Gender, Names, and Fraud Charges

Today in my Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective class we were discussing a classic article about gender-based naming practices among some segments of Chinese society.  The basic point of the article is that names provide important clues to ideas of personhood which are profoundly gendered.  Men gain and choose for themselves a series of names throughout their life that continue to mark them as individuals, celebrate milestones and accomplishments, and demonstrate their ability to use the nuances of their language in interesting and cleaver ways.  Women, in contrast, are given names that connect them to hopes for the larger family, that mark them as wives or mothers, or that reference something from the time they were born.  Women have a tendency to lose individualized names as they age, being referred to sometimes even simply as “old woman.”  Our class discussion was very interesting and we were able to point out some continuity with practices like taking on a husband’s name at marriage along with the more obvious differences.

Then, one student mentioned a news story that I had somehow missed about a man in Florida who had his driver’s license revoked because, the state said, he had committed fraud in obtaining it.  The fraud? He had changed his last name to his wife’s when they were married.  


He explained that she had only sisters and her family wanted their last name carried on while he had no attachment to his and was willing to change it.  This charge of fraud was made over a year after the license was issued and after he obtained a new passport and other documents.  The state has since backed off, reinstating his license after he brought in documentation of his new name.  However, this was only after being told by officials that only women could change their name upon marriage. 

It was completely unclear from the news accounts I read why the state suddenly figured out his “fraud” or why they decided to revoke his license for that reason.  My students speculated it might have something to do with the fact the wife and her family are immigrants (some sort of check of records for enforcement purposes?).  Apart from that, I found it telling that the assumption that only women can or would want to change their name at marriage seems to have largely gone unquestioned.  A woman keeping her last name has become acceptable in many social contexts but sometimes still raises eyebrows.  When I made that decision in 1999 (wow, have I been married that long?!) I got several LECTURES about why that seemed silly or, worse, evidence I was some kind of feminist (note this word is still an insult to many).  The idea that a man would take his wife’s last name remains very strange or almost unthinkable.  Of course, this is probably not the most important issue surrounding gender that needs to be confronted, but it is interesting (at least to me) and speaks to some entrenched ideas about gender and kinship. 

Finally, the most fascinating aspect of this story: many news reports made explicit mention of the fact that only 9 states have laws specifically allowing men to change their last names at marriage. These are California, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon and North Dakota.  I would love to follow up on the history of why these states have these laws and welcome any leads or ideas.  I would guess California, New York, and Oregon explicitly wanted to reflect gender equality in their laws, but the others are a bit baffling to me.  Let me know what you think, if you are so inclined.