by Teri Hu

While Juliet may have believed the inconvenient surname of Montague did not define Romeo's identity, in America's multicultural collage, last names provide an important clue for social interaction. Sometimes surnames are misleading, as in the case of adoptees whose families are of a different ethnicity than their biological parents or in that of interracial marriages where the wife takes the husband's name, but the surname is still used -- rightly or wrongly -- by those looking for a quick and easy way to categorize people.

My husband and I have been together for fifteen years but eschewed legal marriage because we hold no faith in the institution. We were both children of divorce, so it was clear to us that marriage in and of itself was no guarantee of a lasting, meaningful commitment. Besides, the bond we share through our children brings us closer together than any government-issued license. We have a son who has Sam's last name, Gifford, and a daughter with mine, Hu. They were born five years apart. When I decided to give our second child my last name, it did not strike me as a particularly radical moveŠafter all, I was the one who had to suffer two uncomfortable pregnancies and over a hundred combined hours of labor, it seemed only fair that at least one of the kids had my name.

"But they won't really feel like brother and sister if they have different last names."

It's funny how otherwise enlightened, progressive people who would never dare question my right to choose an abortion somehow felt that they could question my naming practices. Hmmm, let's seeŠdo sisters renounce their relationship when one marries and takes on her husband's name? Or take cousinsŠare the ones on your mother's side less closely related than the ones on your father's side simply because they don't share a common surname? How about couples where the wife keeps her name but the kids have the husband'sŠdoes that mean she's not really their mother? Considering that no one blinks twice over the millions of women who shed their own families' names for their husbands', fretting over the possible damage different last names may do to my children's sibling bond seems like a deeply misguided concern.

Siblings forge their relationships from years of forced contact, competition and commiseration. Whether they're constantly bickering or the closest allies, they relate to each other based on their unique personalities and their home environment. Within the household, last names need never factor into the equation, as they never have in ours.

Sometimes, though, the outside world makes annoying assumptions about our relationships.

When our children attended the same elementary school for two years -- even though they were listed as each other's siblings on the emergency cards -- the office would frequently send us duplicate notices while families where the kids had the same last name would only receive one. I assume they used a database that matched last names and addresses and we just fell through the cracks. Oh well, it's their wasted postage.

Or the times I'd introduce the children to someone and this crass individual would ask, "Oh, so they have different fathers?" Believe it or not, the first time I heard this question was from the receptionist at the pediatrician's office. I think I'd be even more annoyed at this rudeness if the answer was "yes"; but regardless of the answer, it's still none of their business.

Society's biases about name assignments are clearest in the different assumptions people make about my husband's and my relationships with the children. Our son, for example, has an Anglo surname while mine is clearly AsianŠbut not once in nearly fourteen years has anyone questioned whether or not I'm his mother. Anglo male/Asian female couples are so common that my relationship to him doesn't faze anyone. It's "normal."

When my husband goes to our daughter's school, however, everyone does a double take when she calls him Daddy. With her Asian surname, people assume her father must also be Asian. Other parents have asked me if Sam was her stepfather, and there was even one little boy in the first grade that thought my daughter was playing a trick on him. He simply refused to believe Sam was her father even with all four of us standing there insisting that we were a "real" family.

These incidents would probably be less irritating if the kids didn't look *exactly* alike, but since they resemble each other so strongly, I have to assume that people are so hung up on the way things "ought" to be that they can't accept the evidence before their very eyesŠanyone who sees my kids together can see that they are full-blooded siblings. To assume otherwise simply because of their different last names shows just how deeply entrenched patriarchal values still are in our "liberated" society. All in all, though, I have to say that the repercussions of our naming decisions have been minimal. I'm happy to report that my kids fight over toys, trade Halloween candy, and argue about who has to take a shower first just like any other brother and sister. Although we are each individually a "Gifford" or a "Hu," together, the four of us form a family unit, the "Gifford-Hus," that is much more than the sum of our parts. And best of all, we don't have to worry about what to do with the hyphens in the long run.

After fifteen years of living in sin, Teri Hu still has no desire to enter the state of holy matrimony, largely because total strangers think she should. Even in the relatively progressive and tolerant metropolitan Bay Area where she lives, there are still plenty of narrowminded, judgemental wienieheads who like to butt into other people's lives. A stubborn and willful woman, it's a good thing Teri lives in the postfeminist era...four hundred years ago, she would've been burned as a witch.

Opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Alternatives to Marriage Project.