Getting Married –  The Battle Of The Surname – To Change Or Not To Change

With cooler temperatures in December, it is a month for weddings in Jamaica, and couples can get to spend the last month of the year planning their first year together as man and wife.  

Long before my husband, Javier and I got married in August this year, I began thinking about what changing my name would mean. In a society where many things have become more trivial now than in days of old, one thing that had caught my attention was the battle of a married woman and her last name – to change completely, hyphenate, or not to change at all? 

I have heard a lot of reasons why many women prefer to keep their maiden name or hyphenate when married: already an established professional in one’s career and changing one’s name may pose a challenge; wanting to continue their father’s legacy; a feminism stance and affirmation of being independent with or without one’s husband; the list is endless. I’ll be honest, the decision was a no-brainer for me as while I know my value with and without my husband and I love my father dearly, God’s purpose for marriage is a beautiful one. 

For starters, marriage is the only relationship that God calls for people to become one flesh  (Matt 10:8). What does this mean? This means that there is an identity between the two that cannot be separated, where that same identity, through both sexual and none sexual intimacy, makes them inevitably one. It’s like playdough! Remember playing with playdough as a child, trying to mix two colours as much as possible so that they would appear as one? Could they be separated? We could only wish! You would end up with mixed-colour playdough – no longer two, but one. That’s exactly what becoming one flesh is like! For the call of one flesh, it was a breeze to change my surname.I am no longer my own or my father’s primary responsibility (as some would put it), but now my husband’s (as much as he is mine). For me, my last name is a symbol of that reality. 

During slavery, regardless of a slave’s former last name, his or her name would be changed to that of the slave master’s. Why? It was a tactic of making clear to them and other slaves and slave owners whose they were. And since I am my husband’s and my husband is mine, for the beauty of my new identity, it followed that I should take his last name and shelve my own.  

I am just a few months into marriage and oh, how I’ve seen the beauty and the power of God’s purpose of it already in the context of one flesh and identity, which is more than just my last name – though it’s a symbol of it. I am no less who I am with or without a name change, but it’s clear who I am. I am no less of who I was and there’s no confusion about who I am with it. I am now Ashley Stephenson, once Ashley Brady – a new family has been established, a new union has begun. Pray for us.