Dutchy wrote:
goflippr wrote:
I think if it were the norm to NOT change your name when you got married most of these issues wouldn't be issues. It would be "normal" for women to have their original last name and it would eliminate a hell of a lot of problems for people down the road, since 50 percent of marriages end in divorce. It's archaic in this day and age.

Here when you get divorced you always get your maiden name back unless you apply to keep your ex's name, he has to agree on that and if he's already remarried you can't keep his name. So women keeping their ex-husband's name after a divorce are pretty rare here. It's even quite common to change the last name of the kids to the mother's last name after a divorce if the kids are still young.
Here when you marry you always legally keep your maiden name next to your husband's name, on all official documents the last name is hyphenated (husband's last name - wife's last name), so the name change is less drastic. 
Here women officially keep their own name after marriage. So on official documents, they always have their maiden name. If I had a say in it, I'd let children have their mother's name. For two reasons:
- after a dicorce, the majority of the kids end up living with their mom
- it appears lots of kids are from another man than the official SO (1/3?)
  

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