"I'm working on that, too. God willing, arrangements will be complete for you a new husband and wife by the time I activate the Strike Force, and she'll perform the ceremony."
18. Revelation
Wednesday, 4 Mar 2572
When Cortin got to the breakfast table after Mass, she was amused to find a heated discussion in progress, about what the family name should be. It seemed an odd subject, she thought as she helped herself from the hot-table rather than calling an order to the kitchen—but on second thought, it did make sense. Women were used to giving up maiden-family names on marriage, though a professional with an established reputation would often hyphenate it with her husband's, but the men didn't think too highly of the idea. She listened without interfering; it was their Family, using a new system, so it seemed reasonable to let them determine how it should be identified. If their method looked as if it would work out well, she'd recommend it to His Majesty for general implementation.
It didn't take them long to decide hyphenating all the names together alphabetically was much too unwieldy to work. Hyphenation was fine, they agreed, but more than two names was excessive—the problem now was which two. Cortin favored Odeon's thinking, that everyone take the name of the senior spouse at the Family's founding, with the other spouses hyphenating their surnames, and that argument seemed to be winning, with the focus changing to whether seniority should be in age or rank. The debate was getting intense when Powell raised both hands. "Since I don't class as senior either way, and Joan's interest seems to be purely academic or she'd have said something before now, why not ask her opinion?"
"Good idea," Odeon said, after looking around at the rest and getting their agreement. "What do you think, Joanie?"
"Senior in rank seems most reasonable to me," Cortin said. "After all, this is going to apply to nobles and royalty, as well as commoners, and you can't expect a monarch or fief-holder to change names. As an alternative you didn't mention, at least for commoners, pick a name the initial spouses can all agree on, since it only has to be established once."
"Now that idea I like even better," Odeon said. "People?"
There was momentary puzzlement, then what he was suggesting dawned on his spouses, and he got nods and murmurs of agreement from the rest. "That's settled, then," he said, turning to Cortin. "Subject to Your Excellency's veto, of course, this will be Family Cortin. With you at its head, equally of course."