World News for Students of English

21-02-2022 07:00

The tradition for heterosexual couples in the US is women take their husbands’ last names after they get married. However, nontraditional decisions are happening more often.

In many cultures around the world, women typically add their husbands’ last names to their own. According to a 2019 survey, just 3% of American men changed to their wives’ last names, and that’s why there’s no male equivalent for the term ‘maiden name’.

In the US, some couples do a combination of their last names. They like the idea of individual and family identities and how to combine the two. However, they still respect the family name to publish professionally.

In the 2010s, around 22% of married women kept their last name after they got married, and most of them were highly educated, high-earning, and established in their careers.

Difficult words: heterosexual (a person who’s sexually attracted to people of the opposite sex), equivalent (a thing that’s the same or equal to something else), maiden name (the original last name of a married woman, who uses her husband’s last name after their marriage).

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