Since 1983, Greece has required women to keep their birth names for life. It's a model worth thinking about
To change or not to change our last names when we marry. For many women in the UK, US, Australia and beyond, this is a complex dilemma that requires much angst, pondering, and discussion over drinks with girlfriends. I have even been asked by a boyfriend what my "surname intentions" were. Do we go the traditional route or keep our own personal and professional identity? Recently, Kate Winslet jumped into the foray with revelations about why she kept her name during her three marriages, and Emma Watson stirred things up by tweeting that Hermione Granger would almost certainly keep the Granger name.
But here's a little advice you probably haven't heard before. If you're contemplating whether or not to change your name, talk to a Greek woman (or man).
When I called Maria Karamessini, director of the Center for Gender Studies at Panteion University in Athens, she was stunned when I told her how much debate recent articles in the Guardian and other publications had generated on this topic.
You see, Greece enacted a law in 1983 that all women must keep their birth surname. Period.
It was part of a major set of reforms Greece enacted in the late 1970s and early 1980s as the country emerged from a dictatorship and re-wrote its constitution and laws. Maria Karamessini was a college student at the time and took part in feminist movement campaigns for gender equality. As she tells it:
For women, it was an emancipation to keep our own names after marriage. Greece had the most progressive laws in Europe in 1983, and not only for the last names of women. Our feminist movement changed mentalities, but it was gradual. We went from a very traditional society with traditional gender roles.
For the past 30 years, Greece has been a test case for what society would be like if women never changed their last names. It offers a very different model from how women in Britain and America have come to think about this debate. The conclusion most feminists come to is that the ideal is for women to have the ability to chose what they want and men to go along with it. But as studies have shown (or just a casual look around your circle of friends), many women still adopt their husband's name, even when they have other options. In short, societal norms and pressure are hard to alter.
For Greek women, the 1983 law change coincided with a period of great strides for females. They got out of the home and began earning more college degrees and playing a bigger role in society. Of course, these advancements weren't just because women could keep their own surnames, but it set a dramatically different tone in a country known for tradition and godfather patriarch types.
Young Greeks in their 20s and 30s today accept it as the norm. They think about names and identities a lot differently than most other countries do. Boyfriends don't ask their girlfriends about their surname intentions. Violet Tsagkas grew up in Athens, came to the US for graduate school and now writes for Fem2.0. As she told me: "It never occurred to me that [Greece] was unique until I started interacting more with foreigners, particularly after I moved to the US."
Overall, Greeks have had very few problems with the new system. Occasionally, it causes confusion. One Greek woman who helps administer a school told me that it can be challenging to call up students' parents, especially the mothers. She has taken to simply ringing them up and saying something to the effect of, "Are you John's mom?" No one finds that offensive.
The other issue that has arisen for some Greek women is traveling abroad, especially to the Middle East. Greek couples show up with different last names in their passports and some conservative societies don't believe they are actually married. It's not a widespread problem though, and it could be easily solved with a simple marriage certificate that Greek couples could carry abroad if needed. But the conservative government in 2008 used it as justification to change the law slightly so that spouses can decide if they want to add the other spouse's last name to their own. Women (and men) still have to keep their birth name, but they can have both last names now. Data are hard to come by on how many women have taken this option.
One of the big debates in feminist circles is whether it's really any better for women to keep their maiden names, which often are their father's last name. Is that really liberating? Here, too, Greece is progressive. When children are born, parents are get to decide if the child will have the mother's last name, the father's last name or both.
Yes, the name issue only goes so far to help women. Iran, for example, has had a similar system to Greece for about a century, yet Iranian women continue to struggle for many rights. Narges Bajoghli, a scholar on Iran, says that one benefit of Iran's system is that women still have a clear connection to their birth family, which has been valuable to women who find themselves in abusive relationships or other troubles and want to leave their marriages. The flip side, however, is that it has made young girls' "honor" an important part of family life.
This debate will continue in many countries, but Greece's example has altered my thinking. Perhaps we shouldn't just be talking about giving women options, but questioning why we are 30 years behind Greece.
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