The Telltale Hyphen

What’s Terri Schiavo’s full name? If the various legal documents I’ve seen posted online are correct, her full name is Theresa Marie Schindler Schiavo. This would fit into the common practice among married women to take their husband’s surname and make their maiden name a middle name. The reason I mention this is because I’ve been noticing more and more of her “defenders” refer to her as “Terri Schindler-Schiavo”. Now the motivation for awkwardly throwing her maiden name into the equation is pretty obvious, but here’s a semi-rhetorical question : Did Terri every use a hyphenated last name on her checks, bills, driver’s license, etc? Considering that the hyphen doesn’t appear in court records, it seems that the hyphen is an invention by those who want to draw a line of seperation (however slight it may be) between Terri and her husband. My mind boggles at the notion that the people who are the most vocal about respecting her wishes can’t be bothered to even refer to Terri Schiavo by her chosen name.


posted by greg on March 24, 2005 @ 2:29 pm

4 comments

  1. Oh, the irony. These are the same type of people who criticize me for not taking my husband’s name. Now they’re in favor of keeping one’s maiden name?

    Comment by Unstable Isotope — March 24, 2005 @ 4:48 pm

  2. Man, is there nothing they won’t encroach on? Damn those independent women–except when their innovations can be used to take away their right to self-determination.

    Comment by Amanda — March 25, 2005 @ 7:07 am

  3. Yeah, I noticed that this morning for the first time. Throwing the Schindler in as a middle name would have made slight sense, to draw the connection to the parents who obviously have a different last name.

    But adding the hyphen? First, it’s a fucking invention on their part. It didn’t appear anywhere that I’ve seen before and seems not to exist on any official documents. And as a commenter above notes, these same jackasses would probably normally look askance at any “independent, feminist” who would hyphenate their name. Of course hypocrisy isn’t stopping them trampling all over the sanctity of marraige in this case either.

    Comment by Mr Furious — March 25, 2005 @ 8:28 am

  4. This post just made me think of the civil union/gay marriage debate and the “sanctity of marriage.” What happened to that, I wonder.

    Comment by o — March 27, 2005 @ 4:57 pm

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