Should You Take His Last Name?

To be, or not to be...a Mrs? In today’s day and age, is taking your husband’s last name apt or antiquated? Two authors take a stance (and a name) each...

- Saumyaa Vohra

“HI, MY NAME IS...NOT YOURS TO TAKE”

“I have a confession that will bring down my street cred: it was my husband who barred me from taking his name. With a first name like mine— which means nothing as a word, and I hate with both my ears—I never worried about my last name. So, when marriage came about at the fag-end of my third decade, I would have happily given up my dad’s name for whatever came my way—but only because I did not care. Shinie Antony or Shinie Dean sounds much the same owing to its first half. As an adjective, I didn’t care whether Antony was the shiny one, or Dean. I only knew that even in the dullest of clothes, with not a sequin in sight, people would still think I was glittering on the inside.