Let me decide my surname

I had just completed my graduation in Chemistry Honors when I lost my father. My mother says that I am a shadow of him, especially in nature. His habit of speaking the truth and being himself is in every bit of me. I don’t know if my readers believe it, but if I am compelled to speak even a meagre lie to save a situation, I feel like a criminal. No I am no great saint, I am just me, and this is the way I am. I believe that men and women get married to have a partner of happiness and grief throughout life. They eventually besides being a couple, become friends, confidant and much more. The institution of marriage, I believe is not to declare that we women are now transferred from the hands of our fathers and brothers to our husbands. And if it means so, I defy it. So what’s the justification of a girl changing her surname after marriage? At least it should be left to the woman, to choose to do it or not. Those who are willing they should and those who are not should be left to themselves.

Today’s modern women is self-reliant, she takes care of herself and her family’s monetary needs. But that does not make her less compassionate towards her family. Inside all women love to play the custodian of their household. Hence you will find little girls playing with dolls and houses, but little boys prefer cars. That’s a basic difference between a guy’s and girl’s thought process. And again its fine, everyone is free to behave their way. So today’s woman makes a tough choice to balance her household and profession. Here I must mention, that a compassionate male partner can always make the situation easier, and today’s men mostly do their bit to comfort the ladies in their lives. So eventually we fall back to where we started from.  A married life is a compassionate partnership between the opposite sexes, where one completes the other. And a man is custodian to the lady as much as the lady is custodian to the man. So again the same question, why can’t both the partners be allowed to keep their origin’s intact through their individual maiden surnames?

After marriage I did not change my surname and kept my maiden surname “Chakrabarty” in all my documents. I feel it’s a bit of my Baba with me, it’s dear to me. My husband and in-laws are extremely open minded to understand the emotions attached. In fact my husband loved my decision. I feel fortunate to have him in my life. And my keeping my maiden surname does not make him less important to me, in fact he is the reason for me to smile and he means the world to me. But I use both the surnames in my blogging “Aritra Chakrabarty Sengupta” and the reason is again the same, Chakrabarty is a bit of Baba and Sengupta for the man who told me you write well enough to bring your narratives to the world. My pillar of being. At last I want to conclude changing of surname after marriage should be left to woman to decide, it should never be enforced. And her decision should be respected.

Aritra Chakrabarty Sengupta

(Avishek thanks for being with my decision)