As I might have mentioned recently, I'm finally getting married!
Great, right?
Yeah, it's all really great! There's going to be a wedding - for me!
I mean, us. For us.
So everything is peachy: wedding dress, check; photographer, check; florist, check; and so on and so forth.
There's just one hiccup in my happily-ever-after. Something that goes far deeper than the material aspect of a wedding, something that carries over in to my marriage. I am obliged by the Civil Code of Quebec to retain my last name.
Can you believe that!? I am obliged? How am I not allowed to take my husband's name? Isn't that how we roll, I mean, as a society? In the rest of Canada, when you get married, you get to choose between keeping your maiden name or adopting your husband's name. In a 2007 article posted here, some professor stated that this 1981 civil law reform was "a highly symbolic gain for the feminist movement".
I'm sorry.
What?!
How is taking away a woman's right to choose "a highly symbolic gain for the feminist movement"? Isn't feminism about defending women's rights? One of those rights being the right to choose.
I can't understand why this law came into effect or why it still exists. I know a fair amount of Quebecois and a fair amount of Canadians (and various non-Quebecois) with whom I have discussed this issue at length. Canadians generally vote to change their name when they get married. The Quebecois, those who want to even get married, are usually not too keen on the idea of changing their name. In fact, when told I want to change my name, I suddenly become a woman of the most submissive kind to most Quebecois. I've been with Rob for 8 years and not once have I been a submissive girlfriend. Why would I suddenly become submissive after we get married? It's ludicrous! I want to take my husband's name because I believe a family should share the same last name. I could go in to much more detail, but it boils down to that. Even if we don't have kids, getting married makes us family. Me and him. How the Quebecois population has been so completely convinced that taking a husband's name is against feminism is beyond me. Taking any choice away is wrong. I don't hold to many traditions, but I do believe in this one.
It's my choice to take his name. I cannot express how deeply annoyed I am at the province of Quebec that I have been denied that choice, and how much worse the situation is made by the officials and representatives and whoever else trying to defend this law by hiding behind feminism.
