According to a Harvard University study of college-educated Massachusetts women that was published last year, retaining one's maiden name - a popular choice for grads from the 1970s and 1980s - is falling out of favor. The proportion of brides keeping their names 10 years after graduation dropped from 23 percent in 1990 to 17 percent in 2000.Or is it?
Maybe the pendulum is swinging back because hyphenated names don't fit on ATM cards. Or maybe it's because women of my generation just feel so darn equal, we don't need our own names to prove it. Of my married friends who have taken their husbands' names, most say they did so for reasons of simplicity. They didn't want to saddle themselves or their children with hyphens, they didn't want to have a different name from their kids, they didn't want to constantly have to explain their marital status to hotel clerks and HMOs. The decision was one of convenience, they assured me. It was totally neutral and nonpatriarchal.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2005/10/30/the_same_name_game/
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