I cannot believe that a man who makes a choice and who isn't harming anyone else by taking his wife's name when they got married recently would evoke death threats by some deranged dudes.
It boggles the mind that some men are so insecure or hate women so much they think such a choice by a man they don't know can be seen as "emasculating." It shows me just how destructive the way we bring up children to think women and girls are so "icky" and "gross" that anything they do is seen as inferior to men.
People like to pretend that the decision to change your name after marriage is a purely personal choice — no more controversial than, say, the decision to get married in Summer or Spring or in a church or a garden.
But this is only the case if couples make the conventional "choice" and the woman changes her name.
Even if women make the "free" and "personal" choice not to take their husband's name after marriage, research tells us that this decision affects the couple's perceived status, with people assuming that the man is weak and the woman is a ball-breaker.
If, like Grant Phillips and his wife, couples subvert the convention even further with the man taking the woman's name, well then they better bunker down for the brutal backlash.
Why would these men — and yes all the abusive messages sent to Phillips were written by men — take time out of their day, and waste the keystrokes and the blood vessels abusing someone they don't know for doing something that doesn't affect them?
Heaven forbid any man treat a woman like a human being and not a possession and actually show respect for her, even honoring her and her family of origin.
