The Self-Defeating, Hyphenated Last Name - Trite, Feminist Nonsense

The practice of hyphenating one's last name upon getting married is a ridiculous, self-defeating, modern, progressive contrivance.

I'd like to follow that up with "That's it. That's the blog," but I won't; you deserve better.

During the onset of feminism's third 'wave' -the mid/late 1980s and into the 1990s- the practice of women insisting on hyphenating their last names (as opposed to taking the name of the man they were marrying) took-off as something considered a feminist statement; rejecting established practices of an oppressive, patriarchal system.

What doesn't seem to have been considered, however, in the mad dash to get one over on the ever-oppressive patriarchy, was how this practice would work as the world, as it does, moved ever onward provided its feminists advocates got their way and the shedding of a woman's maiden name in favour of taking her husband's last name should give way to hyphenation -the adoption of 'double-barreled' surnames as the new norm.

"But JT, what's the big deal? So Jane Doe and John Smith get married and Jane decides to go by Jane Doe-Smith; no problem, there." Well, no, aside from the social friction that comes about as a result of the contrived bucking of a long-established norm, no; no big deal. That is, of course, until Jane and John dance the horizontal hokey pokey and little Jimmy Doe-Smith comes around.

See, little Jimmy Doe-Smith eventually grows up and falls oh-so-madly in love with Mary Johnson-Williams -as she does with him- and the pair decide to get married; the "Johnson-Williams-Doe-Smith nuptials will be an event to remember, if anyone's patience can withstand the signing of the marriage paperwork.

"Oh, JT" I hear you start, "That's not really so bad, though, is it?" I suppose not, dear reader, unless you consider where this inevitably leads when little Emma Johnson-Williams-Doe-Smith grows up and marries her high school sweetheart, "Liam Brown-Jones-Miller-Davis" and the pair need to send out invitations to the Johnson-Williams-Doe-Smith-Brown-Jones-Miller-Davis wedding ceremony and reception on stationary that moreso resembles a novelty lottery cheque.

Set aside all of the hassle involved with the bureaucratic foibles of hypenation, the practice simply isn't practical as a revolutionary act intended to change the way we treat last names in marriage; its an empty, arguably selfish gesture, the very existence of which depends on the continuation of the policy it claims to seek to replace in order to keep it from getting entirely out of hand.

As a piece of closing advice to the feminist advocates out there, the next time you want to implement some kind of change to really stick it to the literal and proverbial 'man'? Do try to at least come up with something that can sustain itself in practice for more than a single generation, would you? The rest of us are suffering from enough 2nd-hand embarrassment, already, to tolerate much more.

Cheers!