Another name for true love

By REBECCA WALSH

In March, April Ieremia became April Bruce.

Taking her new husband's name was never an issue for the 34-year-old television sports presenter, who is one of several high-profile women who have opted to take their husbands' names when they marry.

For years women have chosen to take their name into marriage, but is the pendulum swinging back to a more traditional approach?

When she married Andrew Bruce, the former Silver Fern netballer had no qualms about her decision.

"I have to admit I was really looking forward to changing my name. I'm traditional in my outlook, and I have this sense of family above everything else, really.

"With he and I getting married, I just thought it would create a greater oneness, or greater unity.

"From the outset, even when he asked me to marry him, it wasn't an issue."

The decision generated different reactions among family and friends.

Her family, who share the same traditional values, were happy about it, although they were a little sad to see go the Ieremia, "which is quite pretty".

Women tended to be opposed to it, and most of the people who said, "Good on you" were men.

"One friend couldn't understand why I would do it. 'You have a name that is well known, then all of a sudden you change it.'

"She was saying it was a symbol of independence.

"I said I was independent enough as myself, I don't need the name to add to it."

Dr Annabel Cooper, head of Otago University's gender and women's studies programme, says it wasn't until the 1960s and 70s that women started to keep their names as a way of asserting their identity.

She remembers having to explain to a number of people of her parents' generation why she was keeping her name after she married in 1990.

"They thought, 'Oh, because you've got a job and a career you want to keep your own name'.

"They saw it as something you needed to have an excuse for rather than something you could just do."

But she says the fact that women tend to marry much later than they did a generation ago - the average age of marriage is now 29 - has also played a big part.

"In the 50s and 60s, lots of people were marrying in their late teens and around 20 ... but because women now have much longer work lives before children and marriage, people have full lives established before they marry and that is quite a lot of identity to have to reinvent."

No figures or research support any impression of a swing back to women taking their husband's names, but Dr Cooper believes there is a widespread view that all the battles for women have been won.

"There is a sense that changing your name is a choice that doesn't have much meaning, and maybe it doesn't.

"If I were to say is it important we get those symbolic things right, like name changing, or that we get the poverty statistics right, I would definitely say work on the poverty statistics."

She wondered whether there was a growing nostalgia for the idea of the family.

Dr Jenny Coleman, head of Massey University's women's studies programme, supports this view.

She believes people are craving some sort of security, and one way of achieving that is to go back to the values of older generations.

While it could be as straightforward as people wanting to simplify their lives and avoid complicated double-barrelled names for their children, she believed women were also under pressure not to be seen to rock the boat.

Some felt that going by their husband's name was more acceptable.

"I do wonder if one of the ways women can achieve, or think they might achieve, more in what is still a male-dominated business world, for example, is to be seen not to challenge the status quo in terms of defined gender roles."

In April Bruce's case, Television New Zealand was keen to maintain Ieremia as it was a brand that had taken years to establish.

But the presenter was adamant about making the change.

She hasn't received any feedback about confusion over who she is.

It has also cut out any difficulties with pronunciation and spelling.

Although it took a few weeks to adjust to the new name -on the odd occasion she introduced herself on radio using her maiden name - she has settled into being Mrs Bruce.

"I think the best thing about all of it is you have got the choice."