Can I wear my wife's family too?

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

If a man formally becomes a member of his wife's clan, does he take the clan name? Or keep his own?

In Highland Scotland, well into the 19th century, surnames were not used as identifiers in they same way they are today. Rather, "nick names" were by far more common and with good reason. Suppose you lived on an island with several hundred other McDonalds, and you wish to refer to a specific John McDonald in conversation-- John being the most common man's name-- how do you do it without causing confusion (or offense!)? Simply by referring to a physical characteristic or his trade-- a blacksmith might be called "John the smith" and his son, George, would be known as the son of the smith-- George mac an Gow, or simply George McGow... since sons tended to follow in their father's trade, it would only take a few generations for a blacksmith's family's last name to evolve from McDonald to Smith (or Gow/McGow/Magowan/etc.).

In Scotland women retain their last name upon marriage; hence Mary McGow upon marriage becomes Mary McGow, Mrs. Ludovic Campbell. This is, in my opinion, an excellent state of affairs because it defines the legal status of Mary in relation to her husband Ludovic, without her loosing her sense of self identity, or surrendering any of her legal rights as a person. Should her husband die, she has the option of reverting to her maiden name, or using the social style "Mrs. Mary Campbell" indicating to one and all that she is a widow, and free to remarry.

So what then, is the status of the last name of a man when he marries into a clan? Well, he has two options-- he can retain his name and thus possibly establish a new sept within his wife's clan, or he can adopt the name of the clan (ie: take his wife's maiden name as his own). Within certain social limits, the choice is entirely up to him.

So, if Lars Larson, a boat builder from Oban, marries Agnes McGow (sister of Mary, mentioned above) he either gets busy producing children enough to establish Larson as a sept of McDonald, or takes the name McGow, or goes by the patronymic of "Boatwright" and settles in with that name.

And what about the children? If they wear their mother's clan tartan, do they also take that surname? Otherwise, they'd be wearing a tartan that's not associated with their surname (i.e. the clan-less surname of their father).

Suppose that Lars decides to keep his name. No problem. Biologically and legally the children of his marriage inherit equally from both parents. Lars, both as a courtesy and as a right of dower wears his wife's family tartan. Lars' children on the other hand wear their Mother's tartan by birthright, regardless of their last name.

As far as the last name of the children is concerned, while it is the custom to take the last name of the father, it is in no way a requirement in law to do so. The parents may choose to give their children either family name, or to combine the family name (McGow-Larson) or to create an entirely new identity for the children (Largow). In the instance of the Earl of Erroll he was given his Mother's last name at birth (Hay) and his younger brother took their father's last name, Moncrieff. Thus, following the death of his Mother, Merlin Hay became Earl of Erroll and High Constable of Scotland, and on the demise of his father his younger brother became Perigrine Moncrieff of that Ilk, Chief of Clan Moncrieff.

Socially, the basic assumption is that if someone is seen wearing a tartan kilt they have a familial connection to that tartan, be it by birth, marriage, or descent. Here's a real world example.

David Pope wears a MacMillan tartan kilt. David claims his connection to Clan MacMillan by marriage (and by having been formally received into the clan by our chief). Now as far as I, or any other member of the clan is concerned, David has as much entitlement to the clan tartan and to being regarded a member of our clan, as anyone born with the Macmillan surname or one of its sept variants. There is certainly no question that wearing the MacMillan tartan will be a birthright of his children, regardless of their last name.

I hope that answers your questions...