College-Educated Women Adopt Spouse's Surname
In a reversal of a three-decade-long trend toward more married women keeping their own names, increasing numbers of college-educated women are taking their husbands' surnames, according to a Harvard University study.
The trend had begun during the late 1970s, when the feminist movement emboldened more women to reject tradition and keep their own names when they married. That spread in the 1980s and 1990s, even though a large majority of women still took their husbands' names.
Now the tide in nuptial nomenclature appears to be turning, say the study's authors, Harvard economic historian Claudia Goldin and one of her former students, Maria Shim. The research examined Massachusetts birth records, Harvard alumni records and New York Times wedding announcements, and extrapolated from this select group to the broader population of college-educated women.
The researchers say they can only speculate on why the trend is changing. "Perhaps some women who 'kept' their surnames in the 1980s ... did so because of peer pressure, and their counterparts today are freer to make their own choices," they wrote in the current issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives.
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
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Among the many possible reasons for the shift cited by Prof. Goldin and Ms. Shim was that "a general drift to more conservative social values has made surname-keeping less attractive."
Another possible reason: frustration with the logistical problems a husband and wife -- particularly those with children -- confront when using different last names, especially when traveling. America West Airlines, for instance, advises parents traveling to Mexico with children who have different last names as the father or mother to "be prepared to provide evidence to the America West agent and Mexican authorities, such as a birth certificate or adoption decree, to prove that they are parents."
Based on the Massachusetts birth data -- which record the mother's and father's surnames as well as their educational levels -- the economists extrapolated that 23% of all college-educated women in the state were using their own names in 1990, compared with 20% in 1995 and 17% in 2000.
Harvard alumni records show that among women who earned bachelor's degrees from Harvard in 1980, 44% of those who reported being married were using their own surnames 10 years after graduation. Among the class of 1990, just 32% of married women were using their own names 10 years later.
"I'm confidant enough in who I am," said Michelle Clark, a 28-year-old Harvard M.B.A. now at Morgan Stanley who took her husband's name when she married last month. "I don't feel like I'm going to lose my identity by changing my name," she says. After toying with the idea of keeping her name, McClelland, professionally, Mrs. Clark says she decided the symbolic unity of a single name outweighed any perceived loss of independence.
A sample of nearly 7,000 wedding announcements in the New York Times over 26 years found only about 2% of brides kept their names in 1975. In 1980, it was 10%, and the percentage rose to around 20% in the mid-1980s, where it plateaued for about 10 years. The newspaper's wedding announcements showed an upward blip in name-keeping at the very end of the 1990s, but the researchers suspect that may reflect a change in the Times' criteria for selecting couples, rather than in bridal behavior. (The economists counted women who reported plans to keep their surnames professionally among those who keep their names; they counted the small number of brides in the announcements, about 3% in 2001, who chose a hyphenated name as changing their surnames.)
In all, the economists estimate from various data sources that about 18.5% of all college-educated women in the U.S. kept their names at marriage in 2001. An even smaller proportion of women who haven't gone to college keep their names.
Despite the directional shift, highly educated women remain more likely than less-educated ones to keep their surnames when they marry. In the study, women who graduated from the most prestigious colleges, including those in the Ivy League, were more likely to keep their names. Women with advanced degrees, such as a law degree or doctorate, were more likely to retain their name than those whose last stop in school was college, the researchers found.
"Most of my friends -- even those who are more feminist or more on the left -- have been taking their husband's name," said Leslie Harvey, a 24-year-old law student who graduated from Yale University and changed her name when she married her husband.
The only advanced degree not associated with a tendency to keep one's name is an M.B.A.
The Harvard economists found, from scanning New York Times wedding announcements, that women married in religious ceremonies were generally less likely to keep their own names than were other women. Younger brides were more likely to take their husbands' names than older ones, a phenomenon that the researchers attribute to women's "desire to keep one's surname once one has 'made a name.' "
美国高知女性愿随夫姓
最近三十年，很多已婚女人都愿意保留自己的姓氏，但这种趋势正在开始发生逆转。哈佛大学(Harvard University)最近进行的一项研究结果显示，越来越多接受过高等教育的女性婚后将使用丈夫的姓氏。
女性保留自己姓氏的运动兴起于七十年代，当时有很多女权运动大胆摒弃传统，倡导女性婚后保留自己的姓氏。这股潮流一直延续到八十和九十年代，不过大部分女性还是在婚后改姓了丈夫的姓。
这项研究的作者--哈佛大学经济历史学家克劳迪亚?戈尔丁(Claudia Goldin)和她以前的一个学生玛蕊娅?希姆(Maria Shim)说，这股潮流好像开始逆转了。她们的研究考察了马萨诸塞州的出生纪录、哈佛大学校友纪录以及《纽约时报》(New York Times)的结婚声明，并据此对更多的接受过大学教育的女性做出推断。
她们表示只能猜测出为什么潮流会有这样的改变。“也许有些在八十年代保留了自己姓氏的女性...只是迫于来自同龄人的压力，而如今的女性可以更加自由地作出自主决定”，她们在最新一期《经济展望杂志》(Journal of Economic Perspectives)中撰文写道。
劳迪亚和玛蕊娅还分析出其他可能的原因，其中之一就是向传统价值理念回归的意识潮流使女性不再想婚后保留自己的姓氏。
另一个可能的原因是夫妻二人使用不同的姓，尤其是当带著孩子的时候，可能会在某些场合遇到一些麻烦的手续问题。外出旅游就是这样。美国西方航空(American West Airlines)建议带著孩子到墨西哥旅游的异姓夫妇，最好准备好孩子的出生证明或收养文件等，提供给美国西方航空代理人和墨西哥当局，用来证明他们的确是孩子的父母。
马萨诸塞州的出生纪录记载著孩子父母的姓氏及各自的教育背景。劳迪亚和玛蕊娅根据这些纪录得出：1990年马萨诸塞州大约有23%的受过大学教育的女性婚后使用她们自己的姓氏，这个比例在1995年下降至20%，到2000年下降至17%。
哈佛大学校友会的纪录显示，1980年从哈佛大学获得本科学位的女性中，在其毕业10年后，有44%的已婚女性仍在使用自己的姓氏。而在1990年毕业的女性中，这一比例只有32%。
“我对自己非常自信”，28岁的哈佛大学MBA米切尔?克拉克(Michelle Clark)说。她在上个月结婚后就开始姓夫姓了。“我并不觉得改了姓就失去了自我”，她说。她也考虑过保留自己的姓氏--麦克利兰(McClelland)，但最后还是觉得夫妇使用同一个姓能象征家庭整体感，这比从感觉上失去独立性更重要。
根据对过去26年刊登在《纽约时报》上的近7,000份结婚声明的统计显示，1975年的新娘只有大约2%保留了自己的姓；到1980年有10%；到80年代中期这个比例上升至20%左右，并在之后约10年的时间保持在这一水平上。《纽约时报》的结婚声明还显示，90年代末又有更多的女性婚后保留自己的姓氏。但研究人员认为这可能是由于《纽约时报》对刊登结婚声明夫妇的选择标准发生变化所致，并非是新娘行为决策的反映。
整体来说，上述两位经济学家根据从各种渠道获得的数据估计：2001年全美接受过大学教育的已婚女性中，大约有18.5%的人保留了自己的姓氏。而没有接受过高等教育的女性中保留自己姓氏的比例则更低。
尽管大的潮流有所改变，但接受过高等教育的女性仍然比受教育水平较低的女性更倾向于婚后保留自己的姓氏。研究结果显示，那些毕业于著名学府，尤其是常青藤(Ivy League)大学的女性保留自己姓氏的可能更大。
调查还显示，拥有更高学位，如法律学位或博士学位的女性也比只拥有本科学位的女性更愿意保留自己的姓氏。
“我的朋友中，包括那些最支持女权运动的人，大部分都在婚后使用丈夫的姓氏”，毕业于耶鲁大学(Yale University)的24岁法学学生莱丝丽?哈维(Leslie Harvey)说。她一结婚就改了姓。
这两位哈佛大学的经济学家发现，唯一一个和女性婚后选择姓氏趋势没有关系的学位就是工商管理学硕士(M.B.A.)学位。
她们从《纽约时报》的结婚声明中发现，采用宗教仪式结婚的女性相对来说更多的在婚后随了夫姓。年纪越小的新娘比年纪大一些的人更容易改姓夫姓，研究人员将这种现象归因于女性的一种欲望，一旦确立了自我就更愿意保留自己原有的姓名。
