Should You Change Your Name After You Marry? | The Wedding Diary

We live in modern times and tradition is something ever-changing. Some traditional things last, and some just don’t. Others, like a woman taking her husbands name after they marry, actually become controversial. My favourite motto to live by in life is, ‘live and let live’. But, yet, it seems we can’t.

Some woman see submission or sexism when a woman changes her name. But where did that woman get her name? And where did her mother get hers?, and her grandmother? To stop it now feels like closing the stable after the horse has long bolted.

All of this does make me sound pro changing my name, I know. I am in a bit of a muddle with it to be honest. Part of my thinks it is something to do if you have children, so you can be a family ushould you change your name after you marry? wedding, weddings, name change, marriage, wedding diarynit, the stories of woman being stopped at airports because they have a different surname from their children are common. If I have children I certainly don’t want to have a different surname than them. It would just be too weird. This means I have to take my fiancee’s name, he has to take mine or we have to double-barrel our names. That is if we have children. If we don’t, does it really matter? Part of me thinks not.

There is a part in The Crucible when John Proctor has two choices: change his name or die. He chooses to die, “It is my name”, he says; “I cannot have any other”. This is a pretty extreme example but I remember watching TV with a friend. There was a woman with a very long double-barreled surname. My friend commented on the ridiculousness of her name; “Oh, just lose your ego woman!” But it is not just ego is it? It’s your identity. My name is me. Well, actually, my name is a stage name, albeit one that I use for everything now. It belonged to my grandmother, a Lithuanian who died when she was only 40 of kidney failure. Not surprisingly, I would like this to live on. I am only a handful of people in the world with the surname ‘Balavage’. An Anglo take on ‘Bullovich’. You see? Surnames, they change. As does identity. I even pronounce my surname differently than she would have: Ba Lav age, with a quiet ‘V’. At my friends Nick Cohen’s book launch, the amazing writer Francis Wheen complimented my on my surname, ‘Like a glamorous French actress’. I have pronounced it the way he said it ever since.

So when I marry I have a few choices: change my real name and keep my stage name, change my name completely and just keep Balavage for acting, or double-barrel my name. I have until next year to decide, but I am already in a pickle. What to do?

It is not about feminism or inequality. If a woman wants to take her new husbands name, she should be able to, if a man wants to change his, he should and if a woman wants to keep or double-barrel her name, she should be able to without rudeness: it’s her identity after all: Live and let live.

 What do you think? Will you change your name?

 

Christopher Hitchens Dies: The Best Of The Hitch Remembered.

The Hitch Remembered.

The literary world was far worse off after Christopher Hitchens died today at the age of 62. Hitch died of complications due to oesophagus cancer. A disease that he refereed to as “Something so predictable and banal that it bores even me.”

Salman Rushdie and Nick Cohen lead the tributes on Facebook and Twitter. Frost has collected some of our favourite articles on Hitch, starting with his brother in a moving piece Peter says what he thinks of when “I think of my brother is ‘courage’. By this I don’t mean the lack of fear which some people have, which enables them to do very dangerous or frightening things because they have no idea what it is to be afraid. I mean a courage which overcomes real fear, while actually experiencing it”.

Christopher Hitchens’ brother, Peter, who is a Daily Mail columnist wrote about his brother: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2075133/Christopher-Hitchens-dead-In-Memoriam-courageous-sibling-Peter-Hitchens.html

Vanity Fair, the magazine he wrote for: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/christopher-hitchens

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2001/08/pinochet-milosevic-henry-kissinger-christopher-hitchens/

A good article he wrote.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2011/01/how_to_make_a_decent_cup_of_tea.html

The BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16212418

On Climate change: http://theidiottracker.blogspot.com/2011/12/christopher-hitchens-on-climate-change.html?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=Luca

http://www.sabotagetimes.com/people/rip-christopher-hitchens-the-world-is-stupider-without-you/

http://www.tatler.com/news/articles/december-2011/in-memory-of-christopher-hitchens

Francis Wheen, Hitchens friend of 30 years; has written a good article and states that Hitchens was not an alcoholic.

Please add your comments and links below in remembrance of a great man.

photo credit: LA1277

Catherine Balavage's Top Ten Books.

I love reading. I have been known to read a book in a day. I also go through magazines and newspapers ferociously. At school I was actually made fun of for reading so much. I feel I got the last laugh. My top ten books are ever changing, but here is my current list. Read these books. They are amazing and will change your life. In no particular order….

“What’s left?” Nick Cohen
Nick Cohen is one of the smartest people I have ever met. I read this book long before I met him in person. Even it you do not agree with his political views, the sheer brilliance of his political argument wins you over. Nick has a brave voice and his compassion comes through in this book of his dissection of how the left lost it’s way.

“How Mumbo jumbo ruled the world.” Francis Wheen.
I am guilty of bulk buying this book and giving it as Christmas presents. Not only is this a great book, but I get the sense that Mr Wheen has a very good bullshit detector.

“ Midnight’s Children.” Salman Rushdie.
Fun, beautiful, erudite. Hard to choose just one of his books but I love this for the magical realism. Salman Rushdie is known as one of the greatest writers. And with good reason.

“The Count of Monte Christo” Alexander Dumas.
A roaring adventure book. Brilliant from beginning to end. Quite an achievement considering it’s over 1,000 pages

“A Much Married Man.” Nicholas Coleridge
This is one of my favourite novels. The story is about a wealthy man who constantly re-marries, hence the title. Coleridge is an amazing writer. Constantly noticing things about his characters and their lives. Beautiful and quaint.

“The Constant Economy.” Zac Goldsmith.
Goldsmith, who was editor of The Ecologist for many years, certainly knows his stuff. Here he maps out his ideas for a “constant economy” The most readable eco book I have ever read. Brilliant stuff. Now he is a member of parliament expect a much greener government.

“ Crime and Punishment” Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
I love this book. A darkly wonderful book about a young man who commits murder without remorse or regret. It becomes a book about redemption. “A new life is not given for nothing….” I read this book and I wish I could read it in it’s original Russian.

“Lazy ways to earn a living.” Abigail Bosanka
This may seem like a random choice. I have read this book three times. The first time during a hellish holiday in Spain. It is set in Edinburgh and it about a women who is fired from her job. She is highly educated but doing odd jobs to survive and bumps into someone she used to know…It is a book full of detail, knowledge, love and chess. I was on a film set recently and saw a women reading it . We instantly became friends.

“How to lose friends and alienate people.” Toby Young.
A funny and insightful book on publishing and media. Re-read it many times. You should as well. Young is a brilliant writer. He has a social conscience so the book is more than a shallow biography.

“Lord of the rings.” J.R.R Tolkien.
I read this book when I was 13. I eagerly awaited the films for many years. Fantasy writing at it’s best.

Now you have read mine, please send your top ten books to frostmagazine@gmail.com