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‘What’s your mother’s maiden name/ surname?’ is one of the most popular questions for passwords. The very question reveals a lot. Why is a mother’s surname (or maiden name) asked as a security question in the first place? The answer is obvious — because her name is supposed to remain unknown as it doesn’t figure in the child’s records.
Right from the child’s birth certificate to their ID card and certificates, the mother’s maiden name doesn’t appear anywhere except in some exceptional cases.
And these exceptional cases happen when the mother is a single parent, the child chooses to add the name after they grow up, or in some, rare cases, the ‘progressive’ father agrees to give the mother’s name/ surname along with his own.
There are matrilineal communities where the family names are traditionally inherited from the mothers. But then they are few and far between.
She is the first ℅ address for the baby.
The first hospital file of the baby says, “Baby of (the mother)”. This gives a sense of pride to the woman because the baby belongs to her before it belongs to anyone else.
Alas, that recognition of belongingness lasts only until the baby is named. While astrologers and elders in the family are consulted to select a name, the mother is not asked if she likes to add her name/ surname to the baby’s.
How did the father earn that right?
The baby is usually named in the first year, if not in the first few months. By then, the father must have done little in nurturing the baby. So, how does the father earn that right to name the child while the mother is conveniently ignored? The question seems laughable because the right is not earned but bestowed on men.
Haven’t we heard of stories where kings and the rich adopted a boy for the sole purpose of taking forward the family legacy? Why even go into history. The legacy-bearing privilege is one of the reasons for the preference of boys to girls.
What about the mother’s natural privileges?
The mother’s privileges are natural because giving birth is a power bestowed on her by nature. But, unfortunately, while the pain, sleepless nights, and pregnancy marks last long, her entitlement to call the baby with her name/ surname is short-spanned.
Why should it be short-spanned? Because the predominantly patriarchal society thinks so. In fact, the norm of taking the father’s name is so imbibed that not even women realize that they have an equal right in the naming.
Never acknowledged by men nor demanded by women.
It has never been easy for women to get their rights. Be it the right to vote, drive, study, and shamefully, the right to live, they got them only when they fought for them. However, the right to lend their name to their children did not get the attention it should have, even among the educated.
People from the previous generation may not have filled their mother’s name in their school/ university forms, but now the schools ask for the mother’s name, occupation, and other information. This is a happy change, but there is only so much to it.
Similarly, some couples have been consciously adding the mother’s name to their children. But it is too soon to call it a trend. In such cases, too, the man is lauded for his ‘magnanimity’. Such men do need to be appreciated, but the point is, why can’t a woman’s name become a part of the child’s name just as organically as a man’s does?
One apparent reason for using the paternal family name was primarily because the father was the breadwinner. But the societies have changed, and the current financial demands require women to win a part of the family’s bread.
Therefore, this is the right time for women to demand what has been due for generations.
Women need to drive the change.
It is preposterous to expect or demand the governments to pass laws to this effect because the change should evolve from within people. That needs to be driven by women themselves. Remember, we won’t get it unless we fight for it. While the entry to a temple or wearing clothes we like might feel liberating, the real liberation lies in deeper issues. And that brings me to a different subject.
— Bhavana Navuluri
