Of Surnames, Cognomens and Monikers

I really don't want to be blogged down with the political ploy of the Samajwadi Party and the Congress in the-your-court-my-court-ball-throwing but would like to maintain that no "Gandhiji image" should be given to a twisted mind, a drug junkie and a criminal like Sanjay Dutt. He simply should not be "the one" to guide India in its democratic endeavors. Period!

I was busy all day "googling" up all the famous personalities and their surnames. Following is a small list:

Albert Koch (Einstein)
Isaac Ayscough (Newton)
Johann Sebastian Laemmerhirt (Bach)
William Arden (Shakespeare)
George Ball (Washington)
Thomas Randolph (Jefferson)
Johan Wolfgang Textor (Goethe)
Wolfgang Amadeus Pertl (Mozart)
Napoleon Ramolin (Bonaparte)
Ludwig Keverich (van Beethoven)
Abraham Hanks (Lincoln)
Charles Wedgwood (Darwin)
Charles Barrow (Dickens)
Karl Pressburg (Marx)
Sigmund Nathanson (Freud)
Charlie Hill (Chaplin)
Ernest Hall (Hemingway)


It's not a new information that in western society and in our part of the world the wife looses part of her personal identity (Feminists: Don't curse just read, part of her full name) through marriage as she takes on the family name of her husband. If she's famous before marriage, the family name of the husband usually gets (read: usually) gets ignored. So its only fair to all parties as dictated by reason and conscience to emphasize on the 50% of the polypeptide gene chain the mothers put in the mix to surname immortality. It's believed that the Chinese were the first to embrace surnames to honor their forebears, with the family name placed first, rather than last. Thus, the family or the surname name of Wei-Sheng Sun is Wei. When close knit communities comprised of just a few people, surnames weren't so important. They were simply known as for example, "Jesus of Nazareth". But as each small villages or communities started migrating and the village adopted more and more "Raj's," "Rahul's," "Geetha's" and "Sita's", the need was begged for a way to identify each from the other. In India according to the type of work they did, the Patel's, the Kumar's, the Gupta's, the Malhotra's etc came into being.

Now the names that identify the father are termed Patronymic surnames. Rarely, the name of the mother contributed the surname, which is referred to as Matronymic.

Here's something interesting which was followed until 1900

The first son was named for the father's father
The second son was named for the mother's father,
The third son was named after the father.
The fourth son was named after the father's eldest brother.
The first daughter was named after the mother's mother.
The second daughter was named after the father's mother
The third daughter was named after the mother.
The fourth daughter was named after the mother's eldest sister.

If a widowed mortal remarried (divorce was virtually unheard of) and had children with the new spouse, the first offspring of the same gender as the departed spouse was given the spouse's name. The same was in the case if a child in the family died, and then the next of that gender was given that name.

Isn't it romantic to be associated with your husband? Isn't it still the tradition of a girl joining up a "family" and be colligated with a name? I beg to be differed! What's happening with this world? Is marriage so casual an affair that women feel the urge not to change their names in the passport and other legal documents in the fear that after separation and divorce, it’s a mess changing it back?

Now a so called "traditional" Dilnawaz Shaikh, oops, Sara Khan, oops, Manyata (I simply don't have the right to sing, "alhar mast jawani…" in my mind and imagine the daring camera tracing human anatomies) added to the on going debate between-the-now-wannbe-politician, Sanjay Dutt and his Sister Namarata Dutt, when she told IANS: “If you can't accept your husband's name and family then why marry? And yet again, "Mrs. Indira Gandhi was married to Feroz Gandhi, someone not as famous as the Nehrus. But she didn't fight all those glorious battles as 'Indira Nehru'. And now Priyanka calls herself a Vadra after her husband (Robert Vadra), not a Gandhi.”

Sanjay Dutt said and I quote, “Women should not stick to their fathers' surname after marriage. It is disrespectful to their husbands. They must adopt their husbands' surname. I would have felt bad if Manyata had stuck to her father's surname," Poor Sanjay (The new MCP) had no idea that the Feminists (Sorry dear Mummy’s, Aunties and Sisters) are waiting to hear something like this utter out and that too in front of the media. A dog biting a man is no news however a man biting a dog is news!

Over reacting to Sanjay Dutt's remarks, our ever the more aspiring feminist (sorry again!) Minister Renuka Chowdhury (Women and Child Development) uttered out in sheer disgust, "Aspiring politicians like him should take some lessons on the constitutional rights of women before thinking of entering parliament." This is the same Renuka Aunty who one day on the national Television said speaking of the much one sided (sorry again!) Domestic Violence Act, “It is the men's turn to suffer" and yet again, "We will have cradles strategically placed all over the place so that people who don’t want their babies can leave them there"

Imagine that? You don't want a baby, just throw it away! In my judgment anything that will help palliate the foeticide curse is a good thing, but the quick mental imagery of "improvised garbage boxes" set up everywhere is kind of sickening. A child is a gift and not a dress you throw away if you don't want it. It’s a quiet hushed up truth that the SIFF (Save Indian Family Foundation) receives 200-350 calls from men per week for torture, forced to pay maintenance and for alleged dowry harassment. Of course, there are real cases but all the disgruntled women have to do is shed a few tears in the courtroom.

Women talk about rights, they talk about dignity and integrity and they talk about "being a Man, oops...being a Woman." They blame the Man if they become frustrated with life and the boredom in Marriage. They blame the Man when he comes dead tired from all the work in the office and too much time in the office and is not able to perform in bed. They blame the Man if he has a woman as friend and more the so if she's too friendly to call at home. They blame the Man if he's pathetic in the kitchen and cannot manage the Kids if she's not home. The list goes on... What they fail to understand is that HE is a Man and SHE's a Woman. Does that same Woman treat her kids, a boy and a girl the same? Is the boy in the kitchen, cutting vegetables while the Girl pulls up a jeans and wrestle with other boys? So let's have nature define roles in marriage. The man cannot nurse a child and provide milk but he can give a strong shoulder of support- Emotionally, Socially as a Father and a Man and finally financially, to the best of his ability.

Let not women grow out of the basic sense of ethics and tradition to enjoy the patronage and pamperment of radical women’s organizations, the helpless laws and the biased judiciary and the biased anti-men news seeking media who want to squeeze and rub out every possible drop of sensationalism from the fulcrum of the family. Let's all live together- caring, teasing and fighting, indulging and shouldering each other as we age and fall. God Bless!