Why I did(n't) change my last name?

If you know me, you know I'm a hopeless (more like a hope~full) romantic. I love to be in love. I want to be in love. I have craved to be in love when I wasn't. I never really wanted the big wedding or the white dress but I wanted a husband and a family. And I found him: the one. He asked me to marry him. And then the question: "Does that mean I HAVE to change my last name?"

I know many women my age who has decided not to change their last name and I thought "that's the feminist thing to do". Why would I go through all the (lets be honest) pain-in-the-butt paperwork drama to change my last name after getting married but not my husband? Why would I want to change who I AM in terms of a "paper" identity? It felt to me like too much of a property statement: now I am Mrs. _____.

In Hispanic cultures women get to keep their last names after getting married. In fact, children get to have their mother's last name too. I did. I wanted that for my child too. It was so sad for me to think of having a child who would not have part of my name in his/hers after having him 9 months inside of me and after pushing him out of my vagina. It didn't seem fair.

I respect women who decide to change their last name, but *I* have a hard time accepting the concept. Whenever we (my now husband and I) would go to doctor's appointment while I was pregnant it always seemed to be an issue that I didn't carry his last name (yet). Like our marriage wasn't "visible" enough for everyone. Like I wasn't registered as his wife.

I had an important CHOICE to make. At the time I expressed my concern to Him about me not wanting to change my last name or about my dad's reaction. Like the wonderful-feminist Human my husband is he said it was up to me but that it would be nice if I carry his last name. My hopefull romantic self thought it would be nice too. So one day I proposed to him us both change our last name... and he agreed.

To me, our marriage meant compromise from both ends and the start of something new. His life was about to change too, it wasn't only me getting married. Now, our son gets to have both of our names (like I always envisioned) and we get to start a new family name.

This is not a bashing post about women who change their names and me saying they are "less" feminist than me. Not at all. This is me saying: we have options and we can just let go of so many of the patriarchal ways. Even the ones we have been doing for centuries without questioning them. This is me saying we (women) have to move away from the idea that we HAVE to change our last names and from the idea that the women that are not changing theirs are extreme-obsessed feminists who are delusional about altering who they have been for their entire life because they are getting married.

Getting married shouldn't include the process of defining on paper who you were and who you will JUST because of a role or a relationship status. And if that's what you want, at least you shouldn't do it alone.