What's in a name?

If Sonam Kapoor wants to adopt the Ahuja surname, it is nobody’s business but her own

Question: Why did Sonam Kapoor change her name to Sonam Kapoor Ahuja after she got married?

There is only one correct answer to that question: because she wanted to.

She wants to be known as Sonam Kapoor Ahuja from now on. And it is not our business to second-guess her or to offer helpful (I jest, of course) commentary on how her decision is a strike against gender equality and an obsequious nod to the patriarchy. Nor do we need fulminating think pieces on how this one decision to take her husband’s name and add it to her own somehow disqualifies Sonam from being a feminist – and is, in fact, a betrayal of the feminist causes she espoused all along.

For one thing, the name that we describe as Sonam’s own, the one she gave up in favour of her husband’s, is also the gift of another man: her father, Anil Kapoor. So, how would keeping it strike a blow against the patriarchy, when the name – quite literally – was bestowed upon her by the patriarch?

Can you see the logic in that convoluted piece of reasoning? No, me neither.

Whether you stick with the surname of your father or take your husband’s, it is still a man’s name you are sticking next to your own. So, why should one be a feminist choice and the other a kick in the rear of the feminist movement?

The short answer is that none of this matters – or more correctly, none of this should matter. If we all agree – and I hope we do – that feminism is about the freedom to make your own life decisions, to choose freely how you want to live your life, and yes, to make up your own mind how you wish to be styled, then every woman is entitled to make the choice that feels right for her. And even if you don’t agree with that choice, it is not for you or anyone else to shame her for it. That is not how a sisterhood works.

In fact, the last thing women need as they go about negotiating a tough world is to have the burden of prescriptive feminism placed on their already overburdened shoulders. We have quite enough on our plates without having a heavily annotated to-do and please-don’t list thrust down our throats as well.

And frankly, when you think about it, how is this prescriptive feminism any different from the demands that the patriarchy places upon us? Just as it was disempowering when women were forced to take on the names of their husband the moment they married, it is equally infantilizing to insist that they must stick with their birth names even if they don’t want to – on pain of having their feminist credentials cancelled by the Surname Police.

In that sense, there is no difference between the patriarchy and prescriptive feminism. Both of them want to dictate how we should live our lives, how we should behave, what we should and should not do, to fall within accepted parameters of approved behavior. So, why should we seek to cast off the bonds of one only to accept the constraints of the other?

If you ask me, we should refuse to acquiesce to the demands of both and live our lives just as we want to. And call ourselves whatever we damn well please. If we want to stick with our maiden names (as they are still rather quaintly called) then we should do so. If we want to be known by our married names, then we are free to do. In neither case, do we owe any explanations or justifications to anyone else.

There may be a dozen different reasons why women choose to stick with their father’s surname: they like the way it sounds; they already have a flourishing career in which they are known by that name; they don’t want to change their bylines or brand names; they don’t want the whole palaver of changing passports, Aadhar cards, bank accounts, Pan numbers and what have you.

And there are plenty of different reasons why women choose to adopt the surname of their husband. They may do it in the first initial flush of romantic love. Once they have children they may want the whole family unit to have the same name (this is also for practical reasons, as any woman who has gone through passport control with a young child who has a different surname than her own can tell you). Some of them may drop their own surnames altogether. Others may chose to hyphenate them with their husband’s.

It really depends on the woman in question and what she thinks works best for her. And that is exactly how it should be.

Which is why I refuse to join the Brigade of Outraged Feminists attacking Sonam Kapoor Ahuja with brickbats and pitchforks because she chose to change her name. She could style herself as Princess Consuela Bananahammock for all I care. It’s her life. It’s her decision. It’s her choice. It’s her name.

And it is nobody’s business but her own.

  

What's in a name?

Whether she uses her father’s surname or her husband’s, it is the woman who matters

A fortnight ago, in solidarity with a recently-married friend who was getting grief from her in-laws about not changing her last name to that of her husband’s, I tweeted, “If a woman chooses to retain the surname she was born with, it is her choice surely? Why should anyone else get their knickers in a twist?” It is a testament to our highly politicized times that most people chose to read this as ‘spirited defence’ of Priyanka Gandhi and her decision to be known as ‘Gandhi’ rather than ‘Vadra’.

This was such a bizarre extrapolation, that I didn’t quite know how to respond. First off, Priyanka Gandhi (or Vadra, if you will) was nowhere on my inner radar when I wrote this. I was purely motivated by the irritation of my friend who didn’t quite know how to get her in-laws off her back; and by my annoyance that in the 21^st century, such an absurd demand was being made of a woman. And then there was that other minor detail: that Priyanka Gandhi had, in fact, embraced the surname Vadra as her own from the moment she got married.

I was a witness to that at a diplomatic reception held soon after. Introduced to an American diplomat as “Priyanka Gandhi” she shook her head firmly and said, “It’s Priyanka Vadra now.” And that’s how she has chosen to style herself ever since. Which is why I have been mystified by the fact that Smriti Irani has been getting flak about addressing Priyanka as “Mrs Vadra” during her campaign in Amethi. Irani may well be doing it to make a political point, but my guess is Priyanka doesn’t regard being called by her married name as some sort of mortal insult.

But the kind of responses that my tweet elicited got me thinking about the politics of changing surnames after marriage. On the whole, women from famous political families don’t tend to do that. Benazir Bhutto may have tagged on Zardari after her name but she would always be known by the name of her famous father. The Aung San in Suu Kyi’s name comes from her father; the Burmese leader has never been known as Mrs Aris (after her English husband, Michael). Chelsea Clinton is still known as ‘Clinton’ rather than by her married name of ‘Mezvinsky’. And no matter how many times Priyanka may say she is ‘Mrs Vadra’ the only people who refuse to address her as ‘Gandhi’ are her political rivals.

But even outside of the sphere of politics, the politics of name-changing rules. Adopt your husband’s surname when you get married and the feminist brigade looks down upon you as a traitor to their cause. Keep the surname you were born with and the traditionalists frown upon your choice. (Both Hillary Rodham and Cherie Booth were forced by the demands of electoral politics in USA and the UK to restyle themselves as Hillary Clinton and Cherie Blair.) If your birth surname is a famous one (like Bhutto or Gandhi, for instance) you are accused of trading on your lineage. If your husband’s last name is more famous than yours (Murdoch rather than Deng) then your name change is put down to opportunism.

No matter what choice you make, which name you adopt, or which one you keep, there will always be someone on the sidelines cribbing about it, and sidling up to tell why you have got it completely wrong.

Actually, now that I think about it, that’s a pretty darn perfect metaphor for being a woman, isn’t it? There is always a ready supply of people to tell you how you should be living your life: when you should get married; at what age you should have children; how long you must breast feed them; how to best balance work and family; how to please your husband; how to keep the in-laws happy; and so on.

The only way to retain your sanity in the midst of this avalanche of (often contradictory) advice is to let it wash over you, and then go ahead and do exactly as you please. And that applies to name changes as well. Stick with your maiden name if that’s what works for you. Take your husband’s surname if that feels right to you. Add his surname on to yours to make a double-barreled name of your own. Call yourself Bananahammock if you like. Work with whatever works for you.

I don’t think retaining your birth surname is the equivalent of making some sort of feminist statement. Equally, I don’t think taking on your husband’s last name is a blow to the feminist cause. Either way you are adopting a man’s name as your own: either your father’s or your husband’s. But what you need to remember is this: no matter which name she goes under, at the end of the day, it is the woman who matters.