• @[email protected]
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    836 months ago

    Ohio law requires people running for political office who have changed their name within the last five years to include their former names on candidacy petitions.

    That’s not entirely unreasonable, but It seems like that’s the sort of thing they should make clear in the paperwork when you file a candidacy petition. “Have you legally changed your name in the last 5 years for any reason other than marriage?”

    • Omega
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      626 months ago

      Just curious. Why make an exception for marriage? If the intention is so people can identify you if they recently knew you by your previous name, that seems even more pertinent.

        • snooggums
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          156 months ago

          Not religious in origin, but the people who propose using it as exclusions to laws think so.

            • Hyperreality
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              66 months ago

              Meh. True monogamy is quite rare in mammals.

              Used to think monogamy was very common in birds, but IRC thanks to DNA testing, we now know plenty of baby birds have a different daddy. Ie. they raise the baby together, but they have an open relationship and impregnate/get impregnated by other birds.

              Apparently that’s surprisingly rare in humans.

              • @[email protected]
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                16 months ago

                Less that they “have an open relationship” and more that the birds sneak around behind each-other’s backs. Males go off and try to sneakily impregnate other females, females sneak around and try to get impregnated by other males. You find it in apes too.

                • Mario_Dies.wav
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                  16 months ago

                  Isn’t this anthropomorphizing, though? Is there evidence that the mates would experience emotional distress if they learned their partners were “cheating” on them?

                  Being in a consensually monogamous relationship, I know I would and my husband would, but how much of that is cultural? I’m not really convinced it’s something that’s ubiquitous in the animal kingdom, though if you have a source about this that discredits my (admittedly amateurish) hypothesis, I’d be open to learning more.

                  • @[email protected]
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                    26 months ago

                    Sure, but saying “have an open relationship” is also anthropomorphizing. Also, sneaking around describes what happens much better. I don’t know what it looks like with birds, but with apes when a non-dominant male mates with a female, they have to sneak around to do it. If the dominant male catches the non-dominant male he’ll attack him.

                    Here’s an example from monkeys:

                    https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/monkeys-try-to-hide-illicit-hookups

                    I haven’t found articles about chimps and gorillas, but I remember it being similar.

          • Schadrach
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            16 months ago

            I’d be curious about this claim. There’s pair bonding in other species, and other species that are (mostly) monogamous, but an explicit formal declaration of a monogamous pairing is something that doesn’t happen until you have some kind of culture and by the time we have any kinds of surviving records (even mostly coherent oral traditions) of anything religion already has it claws in a lot of things.

      • Flying Squid
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        96 months ago

        The answer is that there shouldn’t be. And a woman changing her name to match her husband’s is archaic patriarchal bullshit. I’m glad my wife decided not to do that.

        • Schadrach
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          16 months ago

          Mine did, but that’s mostly because she didn’t change it back after the divorce from her ex was finalized because she figured we were headed in that general direction and it would save her some paperwork.

          I made a point of telling her it was up to her, and that things like both of us hyphenating her maiden name and my name were on the table if she wanted, but she wanted to take my name and I’m fine with that.

          I figured the odds are that it started as patriarchal bullshit in the most literal sense. Less claiming ownership of the woman like you are thinking and more claiming ownership of the children.

          But I suspect that a lot of cultural institutions that are considered patriarchal bullshit had their origins in trying to square the circle of wanting men to be materially responsible for their offspring and also paternity being non-certain with no obvious solution using bronze age technology. So you legally and culturally tie man and woman together, make any of their offspring legally his and bear his name, and leave it to him to make sure no other man is fathering children with her.

          Compare to groups like the Mosuo where there are no permanent pair bonds, but also men aren’t materially responsible for their offspring or raising them - children belong to their mother’s family, only. Women are still supposed to know who fathered their children, but I suspect you’ll never get away from that as a norm just to avoid half siblings breeding.

      • @[email protected]
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        86 months ago

        I’m just spit-balling here, but I assume the reason for requiring someone to disclose a recent name change is so that you don’t have someone trying to run under a new name for reasons of deception. “What’s that? Oh no, it’s okay, I know that Donald Trump can’t be on the ballot, but my name is Ronald Krump. Common mistake.”

        In most jurisdictions you can legally change your name when you get married without paying a fee or filing any other paperwork (don’t ask me if that applies to men, that’s a whole other archaic bit of bullshit). It’s therefore also the most common reason for someone to change their name, and I guess they just figured nobody would bother getting married just so they could get on a ballot with a different name.

      • @[email protected]
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        56 months ago

        I assume because marriage requires a lot of documentation and an official process, whereas my name change only required my friends to sign a document I made.

      • @[email protected]
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        56 months ago

        I would guess it is for establishing that you meet residency requirements to be eligible to run for office and don’t have a criminal history that would disqualify you.

      • @[email protected]
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        36 months ago

        Because it has nothing to do with that. If the goal was to inform the public there would not be an easy escape clause

        • phillaholic
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          6 months ago

          It could be clerical. Changing your last name due to marriage is a different process than changing your full name.

      • @[email protected]
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        26 months ago

        You can find a name change on the marriage license. So perhaps you look up the name of the person on the marriage license and find the previous name.

      • @fahfahfahfahA
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        26 months ago

        They probably wouldn’t make an exception for marriage actually

    • @[email protected]
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      166 months ago

      Yeah it feels very much like a situation where a cis person with a good reason to have changed their name may have gotten a heads up instead of a disqualification

    • snooggums
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      36 months ago

      Ah yes, a law that sounds equal but mostly applies to women in practice due to who is most likely to change their name.

      • @[email protected]
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        76 months ago

        Changing name due to marriage is specifically excluded from this requirement, likely due to the disproportionate effect on women.

        • snooggums
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          6 months ago

          So it just ends up being disproportionately targeted at transgender people then.

          Sorry, I assumed it was like the TSA PreCheck which requires every name change a woman has gone through during their entire life.

          • @[email protected]
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            46 months ago

            Lots of other people change their names. Trans issues were hardly on the radar when this law was passed.

            And marriage records are a lot easier to track, and don’t involve changing first names. When someone changes their name for marriage, you can probably find out their maiden name fairly easily.

            • snooggums
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              26 months ago

              All legal name changes should be easy to track since it requires updating social security, insurance, driver’s licenses, and pretty much everything else.