Hi, Fahim,
Asher, my good friend, what if your firstborn had been a ' daughter '? Would you have been sad? Not having someone to carry your name...your lineage?
I have two children, both female. When it became clear that this was the extent of my offspring, someone asked, "Aren't you sad that your fine old Scottish name will now die out?"
I paid no attention to the notion.
But it turned out that my eldest daughter married a Graham (and took that name) and my younger daughter married a McCallum (and took that name).
And I have only one grandchild, a granddaughter, a Graham.
Yet no one suggested "mourning" for the extinction of my first wife's name, of Ukrainian origin, when we married and she took my name (although her brother, still alive. still carries it, as do his two sons).
And no one suggested mourning for the extinction of the Hungarian name of my first wife's maternal grandmother.
And so forth. This is all an arbitrary creature of the typical (but not universal) Western traditions of naming.
But for example it is easy to draw a gigantic contrast with the practice of Iceland, in which the "last name" is normally either a gender-inflected patronymic or matronymic - derived from the first name of one of the parents. Thus "family names" do not really exist.
Then, entirely separate from the matter of family names, is the matter Asher alluded two, in that in certain "cultures", the inheritance of the cultural identity is (officially) through one gender of ancestor or the other. Among the Cherokee, clan membership is passed through the female line.
Yet of course one's "legacy" does not attach to something as arbitrary as a "family" name.
When my only grandchild (a Graham) was less than a year old, and was visiting our home, I gave her a Western Electric 500D telephone set to play with (imagine that). With the handset out of the cradle, she pressed down one of the switchhook plungers. The two plungers press on a common yoke, and so of course the other one went down. She giggled.
She let the first plunger up, and the second one came up. She giggled.
Then she pushed down on the second plunger, and the first one went down. She giggled.
She let the second plunger up, and the first one came up. She giggled.
Then quickly she turned the set over to see what made that happen. Of course the mechanism was inside, so she couldn't see it. She seemed disappointed.
And I could tell you any number of similar stories. At age two, she had wonderful spatial and kinematic sense. She knew just where a door would swing when closed so she could set her teddy bear just clear of that arc.
The day she was born, a number of us were in her mother's hospital room when the nurse brought her in for her debut. One of the well-wishers said, "Just think of all she will learn".
I said. "I think she knows already."
So was my "legacy", or my "lineage", being transmitted?
That lady today operates a successful restaurant and catering business.
And of course none of their telephones have switchhooks.
Best regards,
Doug