What’s in a name?

I believe that gentle and constant pressure can effect change over time, even within people and society. Persistence and determination can change what we do, how we do it, and even what we think. Sometimes, however, despite our best efforts, individuals can rebuff the change we are working toward and go down another path altogether. In fact, I have recently had a couple of opportunities to witness this truism in action.

To put these instances into their proper context some personal information is required. Five years ago my partner in life and I decided to fortify our relationship by getting married. After much deliberation she decided to keep her family name (Stanley), and I, mine (Newton); no hyphenations for us. Interestingly, soon after our union, a number of institutions, including our university and the bank, arbitrarily decided to bestow my family name, or hyphenation, upon my partner. The resulting confrontations between her, the university, family, friends, and the banks have become legendary. So for the last four years, my partner and I have strived to create a paradigm shift with respect to the manner in which our family, friends, co-workers, and community view our marriage, our partnership, and our last names. We were going to prove that two people can be life partners and have different last names. But just when we were thinking that they had accepted the fact that, despite being married, I was a Newton and she a Stanley, I became aware that the shift had gone right instead of left.

The first time was while I was retrieving our car from the dealership, the service manager addressed me as Mr. Stanley. At first I was confused since my father-in-law was no where to be seen. Then I was shocked, then amused. My instinct was to correct him, but I didn’t. I shrugged my shoulders, grinned, accepted the mistake, and responded to my new title. Since then, I have been, on two other occasions, referred to as Mr. Stanley. Apparently our community is resistant to the idea that we could be partners and have different family names. Instead our community, having been repeatedly informed that she is Ms. Stanley, has concluded that I, as Ms. Stanley’s partner, must be Mr. Stanley.

So it appears that despite four years of our best efforts to change the manner in which society thinks about partnership, marriage, and family names, our community has opted to change my family name, because that fits into their world view.

Change, and the resistance to it, is a funny thing.