Wilson, Rebekah
(2009)
A name of one’s own: identity, choice and performance in
marital relationships.
PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Abstract
With its origins in sociological debates about individualisation, personalisation and
the transformation of intimacy, this research explores the long-neglected subject of
the surnames of married women. Drawing on in-depth biographical interviews with
30 married or once-married women, respondents are found to engage in complex
negotiations with cultural assumptions about wifehood, motherhood and the family
when called to change surnames upon marriage. Through their interviews, women
account for their surname ‘choice’ via a range of, often-contradictory, discourses –
thereby identifying marital naming as an issue of tension and struggle for wives, as
well as for women considering marriage. Their ‘talk’ frequently calls upon debates of
social stability and change, as well as ideas of autonomy and connectedness. Overall,
their narratives speak of social control and a dominant institutional structure in life –
and women either accepted the norms of naming or dealt with the consequences.
This finding was underscored by the responses of 453 people to a street survey.
For interviewees, the opposing role of surnames in marking out both
individual identity and social connections led to conflicts. Relational identities were
often placed in opposition to autonomy. Yet, women more frequently positioned
themselves as interdependent negotiators rather than autonomous agents. For
interviewees, surname ‘choices’ were imbued with social meanings and were not
rated equally – their choice of surname either ‘displayed’ that they were ‘doing
gender well’ or ‘doing gender poorly’. However, discussions of gender were largely
absent or neutralised in the interviewees’ accounts, while women who kept their
maiden names spoke about feeling the need to silence their naming decision. The
research concludes that marital naming forms part of women’s exhaustive efforts at
‘relationship work’. Married women were accountable for their surnames as
assumptions of marital naming were found to pervade notions about wifehood.
Whatever surname an interviewee decided upon, she was responsible for conducting
a gendered and classed performance, and her surname ‘choices’ involved both
personal sacrifices and gains.
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