OMG, It should be illegal for a married woman to keep her last name.

[bobhikes]

Half of American Adults Think It Should Be Illegal for Married Women to Keep Their Last Names

The best/worst line in the article.

What's more, in an earlier study, people who believed women should change their names when they get married should do so because it "prioritizes their marriage and their family ahead of themselves."

The man doesn't have to prioritize the marriage I guess or put his family first.

50% of american adults Well lets see, comments and poll.

 

[SomeRandom]

It's the 21st century not the Middle Ages. A woman or man should do whatever they please with their name/s when they get married

 

[bobhikes]

It's the 21st century not the Middle Ages. A woman or man should do whatever they please with their name/s when they get married

Apparently that's not what 50% of Adult Americans want. They want the good old days. I would bet they were all Trump supporters.

 

[Deathbydefault]

It's her name, after all.

 

[Revoltingest]

Half of American Adults Think It Should Be Illegal for Married Women to Keep Their Last Names

The best/worst line in the article.

What's more, in an earlier study, people who believed women should change their names when they get married should do so because it "prioritizes their marriage and their family ahead of themselves."

The man doesn't have to prioritize the marriage I guess or put his family first.

50% of american adults Well lets see, comments and poll.

Dang....I wonder what the penalty would be?
Would Mrs Revolt avoid it by changing her name to mine?

 

[Jeremiahcp]

I am skeptical of the legitimacy of the results.

 

[bobhikes]

Dang....I wonder what the penalty would be?
Would Mrs Revolt avoid it by changing her name to mine?

My guess would be you can't be married. No jail time just have to live in sin.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

The data looks like they are at least from 2011 or even further back. I don't know, I got bored trying to trace back that aspect of the poll.

The term "new study" is misleading as they used data from 2010 and their discussion involves other research which could be older.

 

[bobhikes]

The data looks like they are at least from 2011 or even further back. I don't I got bored trying to trace back that aspect of the poll.

The term "new study" is misleading as they used data from 2010 and their discussion involves other research which could be older.

I got it.
Sloppy statistics: Do 50% of Americans really think married women should be legally obligated to change their names?
The 50% statistic comes from a 2011 paper, published in the journal Gender & Society. The whole PDF is online, if you want to read it.

In that survey, 22.3% of respondents strongly agreed with the question, "In the past, some states legally required a woman to change her name to her husband’s name. Do you strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree that this was a good idea?" Another 27.6% somewhat agreed. And that adds up to 49.9%.

You can see the web sites information.

Different Poll showing 60% of Americans believe a woman should change her last name.

Changing Your Last Name: Survey Reveals How Americans Feel About Women, Men Changing Their Names | The Huffington Post

Still rather high numbers even though they are misleading.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

Bobhikes beat me to it, but since I was half way done I am finishing and posting anyways.

This comes from the discussion section of the study; keeping in mind this was not one of the tested hypotheses of the study just part of the discussion.

In this paper, I add to the existing surname literature through a vignette experiment that tests how a woman’s last name choice affects how she is seen in terms of commitment as a wife, as well as the standards to which she is held. Among women and highly educated men, women’s surname choice seems to have little effect on their perceptions of women as a wife or the standards to which she is held in marriage. This is somewhat surprising: most individuals in the U.S. think women should change their names in marriage, and approximately half think that name change should be required by law [3].

This part: "This is somewhat surprising: most individuals in the U.S. think women should change their names in marriage, and approximately half think that name change should be required by law [3]"

According to their citation comes from this study:

SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class journal research


And you can see some of their citation go all the way back to the 1980s.

And I may be wrong but it may be this study that this 50% number is coming from:

Weitzman, L. J. 1981. The marriage contract: Spouses, lovers, and the law. New York: Free Press.

1981 is not a new study.

***EDIT it was not from 1981 it was from a 2006 survey, I detail it a bit more below.

 

[arthra]

Half of American Adults Think It Should Be Illegal for Married Women to Keep Their Last Names

The best/worst line in the article.

What's more, in an earlier study, people who believed women should change their names when they get married should do so because it "prioritizes their marriage and their family ahead of themselves."
The man doesn't have to prioritize the marriage I guess or put his family first.
50% of american adults Well lets see, comments and poll.

Yeah I think nowadays women are free to keep their "maiden" name or adopt their husbands name... My wife liked my name because it was easier to use... but my sister in law chose to keep her maiden name. It's not so much a big deal whatever choice the woman has decided to do.

 

[McBell]

Half of American Adults Think It Should Be Illegal for Married Women to Keep Their Last Names

The best/worst line in the article.

What's more, in an earlier study, people who believed women should change their names when they get married should do so because it "prioritizes their marriage and their family ahead of themselves."

The man doesn't have to prioritize the marriage I guess or put his family first.

50% of american adults Well lets see, comments and poll.

$39.95 to look at the PDF article?

I smell a red herring.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

$39.95 to look at the PDF article?

I smell a red herring.

I found all the "research" without paying a dime.

 

[McBell]

The data looks like they are at least from 2011 or even further back. I don't know, I got bored trying to trace back that aspect of the poll.

The term "new study" is misleading as they used data from 2010 and their discussion involves other research which could be older.

Would you be able to link to the data?
I ask because I am not paying $39.95 to read the "article".

 

[Jeremiahcp]

Would you be able to link to the data?
I ask because I am not paying $39.95 to read the "article".

This is what they are referring to in the ariticle

Hillary Rodham Versus Hillary Clinton: Consequences of Surname Choice in Marriage

But the 50% data they cite is from this:

SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class journal research

 

[McBell]

This is what they are referring to in the ariticle

Hillary Rodham Versus Hillary Clinton: Consequences of Surname Choice in Marriage

But the 50% data they cite is from this:

SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class journal research

My apologies.
I was asking about the raw data the "50% of Americans..." claim is based on.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

OK here it is, this should be where they get the 50%

Data for this study come from the 2006 Constructing the Family Survey (CFS). This telephone survey of a random sample of Indiana (n = 331) and continental U.S. (n = 484) adult residents was conducted by the Center for Survey Research at Indiana University. The purpose of the survey was to gauge public opinion regarding a wide range of gender- and family-related topics, including name change upon marriage, work–family attitudes, feminist self-identity, religious and political views, fertility decisions, attitudes about sexual relations, definitions of family, and attitudes toward same-sex marriage and adoption. Information on sociodemographic characteristics was also collected. A distinctive feature of these data is their inclusion of open-ended questions—a rarity in large-scale surveys—allowing respondents to contextualize and explain their responses in greater detail. Below we describe both the quantitative and qualitative data as well as our mixed-methods approach.

And the question was: "In the past, some states legally required a woman to change her name to her husband’s name. Do you strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree that this was a good idea?"

With 22.3% strongly agreeing, and 26.7% somewhat agree.

So here are my issues with this survey. Almost half of the samples are from one state; sorry but that is not a true random sample of the US, it is from 2006 and it is a phone survey. Pure phone surveying is not always that reliable. A variety of contact methods is preferred.

 

[sun rise]

Friends of mine have done all sorts of things when they got married from the man taking the woman's last name to both changing their last names to something completely new, to hyphenating their last names etc. It's hard keeping up sometimes.

 

[HakkaMex]

I've come to realize that the US is quite conservative but obviously where you poll will affect the results.

My own opinion is that people should be able to do what they want, another law forcing someone to do something is no good. I would not expect her to change her name unless she really wanted to on her own. It's a weird concept to me.

 

[Milton Platt]

Half of American Adults Think It Should Be Illegal for Married Women to Keep Their Last Names

The best/worst line in the article.

What's more, in an earlier study, people who believed women should change their names when they get married should do so because it "prioritizes their marriage and their family ahead of themselves."

The man doesn't have to prioritize the marriage I guess or put his family first.

50% of american adults Well lets see, comments and poll.

I have been married to my wife for decades. She hyphenated her last name (hers-mine). It was important because she had been working in her field for most of her working life and she was recognized by her peers by her first/last name. I have no issue with that. I think people who do have some sort of insecurity issue.