Maiden name or husband’s name?

Have you heard the old joke?

What is long and hard and you get it from your Polish husband on your wedding night? His surname!

Ha, ha, ha.

You cannot imagine how many times I have heard this stupid joke. I don’t even pretend to laugh anymore. My husband’s surname is not that long and not really that hard either, but I still decided to stick with my own name. Why? It is because I’m a strong, independent woman who doesn’t want to be enslaved by the patriarchy of society by being forced to take my husband’s name.

If you believe that then you don’t really know me. I’m just simply lazy. I got married in Poland so by law I would have to take the feminine form of my husband’s name and then go to court to request a name change to the masculine form. I wanted to have the masculine form that my husband has so that in our American ID’s, we would have the same name. Then I would have to change all my Polish ID’s and all my American ID’s. Get the picture? And did I mention that I’m lazy.

PS. Once while at the hospital after my 1st child was born, the nurses were calling for me by Mrs and my husband’s surname (because our children carry their father’s name). For a split second (ok, it was longer than that – I was kind of spacey after the birth), I looked around to check if my mother-in-law was there and wondered what they were calling her for.

Ladies, opinions???