Quite frankly I'd feel as if I'd created a screwed-up family if it had all these different last names in it. And, though it's silly in theory, I WOULD feel more distant from my wife, as if she hadn't devoted herself to me entirely, e.g. was still holding out with one foot into our marriage.
Women ought to stop and think, on occasion, before fighting as hard as they can ON PRINCIPLE (because, let's face it, that's why it's usually done) to have every difference in societal treatment of men versus women eliminated.
Every woman reading this board is far too career-driven and successful to appreciate this, but I know dozens of women (small town women, of course) who outright hate the fact that it's not even considered a respectable OPTION for a woman to stay at home with her kids anymore. Now y'all are forced to pull off the spectacular trick of being pregnant and raising kids....all while working alongside men.
They're also forfeiting their lofty chunk of extra life enjoyed by the prior generation of women (anyone else notice that they're all 90 with long-deceased husbands?) by beating themselves down physically with stress. Depression has gone up among women in convincing linear relation to a woman's "right" to be societally indistinguishable from a man. It's no longer a given that a woman will get the kids in a divorce settlement, and if you tell one she's beautiful you may end up in the back seat of a cop car (has never happened to me personally, because I'm frankly afraid to say anything alluding to the fact that a woman is, well, a woman).
Women: Continue on this path, and soon men will be able to 1. punch you in the face without adverse consequence, 2. let doors close in your face, and 3. call you "dude" and "man" and playfully smack you in the head like their long lost frat brother. Be mindful of the courteous treatment men are trying to bestow upon you, rather than hating it. If you weren't so sensitive to being treated as "lesser people," you might realize that to most men, having a woman take their last name can be an enormous source of solidarity in a relationship, something big that changes upon your wedding day and signifies your commitment to each other and to the entire family.