Elgan speaks
...and her words thunder across the land

My own question answered.

Tuesday, Jun. 29, 2004
10:43 a.m.
The results are in: we have a minority Liberal government with the Conservatives and the Bloc holding the balance of power, with a very healthy showing for the NDP. This invariably means that there will be another election within six months. As predicted, Mr. Pri�e did not hold onto this riding, but lost it to his Bloc adversary.

A propos yesterday�s question, I realized upon reading some of your replies that I never really answered it satisfactorily myself. It wasn�t a matter of not wanting to be considered �property� really, but it went much deeper (and shallower) than that. My own last name is a mere four letters long. Hubby�s is a lengthy nine. I am the major bill payer and cheque signer in the house, and I truly appreciate my brief signature (initial and last name = five letters). That�s the shallow reason. The deeper reason was suggested to me when I read harri3tspy�s entry.

My own last name reflects to a certain extent my ethnic origins while my husband�s is very indicative of his. We come from different ends of the Indo-European spectrum and I was not ready to be identified with his particular heritage, even though I have a great respect and admiration for it. I am Ashkenazi with an ounce or two of Sephardic (seeing as how my ancestors were originally kicked out of Spain by Queen Isabella, you remember, the one who financed Christopher Columbus� voyage to the Americas, which were not named for Columbus, but one of his shipmates, Amerigo Vespucci) Jewish and my husband is mostly Scottish, with a dollop of English and also a sprinkling of Spanish, although not the same group of Spaniards as yours truly. My father, if given a choice, would have been a Scot. He loved everything from the Highlands, but especially the music and had his Scottish medley that he played on the organ in the living room. I�m sure he had a great influence on me, because when Hubby and I crossed the border from New Brunswick into Nova Scotia on our honeymoon, with the piper playing The Road to the Isles outside the information booth, I felt as though I was coming home. The bagpipes affect me on a visceral level, bringing tears to my eyes. I meant that in a good way.

Actually, there�s an anecdote that goes very nicely here. We stayed in Cape North, at the very tip of Nova Scotia as you go around Cape Breton Island, and I decided it would be a good place to send postcards from, considering that Hubby�s family had vacationed there in his youth. So I went to the post-office which was run by a little old couple who had the same last name as the family into which I had just married, and they asked me to sign the guestbook. I hesitated, pen poised upon the page, because I was quite stymied as to what to actually sign. I explained my dilemma to my hosts, that since I had only been married for a few days I was unsure of what to call myself. They asked me what my new name was, and when I told them, the old guy took my hands in his and said, �Welcome, dear, welcome!�

So, having said all that, you might wonder why I didn�t leap to adopt this last name, since it reflects all that wonderful heritage. It wasn�t simply because it would have erased my own to people who did not know me by any other, but because the whole Christian trappings (especially Catholic) that went along with it were odious to me. I didn�t want to have any part of it, and so when people ask what we worship at home, I have to tell them that I am a Jewish-atheist and my children are godless heathens. Of course, I�ve never said that to my in-laws; that would bad form.

Anyway, I�ve had this name for a long time now and I�m quite used to it. It suits me. I�m short, it�s short. What started out perhaps as an act of defiance has in some ways come to describe my marriage. We are both very distinct individuals with strong personalities which are often at odds, but I will most often bend to the will of my husband when it comes to the really important decisions in life. We live here because that�s where he found work, but I will not allow him to put a grand piano in the dining room. The children received his last name at birth, but I got to pass on the mitochondrial DNA. So there.

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