Ghar whapisi

Accident in a booking made the Ivy book my under my wife’s name (her original name is Changani after her 5th great grandfather Changomal, Lalchand is a patronymic styled after her late grandfather like how mine is Latif, mine is Malik). Lalchand has a better ring to it than Latif. I have been thinking of ameliorating my Muslimness especially as we want to eventually move further West to Silicon Valley.

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Kabir
5 years ago

I hope you are not seriously thinking of changing your name 🙂

I believe women should keep their own name after marriage (well their father’s name actually) unless they really want to take their husband’s name for some reason. The automatic assumption in desi society that upon marriage, Lady V should now be known as Mrs. Zachary Latif is kind of offensive honestly in this day and age. I’m glad she kept her own name. Of course in the older days, this assumption was not questioned. My grandmother, who had a perfectly good name of her own, upon marriage became Begum Khawaja Waheed, basically effacing her own identity. She was not a career woman of course and this was the 1940s. But even my mother, a medical doctor, automatically took my father’s name upon marriage.

Sania Mirza recently put on record that any future children she and Shoaib have will have the last name Mirza-Malik or Malik-Mirza. She will remain Sania Mirza. I don’t think this means she cares for her husband any less, but it is not feminist to give up your own name just because you now “belong” to another man. Kareena Kapoor also stuck with Kapoor (though occasionally her name is written as Kareena Kapoor Khan, I don’t know if she decided that or some journalist decided that).

I would never change my name or my religion for anyone no matter how much I loved them (and men aren’t expected to do that, which is quite the double standard). Luckily, there are countries where you have a civil marriage and move on.

Sorry for the longish rant on what is ultimately an individual choice.

Kabir
5 years ago

It was a funny incident.

Two of my aunts (my mother’s brother’s wives) kept their own names. One of them coincidentally has Latif as her last name.

Kabir
5 years ago

Also, no thoughts on “Leela’s Book” itself? Just that white people should stop writing about India 🙂

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