On my research about “should I change my surname or not after the wedding” issue, I came across a website called “Spaniards.es“. It is a community of Spanish people living abroad or people who want to move out of Spain. It is a very good idea, as it gives lots of first-hand-experience advice and lots of information of all kinds, from legal to recipes.
After having received an email from the Spanish consulate in London which said that it is against the Spanish law to change one’s name, I posted a new item in the forum of this community asking for legal advice. Basically the post said that I had discovered that information (that it is illegal to change your name) but I was sure that people had changed their names before, when marrying an anglosaxon. So could anyone advise on how to do it.
I am amazed about the responses. People haven’t insulted ME personally, but the fact that I was considering changing my name after the wedding was outrageous for them. They said that it is an out-of-date and chauvinist tradition that degrades women, and many things like that. I honestly don’t think like this, and reading all these messages from “ultra-modern-women” makes me want to change my name even more!
Their argument is that you lose your identity when you change your name, you suddenly become “property” of your husband, and things like that. I suppose that Spanish people would have very strong opinions about this, as changing your surname has never been part of the Spanish tradition. You just get one surname of your father and one of your mother to create your two-surname name. And that’s it, for life.
But, what identity would I be losing? My father divorced my mother before I was even born, never met him, he never cared to meet me, then he died and I will never know what it feels like to have a father. So by having carried his surname for 30 years already I have honoured a tradition that I never asked for. Now I may want to follow a different tradition, one that is up to me to decide, but of course people wouldn’t understand.
I still haven’t made my mind up. Still have up to Christmas to decide, but it is becoming more and more obvious that it is going to be a difficult choice, whatever I decide to do in the end.
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