How could you, Rebekah?
The newly married editor of the Sun has taken her husband's name. What a shame, says Michele Hanson
Mr and Mrs Brooks at Ascot. Photograph: Rex Features
What a shock to find that Rebekah Wade - smasher of glass ceilings, ruler of men, first woman to edit the Sun and soon to become chief executive of News International - is really a fluffy at heart. Married a fortnight ago, she has decided to take her second husband's surname. He is racehorse trainer-turned-writer Charlie Brooks. So it's Rebekah Brooks now, everybody.
Remember that, because that's what madam wants - at home and at work (she has already set up a News International email account in her married name). Stationery will need to be changed, she'll have to send copies of her marriage certificate all over the place, and she'll be letting down all those thousands of women, from 1850s Massachusetts suffragette Lucy Stone onwards, who have fought for women to retain their own names and independence. But there's clearly no arguing with her. She will be Mrs Brooks.
I'm trying to get over my dislike of her lifestyle, so that I can concentrate on the business of taking your husband's name when you marry. But one has to contemplate her lifestyle, because it is relevant. It's so full of grandeur: flying backwards and forwards across Europe for lunch, chumming up with prime ministers, trying to have news of her promotion delayed until after the general election because it's so momentous (the promotion, not the general election). She's the last sort of woman you'd expect to opt to take the back seat, yet here she is, giving up her own name like an ordinary little wife.
I think there's something rather sad about the name of one family being obliterated, just because men are still more important than women. I never married and I have a daughter. That means, if my daughter marries and takes her husband's name, there'll be no more of us on record. All my family's history will be more easily forgotten. Like many other families, they made a tremendous effort to get this far - escaping the Russian pogroms at the turn of the century, building up a new life, surviving two world wars, and then, pouff! It all evaporates because women's names don't matter.
Of course, it isn't necessarily that simple if you have children. What are they to be called? If you join the parents' names into a double-barrelled version, then the next generation could end up being quadruple-barrelled. If the children take the mother's name, then the father may feel a bit of a weed. And if you're American, because of the obsession with security since 9/11, anything other than taking your husband's name means a bureaucratic bog of court orders, fees and long waiting periods. But that's down here in the real world where it doesn't really matter what we decide. A mammoth international organisation won't have to change its letter headings and its habits, and no one will be influenced by what we do.
Annoyingly, La Wade/Brooks is only following (and reinforcing) the recent trend. In the 70s, 80s and 90s, increasing numbers of women were hanging on to their own names when they married - but over the last 10 years, more women are apparently taking their husband's again. What a pity that not even the new Empress of Wapping has the strength to go against the grain.
Sorry, but I'm glad I changed mine
Becky SheavesBarely a day goes past when I don't, briefly, curse the fact I abandoned my maiden name. No one can spell my new surname and I'm forever being addressed by various letter-writing institutions as Becky Shreeves, Becky Shearer, even - my favourite - Becky Cheese.
It was all so much simpler when I was just plain old Morris. But, spellings aside, changing my name when I got married five years ago was definitely the right thing to do.
Like all good decisions, it was taken with the heart, not the head. I married relatively late, at 37, and had a lifetime's worth of bank cards, insurance policies and library tickets in my maiden name. More importantly, I also had built up a career - a brand even, if that doesn't sound too grand - as the journalist Becky Morris. So, on paper, it seemed both a hassle and rather daft to become Mrs Sheaves. And I did have a vague feeling that I was letting the side down by taking on my husband's patriarchal identity. Nonetheless, I did the paperwork - gradually - and got used to pitching for work with the opening line: "I used to be Becky Morris."
But my marriage was a huge life change and acquiring a new surname seemed somehow right. Like so many modern couples, I wasn't just teaming up with John by marrying him. I had my son, then called Luke Morris, who was two and John had four older children. We were creating a happy stepfamily. So not only did I change my name, I also changed my son's name too. And now we're all known as the Sheaves family and, yes, it has helped to unify us. That's S-H-E-A-V-E-S, as we're all only too happy to tell you.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jun/25/rebekah-wade-husbands-surname
