Changing Your Name:

Many women nowadays are becoming interested in changing their names or in keeping their single names after they marry. This trend indicates women's own identities are becoming important to them. Women are seeing themselves as people, with pasts and futures. likes and dislikes, and most importantly, with aspira. tions for themselves. They are no longer accepting without question the definition of mere appendage to a more important being.

Name change is a means to reinforce this consciousness of identity. Historically, as during early sufferage activities, there were those women who would not give up their maiden names when entering matrimony, or who insisted that the names of each par ty be joined to form a new, hyphenated name that both parties would use in the future. More recently, as women's expectations for fulfillment in marriage have come more strongly in conflict with the male societal expectation that a wife should stay home, take care of the children and be grateful for the roof over her head, there has been a soaring increase in divorce and a parallel increase in women choosing to return to their maiden names. This has become so common that under Ohio law, the Domestic Relations judge has the legal power to effect the return to maiden name as part of the divorce decree. (If you are presently in the process of divorce, you can request that your lawyer include a paragraph to return you to your maiden name If you are doing your own divorce, you can call Cleveland Women's Counsel. 321-8585, for the wording and location of the paragraph necessary to ac complish this change.)

My own decision to choose Rainbrook was a long and somewhat involved undertaking. Early in the process of change, it was clear to me that I wanted a name that invoked a water image. Water has always affected me very powerfully. When it rains a hard, steady downpour at night. I sleep really well. The ocean and the Great Lakes are fairy-tale mysteries for me and remind me of my own unimportance in the grand scheme of things. And who would not wish to be like a river, steadily flowing where it needs to go. sometimes beautiful, sometimes drab, sometimes calm and sometimes wildly excited, but always going where it needs to go. Quietly, powerfully. Nothing that can really hold it back, only slow it down. I liked the image.

But there are a vast number of words relating to water. Somehow, "Judy River" did not invoke the image I was looking for. "Riverwoman" looked better, but I found it difficult to pronounce and the image I associated with it was a woman poling a raft on top of the water, not being a part of it.

Writing to my mother once, I shared my dilemma. She reminded me that water took many forms besides rivers, such as snow, brooks, oceans, rain, etc. And out of this thinking suddently popped "Rainbrook". It felt right. I tried it on for awhile, writing it, getting the people I worked with to call me by that name for a month. I liked it.

All I had to do then was change. A little investigation uncovered the fact that Ohio allows a "common law" name change: that is, you do not need to go to court. You just start using the new name everywhere. The only prohibition is if you are changing your name for fraudulent purposes. like trying to avoid a bad debt.

So I started firing off letters everywhere-Board of Elections. my car and life insurance companies, credit card companies, relatives, my. bank, my magazine subscriptions. I ran into only one stumbling block. Over a period of months, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles refused to let me change my driver's license. I began to fear I was going to have to resort to a court of law, but I held out. Armed with the ACLU pamphlet. "How to Keep Your Single Name After Marriage", which quotes legal references from Ohio law pertaining to common law name change. I dispatched a letter to the Director of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. questioning the refusal to grant my name change, asking for a change in policy. and also asking for a letter from him supporting my right to change my name in this manner.

An Identity You Can Live With

There are, however, an increasing number of women who desire to change to entirely new names, because they themselves have changed from who they were in the past. This was my case. After my divorce, I wished to retain neither my married name nor my maiden name. Both names represented for me bondage, insignificance as an individual and the expectation others needs were more important than my own. I decided to change my name.

There was a considerable period of time that elapsed between the decision to change and the actual change. Part of this was spent finding information on how one legally executes a name change. But most of the time was spent deciding on what kind of name fitted with who I was attempting to become. This is, of course, the most important and exciting part about changing one's name and I advise that you do it slowly. Try a name on for awhile, write it down, see if it fits, ask your friends to refer to you that way for awhile. Changing your name should not be done hastily but with time for introspec

tion and testing. You will want a name that does more than fit your present mood. You want a name that will mellow and age well with you. Probably you will want a name that is not so strange that it requires continual explanations to new acquaintances. And if you have a touch of the poet in you, or, in my case, if you are slightly tongue-tied, you will want a name that flows easily off the tongue.

Having once gotten up the courage to write. I was prepared to make an extended legal battle of it With the height of anti-climax, three weeks later, a letter arrived supporting my right to change my name. signed by the Director himself I really had not heen prepared to succeed so easily, but I took the letter to the Drivers' License Bureau. where I left a copy for their files and had my license changed

That is all there was to it! So all you women (and men) out there who have always wished you had a more forceful, or more poetic, or more convenient name, now is the time to start doing something about it Rainbrook

Women's Spirituality: Working Both Ways (for Clare)

She exercised her psychic power and hanged herself on Friday the 13th, Moy, 1977. No ancient mother or kind witch to free her body. No goddess or high priestess to annoint her head.

The words of a wicca were. "Thirteen is a magical number.” But dead is dead and there is no magic in it.

No muses to sing at her side.

No pentacles to weave through her hair.

She left for another psychic realm alone, and hanged herself.

We are left with that fact and what we know of reasoning and meaning. and an life which moves in all directions.

"Thirteen is a magical number." But dead is dead,

there is no magic in it.

--pat tinkler

Rita Coriell in concert

Sometimes Oven Productions produces concerts that number, complete with cymbals and tympani, and are truly special -the Rita Coriell concert October 9 was musicians in full dress. Humor was a very important one of those occasions. The special quality was due, in part of this concert the opera number. the "Body part, to the fact that Rita has been living in Cleveland for Song", and "Edgewater Park". particularly. indicate quite a while and contributed tremendous energy to the that humor is definitely a part of women's culture that Cleveland women's community. This concert was a audiences appreciate. The humor here was nicely tribute to her as much as her sharing her music with us. balanced with great harmony and beautiful imagery in The first set clearly showed us how Rita acts on her songs such as "Mother Time" feminism with her music. Her recognition of and rapThe Oven Productions collective did a good job from port with the audience were established immediately by the production side the sound and lighting were her warm words to us when she stepped on stage. Her good, but did not distract. The audience left Allen "Purple Egg" number, with Jamie Hecker, brought out Memorial auditorium smiling and talking, a pretty good a very important part of her music Oven the participation of indication that positive things were going on. other musicians. The pace of the first set was wonder Productions is trying to bring us our own musicians, arfully varied by the variety of tempo and style among the tists, poets, on the local level. Let's hope that the same group of musicians who shared the stage. Chris Haynes quality and good feelings carry on to the next event. and June Adams were able to perform original songs as And, most importantly, more events that include local part of the concert this exposure and feedback is women will inspire more of us toward creating women's crucial to the development of our feminist artists. culture that we can all enjoy. 'The second set opened with a hilarious opera

Susan Woodworth

November, 1977/What She Wants/page 3