Feminist Parenting: Whose surname does the child inherit?
Growing up as a girl in a predominately traditional Ndebele family has always made the identity question of great interest for me, long before I knew big concepts like feminism.
I am the second of four girls, and as far as I can remember my parents were always encouraged to keep on trying for one more baby even after my little sister was born.
Even as little girls we were perceived as people who would find their identity in the men who would marry us someday. My parents were constantly reminded that we don’t belong to them (we never do but in this case, the reason was that we are girls).
They needed to have a boy child who would carry the family name. This narrative around identity bothered me and it made me question why we did things the way we did.
For example, why my mom’s identity was erased in our lives, little things like referring to my paternal grandparents home as ‘kithi’ then my maternal as ‘kibo mamakho’ bothered me.
Little did I know that the very dynamics would catch up with me when I became a mother. I knew that my pregnancy would be political in many ways, especially because my partner also comes from a traditional Ndebele family.
It was obvious that reconciling our worldview with that of our elders would be a challenge. As soon as we announced our pregnancy it was no longer about just the two of us anymore. Our families met to discuss matters of ‘inhlawulo’, the traditional act where an unmarried man pays an amount of money set by the family of the woman he falls pregnant with as a form of lobola to have access to the child because we had a child out of wedlock and I hated the entire process from start to finish for various reasons.
Firstly, I understand the concept of inhlawulo but disagree with its significance as far as I’m concerned because I do not know what was/is ‘damaged’ in me that needed compensation from my partner's family.
Secondly, I disliked how the entire process was overseen exclusively by men. I remember my mom joked about how the men who set the price don’t even know how much a package of pads cost.
The final straw for me was not understanding at that time that ukuhlawula was some form of womb tax. It was the buying of my daughter’s identity.
Before my daughter was born her father and I agreed that we were going to register her with both our surnames, I felt strongly about wanting my daughter to be in touch with her maternal lineage and my partner respected that.
So, after giving birth we went to Home Affairs with the hope of registering her with a double surname and we were denied this option for reasons that had nothing to do with us. My question was there are celebrity men who use double-barrel surnames such as (Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, Dingaan Mokebe-Khumalo, Sello Maake ka Ncube) to name a few, so, why couldn't they allow us to do that for our daughter.
I was asked that when my daughter marries will she have three surnames and I recall the confused look on their faces, it was like we were out of our minds to even make that kind of request.
I asked how they knew if she'll even want to marry, let alone if she'll even want to change her names. I wasn’t even arguing for the sake of it, I know that even with me, I have no aspirations of changing my last name after I get married. That whole back and forth made me realise how our systems hold us back even when we want to choose differently.
To be honest, there’s no room for different options. I envy how homosexual couples and their children enjoy the freedom to determine their names as symbols of identity. It’s beautiful how their children grow up to identify their parents as partners because it reflects even in their names.
To this day we haven’t managed to resolve this complexity. Culturally I’m seen as being difficult for no reason because the father of my child and his family honored their responsibility, inhlawulo was paid.
When she was born they did a small ceremony to introduce her to their ancestors. So for her paternal family and the elders in my family, it doesn’t make sense for me to want my child to inherit my surname.
This experience has made me wonder what is this obsession our cultures have with identifying children solely by their father's last names? I know that the shaping of identity is deeper than just a surname. I know my daughter will have her journey of understanding, discovering, and deciding on her identity but I’m interested to know how do other parents like me navigate this aspect of parenting.
Whose surname does the child inherit and why? One day when my daughter asks me why she is a Nduli instead of Mahlangu I want to be able to clearly articulate the ‘why’ instead of dismissing her with ‘this is how it has always been done.‘I know I’ve been dissatisfied with a lot of ‘answers’ my parents have given me, I want to do better.
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