To Love & Obey

Today is my niece Emily's birthday. She's five today. I'm sure she'll be showing everyone her age on her hand all day. She was born in a post 9/11 world, a small brightness during days of fear and confusion. She's more than a little spoiled, but I'm sure that by the time she's an adult she will be understand there is a universe outside of herself. But there's one thing I hope she decides to remain a little self-centered about.

My sister married a couple of years before my niece was born, when "millennium" was part of everyone's daily speak. It wasn't so long ago, but it already seems a lifetime away. And it is Emily's lifetime away. When my sister married, she took her husband's last name, and since then I still have a hard time remembering to call her "Ford" instead of "Mason." I guess I will just always think of her as the same person she was when she grew up. I think that's the way it should be. Her new last name seems almost like a stage name to me, and I just never understood it.

For a while in the great decade of the seventies, during "women's lib" and the push for the Equal Rights Amendment, some women began keeping their last names when marrying, and some hyphenated. For some reason it never really caught on much. For all of my life I could never imagine taking the name of someone else, essentially losing my identity, when the one I'd marry loses nothing but his freedom. Glad I'm a man. But so many women seem to see the name change as just part of it all. I even remember one girl I dated telling me that she expects to take her husband's last name because it's part of the dream, or whatever.

As I get older I have my doubts that I will ever get married. It isn't that I have any problems with marriage or that I think I'll never meet someone. Mostly I just feel very set in my ways and wonder if I would be interested in compromising as much as I would need for wedded bliss to work. I guess if I met a woman I liked enough it could happen. Of course anytime I talk to someone who is married they think I'm saying, "poor pitiful me without a wife." Yeah right.

I know this,- if I were ever to meet someone I would like to marry, she'd be the kind of person who would keep her last name. If she wanted to take mine, she would not be the one God's big crazy plan intended for me to marry. And I hope that when my niece is older, that she has many of my sisters wonderful qualities, but if she marries, I'll be happy if she keeps her name.