USE OF MAIDEN NAMES.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIV, 24 August 1929, Page 12

USE OF MAIDEN NAMES.

WHY BE CHANGED AFTER MARRIAGE? | Why should the wife follow the i surname of the husband, and not vice versa. There seems to be no | justice for either of them to claim that the other must give up his or her own name. Apparently the most fair solution seems to be to let both parties retain the names by which they were known before marriage, states a contemporary. 'n China, married women who travel under their maiden names .iro being subjected to severe reproaches. During the present days of reform, certain things are sometimes overdone, and the China critic thinks the emancipation of womanhood would become extreme if the growing custom of adhering to maiden names were to spread any further. The paper points out: ■ This tendency is not altogether unexplainable. The modern Chinese girl, unlike her sisters of ten or twenty years ago, has a large circle of acquaintances. She has connections of her own, besides those of her husband. But man and wife have different functions in society, different duties to mankind, and unless the whole institution of marriage is to be wiped out, wives should, and must, adopt the surnames of their husbands. One of the g"e.:test protections a man can offer to his wife is “the protection of his name.” The new practice would cause no end of difficulties in the way of requiring proof of the married status of couples before many legitimate and private affairs could be arranged, or else the whole system of marriage and married life would fall to pieces.”