Let’s talk about conventions around Cardassian surnames. I’ve started pondering the question of whether Cardassians take their spouse’s surname (perhaps more specifically, whether women take their husband’s surname). There is nothing in alpha canon that gives us any clues (I looked through Memory Alpha’s ‘Cardassians’ category, and the only case we have of people with the same surname are fathers and their children - Kotan and Rugal Pa’Dar, Tekeny and Iliana Ghemor, etc.) On Memory Alpha there are a few examples of wives whose last names are listed as the same as their husbands (Athra Dukat, Niala Damar), but I don’t know if that actually means that they’re called that in the books, or if the Memory Beta editors are making the assumption that Skrain Dukat’s wife Athra must be Athra Dukat. While I’m not sure what my opinion actually is, I feel that automatically assuming that their system is just like the dominant one in our society is… bit dull?
Cross-culturally, the concept of taking your husband’s surname is not that common. Even in Northern Europe (because in Southern Europe it’s still not widely done), it is quite a new thing. Still in the late 18th century in Europe, women would still be known by the surname they were born with, or would swap between their family surname and their husband’s surname depending on the situation. Among the Etruscans of ancient Italy (where women had three names - praenomen (forename) nomen (family name) and cognomen (personal name, but sometimes associated with family branches) - unlike among the Romans, where women only had a nomen and sometimes cognomen), women kept their own family’s nomen even after getting married. The children would take the father’s nomen. This seems to be a more common model, occurring in much of modern Asia (though interestingly enough not in Japan). I believe that in some cultures (though I’m not sure where), newly-weds will take an entirely new surname, both changing to that name.
All this comes down to how marriage is conceptualised. Do Cardassians see the woman as ‘leaving’ the family she was born into and instead becoming part of the husband’s family? Does she ‘connect’ both families? Or is she half-outside her husband’s family - a conduit of the family but not quite part of it? I don’t think it’s a given that all Cardassians do the same thing - there might be class differences, where the upper classes do one thing and others do another. Maybe there are different types of marriage of different degrees (thinking something like the Roman concepts of marriage cum manu and sine manu, where legal control either passes to the husband or stays with the father (but maybe less ‘women don’t have rights’-y) or maybe like morganatic marriages). Perhaps surnames can sometimes be matrilineal, in some social contexts or some geographical areas.
This was a very rambly way of saying - I’d love to hear people’s thoughts and personal headcanons on Cardassian marriage and Cardassian name conventions.
For Tell Me You See Me, I decided that Cardassian women don’t change their surnames when they marry precisely because I’m always annoyed by that default assumption, and there’s really no evidence for it in canon that I’m aware of. As you point out, it hasn’t even been as common a practice here on Earth as many people with that cultural tradition assume, even among patriarchal societies.
Considering how important family is for Cardassians, I could see them finding the idea of changing your family name as deeply offensive, or at least something that is only done in extreme circumstances (such as a parent/ancestor having committed some particularly terrible form of treason).
I do tend to assume that Cardassian surnames are patrilineal, though, based on the examples we see in canon. (Although in TMYSM I also threw in a detail that children take their father’s surnames unless their mother is of higher social status.)
This is interesting! I quite like the thing with social status being a factor in which surname the children yet.
I think that changing your surname would not seen as offensive especially if you had a family member who’d committed treason. I think that might be seen as dishonest, like you’re trying to make yourself look less guilty. I think the question of how guilt is treated within Cardassian families is an interesting one (and one that my current big WIP deals with a fair bit). You’re supposed to prioritise the state over your family, but also, family is really central. Turning in a family member is a patriotic thing to do, but it is also a form of treachery against your family member. You are a good person for doing the right thing, but a bad person simply by virtue for being related to them. I don’t think there is any one solution to these contractions - I imagine there is a fair bit of double-think going on in Cardassian society.
