Quote:
Originally Posted by Attila's Wife
The way I see it, the ONLY time this might be acceptable is if the wife's father is enormously wealthy, has no son to carry on his name (either through having had an UnGodly wife who bore him only daughters, or through his sons dying in war or by accident) and if he is unreasonably making this a condition of leaving his wealth to his son-in-law.
In this case, Colossians 3:20 applies:
Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.
So a hyphenated surname might be acceptable here - although of course, once the wife's father is dead and the funds have been transferred, the couple should revert to the husband's name.
YiC
AW
|
There is a precedent. Queen Victoria was not in penury as far as I'm aware owning a goodly chunk of the world and milking it for all she was worth. Well, that
is what she was worth. Yet when she married she took her husband's name: in that capacity she was Mrs Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
Admittedly that is a triple-barrelled name but a far cry from O'Shannessy-Mbongo.
What happened next? Well, things chugged along OK, Edward
VII kept his father's name, married a Danish princess, dressed modestly (for an Anglican), enjoyed manly sporting activities and stuff. Until for some reason it was decided to drop that moniker and switch to Mountbatten-Windsor.
Now admittedly this is better than Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg but regardless of whether subsequent progeny adopted their father's or mother's surname there seems to have been a migration away from horse racing, cigars and other associated activities, towards communication with daffodils, petunias and for all I know nasturtiums (which do make a rather zippy soufflé, excellent served with gin).
I think we all know what I'm referring to.
At once we realize that dashing princes nevertheless are possible. Out there in Afghanistan fighting the dreadful musselman, yomping o'er hill and dale, wearing his father's name with pride nasturtiums notwithstanding. Harry Windsor is good enough for him and didn't he do well in Jamaica recently? Excellent historical sensibilities in fancy dress, manly activities well to fore.
I'm not offering any sort of opinion here you understand, but moving from the quadruple-barrelled to the triple-barrelled (her husband's) surnames, then on to the double-barrelled (with some intrusion of the female line) replete with floral dialogue and back to the simple patrilineal does seem to track quite specific behaviours. And on the plus side I must point out that none of these greenhouse flowers seem risk averse.
We do need an elite, after all.