would like to speak about the importance of the names we give and receive within marriage. For, these names have become like so much of the wisdom we have received from our forefathers: we merely remember
As a hopeless romantic Mr. Tim I love that picture and the words you put with it the words you're quite willing to! You brought a tear r to my eye! God-bless you and your family!
I like very much the idea of a man offering a woman his name - and then feeling a responsibility to live up to the challenge of not shaming her by giving himself a bad name, so to speak. I don't normally bring up the idea of taking the husband's name when I teach a marriage course here in Poland because the practice is not an absolute norm. Women often take their husband's surname for social reasons, but retain their pre-marriage name for professional reasons. So a professional woman who got a university degree under the name Maria Szymanska would keep that name professionally, but socially, she may choose to be known as Maria Szczypanski or whatever her husband's surname is. Many women - for the same reason, but not always - opt for a hyphenated name, which is not passed on to the children (Maria Szymanska-Szcypanski clearly lets us know her maiden name, that she is married and that she is probably of an educated class with a reputation under her maiden name). Polish surnames can be quite odd. Szatan - Satan - for example, is a surname in Poland (along with a plethora of bird names, such as Rooster, Cuckoo, Peewit, and - go figure - Blindchicken, among other oddities like imperative verbs - RUN! WAIT!). An ordained priest in this country changed his surname from Szatan to something else (most likely his mother's maiden name or some other family name) for obvious reasons. Sometimes a man with an unattractive surname will change to his wife's family's surname simply to escape a surname that means something like 'fart, or the buzzing of a bee'. I know of a case in which a man had a brother and male cousins to carry on the family name, but his wife's family name - which had some historical significance - would die out with her, since there were no males to carry it on. This man changed his name to her surname to perpetuate his wife's family name. In another case, a young widow with two sons married again, and for the sake of family unity, and to honor the boys' biological father, the new husband took on the surname of the boys and their birth-father, uniting the whole family under the surname of the first husband.
Thus when preparing people for marriage in Poland, I leave the whole 'taking your husband's name' issue alone: I've never met anyone yet who was hostile or angry about 'having to' take her husband's name, since it's just not as deeply felt here, apparently, as it has been in other cultures. Nevertheless, for those who bristle at the idea or think it's somehow oppressive, the explanation that a man is therefore called not to make his wife ashamed of taking on his name is compelling.
So Mr. Clark, for Catholics not born in a place where taking the husband's name is the tradition, such as Italy, does this mean that husband's and wives are separate and not one? Does the tradition of a woman retaining her birth name really "lend credence to the great lie that" Catholic married spouses are "not one, but two?" And if it is true, as you write, that having "separate names is to tell us (that) who and what we are is not one," are my Italian wife and I not one in the flesh because she didn't take my last name at marriage? Does this mean the basilica in Italy where we were married, the priest who married us, and the bishop (now cardinal) of the diocese where we were married got it wrong because they didn't realize, somehow, that we "must be one in name?" Is canon law somehow wrong for permitting my wife to retain her birth name? Or have you mistakenly taken one Catholic cultural tradition and normalized it for the rest of the Catholic world? I only ask because for non-American Catholics, I am curious if husband's and wives with different last names have somehow gotten it totally wrong. I'd like to think my wife is a treasure. I'd like to think that if the Church in its wisdom declared us no longer two, but one, that the Church got it right. I'd like to think that I can honor her and serve her, as Christ serves his body the Church, even if she happened to be born in a place where changing one's last name at marriage is not the norm. And I would really be disappointed if my children came across this article and questioned the validity of my marriage because, through no fault of our own, my wife and I were married in Italy, rather than somewhere else in the world.
As a hopeless romantic Mr. Tim I love that picture and the words you put with it the words you're quite willing to! You brought a tear r to my eye! God-bless you and your family!
I like very much the idea of a man offering a woman his name - and then feeling a responsibility to live up to the challenge of not shaming her by giving himself a bad name, so to speak. I don't normally bring up the idea of taking the husband's name when I teach a marriage course here in Poland because the practice is not an absolute norm. Women often take their husband's surname for social reasons, but retain their pre-marriage name for professional reasons. So a professional woman who got a university degree under the name Maria Szymanska would keep that name professionally, but socially, she may choose to be known as Maria Szczypanski or whatever her husband's surname is. Many women - for the same reason, but not always - opt for a hyphenated name, which is not passed on to the children (Maria Szymanska-Szcypanski clearly lets us know her maiden name, that she is married and that she is probably of an educated class with a reputation under her maiden name). Polish surnames can be quite odd. Szatan - Satan - for example, is a surname in Poland (along with a plethora of bird names, such as Rooster, Cuckoo, Peewit, and - go figure - Blindchicken, among other oddities like imperative verbs - RUN! WAIT!). An ordained priest in this country changed his surname from Szatan to something else (most likely his mother's maiden name or some other family name) for obvious reasons. Sometimes a man with an unattractive surname will change to his wife's family's surname simply to escape a surname that means something like 'fart, or the buzzing of a bee'. I know of a case in which a man had a brother and male cousins to carry on the family name, but his wife's family name - which had some historical significance - would die out with her, since there were no males to carry it on. This man changed his name to her surname to perpetuate his wife's family name. In another case, a young widow with two sons married again, and for the sake of family unity, and to honor the boys' biological father, the new husband took on the surname of the boys and their birth-father, uniting the whole family under the surname of the first husband.
Thus when preparing people for marriage in Poland, I leave the whole 'taking your husband's name' issue alone: I've never met anyone yet who was hostile or angry about 'having to' take her husband's name, since it's just not as deeply felt here, apparently, as it has been in other cultures. Nevertheless, for those who bristle at the idea or think it's somehow oppressive, the explanation that a man is therefore called not to make his wife ashamed of taking on his name is compelling.
So Mr. Clark, for Catholics not born in a place where taking the husband's name is the tradition, such as Italy, does this mean that husband's and wives are separate and not one? Does the tradition of a woman retaining her birth name really "lend credence to the great lie that" Catholic married spouses are "not one, but two?" And if it is true, as you write, that having "separate names is to tell us (that) who and what we are is not one," are my Italian wife and I not one in the flesh because she didn't take my last name at marriage? Does this mean the basilica in Italy where we were married, the priest who married us, and the bishop (now cardinal) of the diocese where we were married got it wrong because they didn't realize, somehow, that we "must be one in name?" Is canon law somehow wrong for permitting my wife to retain her birth name? Or have you mistakenly taken one Catholic cultural tradition and normalized it for the rest of the Catholic world? I only ask because for non-American Catholics, I am curious if husband's and wives with different last names have somehow gotten it totally wrong. I'd like to think my wife is a treasure. I'd like to think that if the Church in its wisdom declared us no longer two, but one, that the Church got it right. I'd like to think that I can honor her and serve her, as Christ serves his body the Church, even if she happened to be born in a place where changing one's last name at marriage is not the norm. And I would really be disappointed if my children came across this article and questioned the validity of my marriage because, through no fault of our own, my wife and I were married in Italy, rather than somewhere else in the world.
Truthfully awesome post.
Excellent post and so true.