Children’s Surnames, Moral Dilemmas

Gender and Society - Tập 24 Số 4 - Trang 499-525 - 2010
Colleen N. Nugent1
1Rutgers University

Tóm tắt

This content analysis examines online accounts of choices of marital and child surnames to understand the predominance of exclusively patrilineal surnames. I demonstrate how surnaming processes present the classic tension between commitment to self and others as moral dilemmas of self versus family, children, and spouse. Social and cultural mechanisms create an either/or exclusive framing and a false dichotomy where women’s selves and others’ needs are incompatible. I also show how some parents reconceptualize family, children, and expectations for men and women, which helps reconfigure dilemmas into a both/and inclusive framework and permits outcomes integrating self, family, children, and partnership. This study illustrates how maintaining a system that promotes giving fathers’ surnames to children as the only proper choice feeds the inertia of micro- and macro-structures that reflect and reinforce gendered differences in moral responsibility regarding self-sacrifice for family, children, and spouses.

Từ khóa


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Thông tin xuất bản

Gender and Society

Tập 24 Số 4

499-525

Thông tin tác giả