No More Thomas

As Willie Nelson wrote in " Turn out the Lights." " All good things must come to an end....."

No, I am not dying.

No, I am not ending the blog......Yet.

So, we have a cultural difference in our family, and well, there are things that are done in the Eastern World that we don't do, or really understand from a Western World point of view.

In China, the wives do not take their husband's last names. ( Surnames) And I know it is done more and more in our society....

But April, for all legal reasons is still Yu Zhao. ( Or as her parents call her, Zhao-Yu......Which, I call her more and more. If that is what her Dad calls her, Well, Dad in Law just goes there. )

So, she is not Mrs. Thomas, but rather, Mrs. Zhao.

The questions was brought up about children. Whose name do they receive?

They could get " double barrelled names."  Two last names.

A couple of examples-

 In Germany, double surnames are taken upon marriage, written with or without hyphen, combining the husband's surname with the wife's......These double surnames are "alliance names" (Allianznamen) and as such not heritable.

And there is a real possibility that the name may be done in a British tradition, a double surname is heritable, and mostly taken in order to preserve a family name which would have become extinct due to the absence of male descendants bearing the name, connected to the inheritance of a family estate.

And I can see the British tradition being done.

Both are only children. I am sure they are concerned about the "family name" in China more than we are.

So, the grandkids could be.

Zhao-Thomas.

Or Thomas-Zhao.

I don't have a problem with either.

It is no longer the 1800s. The world changes.