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I always enjoy getting a bid yet showing no view!
Yes, I believe in the Virgin Mary!
You and your Mary staunch Catholics and still not married? How do you explain this to the offspring, er, foundlings ya raised?
Mary, like many modern women, has been using her maiden name since she was born. Has nothing to do with our marital status! 
Did you know:
Under the Civil Code of Québec, both spouses retain their respective names in marriage and exercise civil rights under those names. Consequently, if a married woman wants to adopt her spouse's surname, the Directeur de l'état civil will authorize that change of name only in an exceptional situation.
"it should be the woman's choice which name they use"
It is a difficult question for a man to answer.
Tradition seems to lead most married women to take their husband surname. Somehow Quebec and other jurisdictions, answering pressure from the "liberated" women movement, decided that a woman should legally maintain her maiden name once married, just like men have done for as long as we can remember. It was a question of equality of gender. Some may agree, some may not.
http://marriage.about.com/od/canada/p/quebec.htm
"Women keep their birth name after marriage and continue to exercise their civil rights under that name, i.e. they must use their birth name in contracts, on credit cards, on their driver's licence, etc. They are free however to assume their husband's name socially."
Very funny 'pj' 
If I can add my 2 cents, as a woman I can say that some of us like to "merge" our identities with those of our spouses, others prefer to keep the name they were born with and have a sense of continuity of identity. Sometimes it's just easier to keep a simpler name.
I confess I gave in to my husband's expectations and changed my last name, although I probably would have preferred to retain my maiden name (easier to say and spell) -- shhhh, don't let this get beyond here. It was important and meaningful to him that I take his name and not so important to me to keep my own.
There can be pressure from tradition and subtle pressure (or sometimes not so subtle) from some men, something to do with ego, possession, or need for supremacy? I don't know. Some can actually get very hurt at the idea that a wife doesn't want his family name. I've had some female friends whose husbands practically insisted upon it -- you get the ring, you take the name (ughhh). True love would be leaving that decision up to the woman herself and not feeling hurt or insulted if she chose to retain her name.
Québec may have a point: obliging a woman to keep her own name takes the pressure off the woman and avoids putting otherwise goodhearted men in the position of having to ask. Being able to use the man's family name socially is a decent compromise for both parties. The other advantage of course is that it makes people a lot easier to keep track of by government and others (ever tried finding an old female school friend who may have been married twice? - impossible).
The only trouble is that you end up with those weird and hideously hyphenated family names that I notice pop up a lot in Québec, presumably because neither spouse can agree which name the child is going to take.
"weird and hideously hyphenated family names"
I know what you mean.
My daughter - living in Toronto with her husband - has kept her maiden name. That was important to her. The children have hyphenated names.
My son - living in Toronto with his wife who has kept her maiden name - has named his daughters with his last name only. Everyone is happy with that solution.
There is no right or wrong. Folks have to do what they feel is best for them.
@femmefan1946 wrote:I hyphenated my name with my husband's and have had 45 years of carrying two unpronounceable and unspellable names.
The ones I really used to find bizarre were those Québecois names with several accents of different types in a hyphenated name, each of which portion had two or three syllables. You'd just get a headache looking at them. I always felt sorry for receptionists in doctors' offices, etc. who had to call out those names -- there would be a huge silence after the "Mrs." while the poor office clerk attempted to disentangle the syllables.
Mind you, there are those short names (such as my husband's -- and my -- surname) that are not only fairly short but also unpronouncable and unspellable for most people. Despite having only 6 letters, few people ever get past the first two without a certain prolonged and gutteral choking sound ensuing. 
