Redefining marriage like Galileo redefined the orange.

[seborn]

I came home after working all day, for my own money, to find my lovely and talented spouse cooking me dinner. He shared with me a story of having run into the letter carrier today, who asked when the big day was and, on being told it had been in August, said "Oh! She's kept her name then!"

We're kind of fans of non-traditional marriage. So we sat

Comments

[zenala]

Just minor quibble, if I recall from the paper I did on the topic back when, Mississippi was one of the first (or the first?) state to recognize married women's property rights... The South was ahead on this for aristocratic reasons, from what I could tell... (I'm going to see if I can dig up a cite on that...)

[zenala]

http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/lesson17.html
Mississippi, "Married Women's Property Act of 1839"
(And, yeah, one of those things where the moral lesson of history is messy--the main point of the law was allowing women to inherit slaves from their fathers...)

[allonymist]

My apologies! I mistyped the 8.

[seborn]

And yet, the responsibility for blithely cutting and pasting the text (and failing to catch it in the final editing pass on both versions) is entirely mine!

[photonsrain]

We're leaving at 12:45 from across the street if you want to join us.

[spacehawk]

Your name did not automatically change to his, either.

My property law prof (born in the mid-40s) would tell her horror story about this to the class- they made her sign an extra form (and pay an extra fee) to change her name back after they signed the marriage certificate at City Hall.

[sethg_prime]

If allonymist predeceases you, you are not entitled to a statute-defined portion of his estate.

[nakor]

Er. I think she is. Certainly all the 401(k), 403(b), and life insurance paperwork I've seen says that I need my spouse's permission to designate anybody else the beneficiary.

[sethg_prime]

My recollection is that if you choose someone else to be your primary beneficiary, your spouse has to certify that he or she knows this is happening, but the spouse doesn't actually have to give permission. But I could be remembering wrong.

Anyway, this is still different from the old dower law, in which the widow was automatically entitled to (a life interest in) one-third of her deceased husband's real estate.

[laurens10]

This is awesome in so many ways. Thank you!