What's in a married maiden's name?

What’s in a married maiden’s name?

India is a patriarchal society. In the first 30 years of my life, this fact has not bothered but once I got married, this reality has encountered me number of times. Now please don’t start thinking that I am some “abla nari” with monstrous in laws and spouse – um hmm, far from it. I have a fairly understanding spouse and super supportive in laws. So where do I come across this dilemma of patriarchy, especially after marriage?

Well, I did marry at 30, with 8 years of work experience (and filed IT returns for each of those years) and have done my share of international travel. Therefore at the time of my marriage I had my PAN card (permanent account number), accounts, passport etc. in my maiden name. Never realising my folly and not taking my married name I continued in the blissful state of keeping my maiden name and not updating any of these to reflect my married name.

How do I know you are his wife?

Now the first time I was jolted into thinking that maybe I should acquire my married name was when a reputed courier company brought my husband’s credit card home while he was at work. The courier refused to give me the card because according to the reputed bank’s policy if recipient does not share the surname with the addressee – do not hand over the courier. I did insist that I am the spouse and not some squatter in the residence and I have a marriage certificate duly registered containing our pictures to prove the relationship. Alas, that document (marriage certificate) was not in the list of acceptable documents as proof of relationship. So the credit card was sent back and had to be delivered on appointed day when my husband could collect it.

You are still not writing married name?

Another instance was when my husband and I opened a joint locker account with another reputed bank. In spite of giving all my documents (proof of identification, address etc.), my name was mentioned on the locker account as containing my married name and not the one that I use (maiden name). Therefore without any mistake from my side I had to wait for another few days while the bank processed my application to effect name change on account and thereby ensure that my maiden name exists in the bank records and not the incorrectly used my married name. I was also advised by one shubhchintak that maybe I should let it be and think about acquiring married name now and use this mistake as a proof to support a name change.

My card cannot be aadhar for my daughter’s aadhar!!

Next time I encountered this dilemma was when we applied for aadhar card. Now I was the first one to get my aadhar card and thought I could get my daughter’s aadhar card based on my aadhar card. Just so it happened that since my family name and my daughter’s family name do not match (I still use my maiden name) therefore I could not get her card made using mine. We had to wait for my husband to get his done along with my daughter.

How do I know you are the mother of the child?

Similar situation occurred when I tried to open a sukanya account for my daughter. A marriage certificate was required to prove my connection to my husband and therefore arrive at the conclusion that his daughter is indeed my daughter (even though the birth certificate of my daughter has my complete name). But since my husband and daughter share a family name a marriage certificate was not required to establish any connection between the three names appearing on the child’s birth certificate.

What should one do?

It’s amazing how we as a society expect women to change their surname as soon as they get married. Now it is the norm and who am I to contest a norm all on my own. But for a nation that is obsessed with minority, why is it that the minority section of women who wish to retain their maiden name do not have supporting processes both inside and outside the government set ups. Why are the processes not simple, why do the creation and updating of documents so tedious, why do we need to provide proof beyond birth certificate or marriage certificate for a given relationship in case the family names are different??

I have raised a lot of whys but there are no definite answers, except maybe waiting for a realization among policy and procedure makers that times are a changing and we need to realign the processes to ensure the change in circumstances are duly addressed and life for citizens is simpler. Urban women have moved from being married as soon as the education is over, they work, they travel, they have an identity of their own before they marry; yet when it comes to marriage, acquiring married name seems to be a for granted expectation from these women by our society and systems. Isn’t it time we relooked at these expectations and brought about some changes in the way we think and do things.