Future histories show this also. Nicholas van Rijn's generation was hedonistic. Van Rijn himself never married but had many mistresses and at least two children. However, in his granddaughter's generation:
"Coya Conyon...proudly followed a custom growing in her generation and now called herself Coya Falkayn..."
-Poul Anderson, Mirkheim IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 1-291 at Prologue, p. 14.
"They had both stopped space roving when their Juanita was born, because it meant indefinite absences from Earth. An older, more hedonistic, generation than Coya's had bred enough neurotics that she felt, and made her husband feel, children needed and deserved a solid home. And now she had another on the way."
-op. cit., Chapter I, p. 34.
10 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I have wondered when it became the custom for women to adopt the surnames of their husbands. After all that was not always the case. I think it was only as late as about 1600 that women began doing that in Britain/America.
Old Nick, for all his many very real virtues, was certainly hedonistic! And once in a while I think of how curiously at odds that seems with his very real Catholic piety.
Sean
People in most of Europe didn't have surnames until fairly late in the Medieval period -- it started with the nobility and worked its way down from there.
Eg., my father's mother's maiden name was "Uphill", a surname assumed in the 15th century because their farm in Wiltshire was "up-hill" from the parish church. My father did some research and found the family had been around there since Domesday Book or before -- as he put it, they might as well have been called "Baggins".
Women taking the husband's surname came in in the late Medieval to Renaissance periods, not long after surnames themselves, and was law from about 1500 (Henry VII's decree, IIRC). The practice spread to Scotland and Ireland a bit later.
Before then, Germanic-speaking people used a patronimic -- Aedgar Wulfsson (son of Wulf), for example. Women used their father's name with "daughter" tacked on; in Iceland, they still follow that system.
A surname system quite similar to the modern Western one has existed in China for a long time; in Japan, there was an eerily similar history to ours, with feudal nobles developing surnames, and then an extension to the common people.
BTW, it's recently been demonstrated that people in England with genuine Norman surnames, descended from the conquerors of 1066, still average higher education and income than those with Anglo-Saxon names.
Mr Stirling,
I believe that President Vigdis Finnbogadottir of Iceland was known only by her first name as if she were royalty.
Paul.
Dear Mr. Stirling and Paul,
Mr. Stirling: first, I did know of how Iceland still uses the patronymic naming system. And I knew surnames in the British islands started being widely used in late Medieval times. But not that Henry VIII REQUIRED women to adopt their husbands names.
Paul: amusingly, some of the REALLY old ruling families of Europe did not have surnames themselves till recently. I recall reading of how Edward VII inquired of the heralds what his surname was. After some research, they suggested "Wettin," because his father came from one of the Wettin branches ruling the Saxon duchies.
Sean
Sean,
Wasn't Edward VII a Saxe-Coburg?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, he was, from the Wettin branch ruling the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg. They descended from a branch which had remained Protestant after the Wettins of the much larger state of Saxony again became Catholics. But I don't think either the Catholic or Protestant Wettins used surnames till recently.
Sean
Noble and dynastic names usually started as references to a place -- you'd have the personal name, say Hugin, and you were lord of Outthere, so you'd be Hugin de Outthere. (Or 'von' in German-speaking areas). Eventually the name would become hereditary and decoupled from the location. This is why surnames started earlier among the nobility.
One reason the surname system became universal in Europe is that it makes it easier to keep track of people for administrative reasons. In the 18th century the remaining groups that hadn't adopted surnames were compelled to do so for that reason -- that was when Ashkenazic Jews got 'em, for instance. (Many Ashkenazic surnames are rather odd-sounding because they were imposed as "jokes" by antisemitic bureaucrats. Alternatively, they extorted bribes to -not- give a "joke" name.)
There are also the professions, Smith, Archer etc, which we discussed somewhere.
Dear Mr. Stirling and Paul,
'
Mr. Stirling: I agree! And a classic example, from France, is how the ancient ruling house, the Capetians, came to be called "Bourbons" from the dukedom of Bourbon held by that branch of the Capetians. The Capetians of the Bourbon branch came to the throne after the extinction of the senior branch of the Valois in 1589.
Paul: and don't forget the Butlers! (Smiles)
Sean
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