Our request to the GEO:

1. Make it a legal requirement that all organisations & banks recognise all marriage certificates as proof of marital name change, not just those who are changing to their partners name.

2. Stop charging parents and children for changing their name to their mothers maiden name. It is on their birth certificate - make it their right to choose their family name.

Please sign the petition. For more information, please read on. 

My Question to the GEO is this: Why do we all have to pay for a choice outside of the traditional, patriarchal system?  We ask that you make our choice of marital name free of charge & legal - as it is if we were to choose 'his family name'. It's the same for everyone - if you take his name then it's FREE but if you want to keep your maiden name by double barreling or adding your maiden name as a middle name, you're advised to change it by deed poll & still .gov website says that deed polls aren't always accepted & advises to pay £36 to officially register, as if it is a completely made up name. This puts your 'new' name in the London Gazette- why on earth..?

Organisations & banks don't have to recognise our marriage certificate as a legal change of name as they do if you're just taking your partners name - why not?

We choose my fiancés mothers maiden name - why should either of us have to pay? Private organisations shouldn't have the right to deny our marriage certificate as legal evidence of our marital name change because it differs from the patriarchal norms. The patriarchal system enforces women to change their names to their husbands at marriage & by being the only 'free' way of changing your marital name. Because of this, the government should allow children to take their mothers maiden name as their own without having to pay to sign official registers of change. Some parents have to pay £210 to get their ex-partner to court in the first place to agree to the name change.

Please sign the petition to change this inequality.

My Story - There is no patriarchal default for same-sex marriage surname change. I'm organising my same-sex female marriage (all those estranged family/friends - catch up) so this morning was all about researching - what legally happens to our surname? It obviously doesn't make sense for us to both effectively swap & take each others family names, but if we want anything other than the patriarchal default of taking each others name then we have to pay for some other official document to get the all clear everywhere.  *Traditionally I would be taking my husbands surname. More specifically his father's family name. So should I take my fiancés family name or should she take mine? How do we choose? If we double barrel our names then *traditionally his would be last but there is no HE here. *Tradition is written all over this deed-poll info page & it looks like it's traditionally all about him & his.

We aren't taking our father's family names we're taking my mother-in-laws maiden name. It was my idea for two reasons:

1. My fiancé is very close to her mother & her mother's family in Papua New Guinea - we're planning a long stay over that side of the world ASAP.

2. Not only did her mother lose her maiden name but she also lost her PNG citizenship when she married a (lovely) Yorkshire man & moved with him & their young family to the UK  - You still can't get duel nationality with PNG (another Change.org to go!) - So it would be nice to continue her family name here in the UK.

I was expecting we might need to provide evidence of my mother-in-laws maiden name along with our marriage certificate, to prove that it is a family name, or that my fiancé might need to change her name first so that I could then take her name when we get married (as heterosexual couples are advised re: double barrelling) but no - the UK Deed Poll Service just advised that we both need to change our name & request to change our title to Mrs. 

To summarise my long rant.. If you get married & take the patriarchal default surname then its FREE, anything ‘untraditional’ like double barreling or taking your mothers maiden name & you have to pay. In our case - two women, you both need to pay.  Please sign our petition for the sake of equality for all when choosing our marital names.