Sorry to resurrect a dying thread, but I want to clarify what belM says about Canadian name/marriage laws. In Manitoba there was no obligation at all about names. You had the choice of keeping your name, taking your spouse's name, adding it to your name, adding it and hyphenating it, keeping one name as a new middle name and one as a last name. Also, it is symmetric with respect to gender, so my husband could have taken my name.
I gather, though, that other provinces are different. My professor (who got married in B. C.) says the rules were different for them, and his wife was "forced" into taking his name at the last minute (ok, they didn't know the rules in advance and she had to make a hurried decision). And as belM has told us, the rules are different still in Québec.
However, I have heard (and it would be great if you could clarify this, belM), that in Québec you must marry in a church, that there is no such thing as a "civil ceremony". And that this somehow accounts for a much higher percentage of common-law relationships in that province - if people don't want to get married in a church, there is no other option. True or false?
