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No!
You are not bound to take your husband's name. It's merely a
tradition that dates back to the days when women were considered
property. Regarding the use of names, here's the modern story as we've heard it: "As long as you are not
intending to commit fraud, you can use any name you
choose."
Here
are three choices:
.
1)
TO LEGALLY
CHANGE YOUR NAME:
Women who intend to take their husband's last name, commonly begin by
changing the name on their driver's license. Here are the
steps:
They first
obtain a certified copy of their marriage license. (See the page
titled Marriage
Licenses.).
They then take the
certified copy to the Department of Motor Vehicles and request a new
driver's license showing their married name.
Once
they have both a certified copy of their marriage license and
their new driver's license in hand, they can, with relative ease,
change their other official records. Here's a list of
records that some women choose to alter:
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Insurance
records
Employment
records
INS
records (Immigration
and Naturalization Service)
Social
Security records
IRS
records
Vehicle
titles
Auto
registration
Passport
Banking
and other financial records
Vehicle
leases or loans
Credit
cards
Medical
records
Clubs
and social group records
Voter
registration
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.
If
either spouse is adding the other to his/her insurance policy, they
usually do that right away. INS records are also commonly
dealt with rather promptly, but otherwise, most people don't make a big
deal about changing any of the other records. They
commonly deal with them at their convenience and/or when they naturally come
to the focus of attention. For example, IRS records are routinely
updated when filing the next tax return. Adding the new name
and changing marital status is a normal part of that process.
.
.
2)
TO MAINTAIN
YOUR PRESENT NAME:
Since changing all those records can be a nuisance and because there is no legal requirement to
do so, many women simply maintain the name they were known by prior to
their marriage. In
social situations, these women commonly find themselves being referred
to by their husbands name, but that's to be expected and is certainly nothing to be concerned
about.
Here's
a simple way that many women deal with the dual-name
issue. They replace their middle name with their present
last name and add their husband's last name in their last name
position. (See the example below.) The
names are usually not hyphenated because this adds confusion and
sometimes make the last name excessively long. This way a
woman can easily use whichever last name she chooses to use.
Here's
an example: Susan Marie Jones married John
Smith. She dropped her middle name, added her husband's
last name, and started calling herself Susan Jones
Smith. Because her degrees and her professional writings
carried the name Susan Jones and because her professional
colleagues knew her as Susan Jones, she continued to use the name Susan
Jones in her professional circles. Around her family and in
social circles, she referred to herself as Susan Smith.
.
.
3)
TAKE THE MIDDLE GROUND:
Some women change the name on their driver's license to reflect their
marital status, but don't bother with any other changes. This puts
them in a position where they have acceptable ID if, in the future, they
become involved in a legal transaction such as purchasing property with
their spouse. (In the above example, Susan Marie Jones
might change the name on her driver's license to Susan Jones Smith)
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