(Photo above: Eventually everything came up right, we are still together, partially because my wife was happy with the legal freedom in chosing her name, freedom which indicates equality. A moment after the ubiquitous "yes, I do")
Ayshe Ozgun is a colleague who I never met in person. When writing she appears to be a lady of a quick-silverish mind using a razor-blade of a pen.My very strong cup of tea. The other day she reminded me of the instant, long 43 years ago, when my wife, on our wedding day, needed to answer the question whether she was going to keep her family name during marriage, will adopt mine as hers or will add my family name to hers. The registrar's office was packed. Some 50 or 60 relatives, friends, witnesses and officials were awaiting her answer. She was not even 20, barely half a year after high-school graduation. All our schoolmates were there. It was early January and there were no flies for their buzz to fill the air. The silence, which seemed to me an eternity, swell with expectation.
And now, again in January, in Istanbul, I was faced with Ayse's disbelief along these same lines.
(This was the tense moment: what name will the bride carry in future?)
"I cannot understand our lawmakers. She wrote. As if every problem in our country is solved, as if every possible law has been passed and everything is hunky-dory in our land - the gentlemen (of the Mejlis, the Great Assembly of Turkey) are in process of preparing a law that will prohibit women from using their maiden name along with their husband's surname".
She finds this foolish and beyond words.
I, for one, fully understand her anger.
It is not only the patriarchal or the tribal societies that attach(ed) a lot (especially morals, ethics, ethnicity, political affiliation, dexterity, general human values, reliability, honor, wealth, social standing - you name it) to the "family name". The capital of Macedonia, Skopje, was a 60,000 strong township at the time and, practically, everybody knew everybody. The law which allowed "double surnames" was allegedly passed (so my wife tells me now, while I write this post) only during 1962.
(Everything nicely set and fixed and signatures placed and time for a party. Photo by Tomislav-Bucki Dimovski
A collective sigh of relief was heard in the office when Maca (pronounced "Ma-tsa") declared that she was going to add my family name to hers. That is how she became Cvetkova-Popova. The two different families, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews with their nuanced places on the genealogical tree, got a message that through such a choice the new generation treats all equally, err, close or distant. There are of course those who insist on imposing one family name (the husband's) irrelevant whether "one side" was studded with professionals and professors and the other with craftsmen and housewives. Those subtleties are well known everywhere: you at least need much reminding about the consequences, governmental or parliamentary actions related to the question of the "family names" and choices. Ayse Ozgun believes that the Mejlis must not revoke the possibility now enjoyed by the Turkish women: they must be free to add their husband's name to their own, father's family name. "What harm did the use of two family names ever do to anyone asks, rethorically, Ayse Ozgun?
My uninvolved self also believes that if the next step the lawmakers take is to scrap the ban on the Turkish women wearing the headscarf or chador (equalize them with the rights of Muslim women in few of the the EU member-states) then the damage would be instantly felt and the land will make one huge step backwards, probably never to reach this tremendously liberating secular level again. If the choice of "two surnames" is scrapped the effect will be the same but will be visible latter.
Any combination of two surnames in Malatya, Bodrum, Afyon or Konya (that is the real Turkey) just like in Bitola, Strumica, Ohrid or Veles (that is real the Macedonia) tells or at least I remember that it told a lot.

Short six months after our marriage a devastating earthquake shattered Skopje and our lives took unexpected turns. We both needed to shelter and study, for a year, in other lands. During the Yugoslav gigantic determined effort to bring the place, with international help, back from the open grave, Skopje exploded to some 500,000 population. It was suddenly full with people from far and further away and they brought in totally meaningless "family names". Things changed.
One moment you think you are coming closer to civilization and the next you notice to have backed 10 paces-says Mrs. Ozgun, and concludes:

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