Do I promise to obey?
I'm engaged. Yes, I have promised someone to become their wife. Or maybe I should say I have given him the privilege of becoming my husband. I think my inner goddess is smiling at that statement.
Anyway, so now that That happened I am fighting this same inner goddess about the matter of last names. Do I take his last name and if so what happens to my own last name???
For ages it has been customary that a woman takes her husbands last name. Something to do with fathers selling off their unwanted daughters as they are a pain in the behind and attribute nothing to them or society. Women were meant to be seen and to bed. Or breed as they say here in St. Maarten. As women were not allowed to work and most were raised to be too weak and dainty, someone to take care of, they were not contributing so fathers were much too happy to pass them on to a next victim. Hence, they forgo their birth name and take on someone else's.
Y'all realize that I have a gazillion problems with this. For nearly forty years I have been Maurette Antersijn. I went through school, I failed and succeeded, I excelled as an Antersijn and I am having a hard time changing that. It feels like I am about to get a whole new identity and as much as I like change, this is one change me and my inner goddess are fighting against.
I tried to persuade my "other half" (don't make me start on that expression; like I was half a person and now I am whole) for both of us to take each others last name but that offended his masculinity. I kind of like that idea Antersijn-Williams and Williams-Antersijn. That way both of us acknowledge on paper that we are linked to each other yet we keep who we were. Isn't that the democratic and politically correct way of solving issues?
My friends tell me to get over with. What is the big deal anyway? Besides the whole world knowing me as Maurette Antersijn, I know I have changed. I spent most of my life going at it alone. If I needed something fixed, I fixed it. If I needed to reach something on the high shelf, I grabbed a ladder and I got what I needed. If I wanted to go somewhere, I went. If I wanted to not go home, I didn't go home. If I wanted friends over, they came. I did all of that as Maurette Antersijn. Now I have someone else to think about; to share life with and I love it. I get to come home to someone. I know that I am loved and that someone is thinking and worrying about me. I get to share laughs and tears. I get to share and I feel lighter for not having to carry all on my own shoulders. So with all those changes all I have left from before is my name.
So people, besides the aversion to being looked at as property (and an unwanted that at one), my inner goddess does not want to be known as the other half of Williams but rather as the Antersijn-Williams duo. Do I promise to obey?
Maurette Antersijn-Williams. Maurette Williams-Antersijn. Oh gosh.
Anyway, so now that That happened I am fighting this same inner goddess about the matter of last names. Do I take his last name and if so what happens to my own last name???
For ages it has been customary that a woman takes her husbands last name. Something to do with fathers selling off their unwanted daughters as they are a pain in the behind and attribute nothing to them or society. Women were meant to be seen and to bed. Or breed as they say here in St. Maarten. As women were not allowed to work and most were raised to be too weak and dainty, someone to take care of, they were not contributing so fathers were much too happy to pass them on to a next victim. Hence, they forgo their birth name and take on someone else's.
Y'all realize that I have a gazillion problems with this. For nearly forty years I have been Maurette Antersijn. I went through school, I failed and succeeded, I excelled as an Antersijn and I am having a hard time changing that. It feels like I am about to get a whole new identity and as much as I like change, this is one change me and my inner goddess are fighting against.
I tried to persuade my "other half" (don't make me start on that expression; like I was half a person and now I am whole) for both of us to take each others last name but that offended his masculinity. I kind of like that idea Antersijn-Williams and Williams-Antersijn. That way both of us acknowledge on paper that we are linked to each other yet we keep who we were. Isn't that the democratic and politically correct way of solving issues?
My friends tell me to get over with. What is the big deal anyway? Besides the whole world knowing me as Maurette Antersijn, I know I have changed. I spent most of my life going at it alone. If I needed something fixed, I fixed it. If I needed to reach something on the high shelf, I grabbed a ladder and I got what I needed. If I wanted to go somewhere, I went. If I wanted to not go home, I didn't go home. If I wanted friends over, they came. I did all of that as Maurette Antersijn. Now I have someone else to think about; to share life with and I love it. I get to come home to someone. I know that I am loved and that someone is thinking and worrying about me. I get to share laughs and tears. I get to share and I feel lighter for not having to carry all on my own shoulders. So with all those changes all I have left from before is my name.
So people, besides the aversion to being looked at as property (and an unwanted that at one), my inner goddess does not want to be known as the other half of Williams but rather as the Antersijn-Williams duo. Do I promise to obey?
Maurette Antersijn-Williams. Maurette Williams-Antersijn. Oh gosh.
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