Zola Radebe-Ntereke of KwaThema writes:
I’m hopelessly romantic and do not frown upon any woman who changes to her husband’s surname after marriage, but I still believe it is all about choice.
From time immemorial-marriage has always been regarded as the highest accolade a woman can add to her list of achievements.
Unmarried women have been seen as failures and unworthy.
It is acceptable that people change, rules change, things change, norms change, but I’m not sure if culture and traditional practices can be allowed to change too.
For instance, women nowadays no longer have to curtsy when they bring their husbands food or greet their in-laws.
Maybe I should mention that my main reason for keeping my surname is avoiding the long queues at the Home Affairs and the administration work.
I would also have to change my social media accounts including Facebook and Twitter. My academic qualifications are in my maiden name and I would have to inform my HR. Wow, the list of places I would have to change is endless.
I like my surname and the lineage connected to my family of birth.
Fortunately for me, I have an egalitarian partnership with my significant other.
He is wise and confident enough to know and understand that I don’t have to prove that I love him and want to spend the rest of my life with him by changing to his last name.
He is one of the few men I know who are comfortable in their own skins, can be stirred, but not shaken.
Thanks to Home Affairs, a woman can now assume her husband’s surname, use a double-barrel or retain her surname
The likes of Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams and many others have taught me that a girl can opt to use a hyphenated one, although that is already proving to be cumbersome to me.
Keeping my last name doesn’t mean I don’t value my nuptials or think that my marriage has an expiry date.
By the same breath, being forced to change my surname goes hand-in-glove with modern day slavery for black feminists.
The world will never tire of telling us females how we should conduct our marriages, how to “keep our men”.
Is it because I read Shakespear’s Romeo and Juliet when I matriculated in 1991, that I strongly echo the sentiments “What’s in a name, that which we call a rose by any other name, would smell as sweet.”
Trust me, I would rather be called a feminist in the streets than a makoti in the sheets, but make no mistake ladies, my feminism doesn’t enter the bedroom.
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