Ladies, keep your name if you want to keep your right to vote
Lets all be Lucy Stoners. Democracy might depend on it.
When Lucy Stone finally wed Henry Blackwell (after much wooing on his part), she did not promise to obey in her vows. The couple also composed and shared a wedding protest at their ceremony about how they thought the institution of marriage was really horrible and they were only doing it because they loved each other. True romance!
Lucy Stone also kept her maiden name.
This was Not Done in 1855 when she got married.
Her fellow Suff, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, described Lucy as “the first woman in the nation to protest against the marriage laws at the altar, and to manifest sufficient self respect to keep her own name, to represent her individual existence through life.”
Lucy Stone was the kind of woman who walked the talk when it came to women’s empowerment. She spent her whole life dedicated to getting women the vote and securing other rights for them. Despite the increasing popularity of the women’s movement, not many women followed her lead and kept their maiden names.
In 1921, journalist Ruth Hale founded the Lucy Stone League, a group that championed women keeping their own names. Their motto: “My name is the symbol for my identity and must not be lost.” Women who kept their birth names after marriage were known as “maiden namers” or “Lucy Stoners.” A Lucy Stoner became a dictionary approved term.
It was never illegal to be a Lucy Stoner, but laws certainly made it difficult. A Time magazine article reports:
While common law hasn’t required married women to adopt their husband’s surname, state laws essentially forced women to do so in order to function as citizens in society. Before the 1970s, women couldn’t get their paychecks, passports, driver’s licenses or bank accounts, or even vote, using their birth surnames.
These days I feel like it’s no longer a big deal for a woman to keep her maiden name (which is often her father’s name! Argh!). Honestly, I’m surprised women do still change their names—but then again, my last name is from my mother, so we have a two generation matrilineal situation happening. I have a few lady friends who have some sort of hybrid situation—they changed it legally but not on their email, or use hubby’s name but didn’t change it officially or everywhere. Because paperwork. Paperwork! But that might be trouble for lady voters and the future of democracy.
In September 20204, the House recently introduced the SAVE ACT, which in the name of “election security” would make it more difficult for people who have changed their name to vote. The people who are most likely to have changed their names are women. Here’s how it would work (via the New Republic):
And what will the law require citizens who want to vote do? Lacking a passport or other proof of citizenship with their married names, they must produce both a birth certificate (with the seal of the state where it was issued; no copies allowed) and a current form of identification—both with the exact same name on them. That could instantly disqualify about 90 percent of all married women without passports or other proof that matches their birth certificates or proof of a legal name change.
We are not talking about small numbers of voters. From a report via the National Organization of Women:
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, one third of all women have citizenship documents that do not identically match their current names primarily because of name changes at marriage. Roughly 90 percent of women who marry adopt their husband’s last name. That means that roughly 90 percent of married female voters have a different name on their ID than the one on their birth certificate. An estimated 34 percent of women could be turned away from the polls unless they have precisely the right documents.
I see chatter online from right wing douche bros and evangelical christian men about repealing the 19th amendment, which secures women’s right to vote. But an outright repeal isn’t necessary to effectively disenfranchise a huge number of American women. Supposedly there will be accommodations or processes to sort it all out, but do you know any married women who have time for that sort of thing? It’s laws like this which will make it nearly impossible for women to comply and will effectively disenfranchise many of them. The SAVE act failed when the house introduced it in September 2024 but I would not be shocked if the incoming administration tried again.
The fight for women’s rights never ends. Which just makes me think they know how powerful women are…now we need to discover and use our power too.
I kept my name when I married, and my birth last name happened to be hyphenated--both my mother and father's names (Libby is a pen name). Often people assume my hyphenated last name is my maiden name and my husband's name, but nope. Hyphenated since birth! And luckily there's no one in my immediate family or my husband's family who changed their name when they married so it is very normalized for us.
In NYS it is legal to use any name as long as there is no "intent to defraud." I could not use the name Leslie Uggams or Katharine Hepburn, obviously. However, due to incidents of anti-Semitism during auditions I changed my last name from my birthname (my father's surname, which is a guild name in England, but considered "Jewish" here in the US) to my mother's maiden name. Ironically, her father, who had a very German surname at birth "dejudified" it in 1920 or so when he wanted a byline in a periodical as well as a job in advertising (back when one had to check a box labeled "religion" or write it in. And he was told to write "Presbyterian" and asked his mentor what they believed in case there was a quiz at the end of the job interview. He became Carroll Carroll from Carroll Weinschenk ("wine steward" auf Deutsch). I was Leslie Carroll professionally for years with all my credit cards and id (I didn't have a driver's license then, but a NYID). I never took my first husband's surname or that of my current husband. However, the USGOV mandates that you have a legal name change if you want the name on your passport to match the name on your other documents. This became hell when I was traveling overseas. The name on the credit card I used to buy my ticket didn't match the passport. I couldn't check in online in advance because ... red flags. I always had to see a counter agent in the terminal. It became extremely problematic when my husband and I were traveling to China and needed a visa as well. ALL THE NAMES had to be the same. So I applied for a legal name change. It cost me about $800 all told, with lawyer's fees and document filing fees. (I was living in Denver then). Now all my docs are consistent. But I still bristle when people call me by the wrong surname. I chose to be who I am based on the unconditional love and support my maternal grandparents gave me for my passion for the arts since childhood, and to honor my own grandfather's history with our nation's continuing history of anti-Semitism as well as my own experience. And when it comes to voting -- a reminder to everyone: this is one of our 2 rights in America (the other being jury duty). Our foremothers fought and starved for it. Don't take it lightly. VOTE IN EVERY ELECTION--from school board to the presidency. Don't skip any of them! Our vote IS our voice. And the only way we can turn things around and be heard.