Growing up in Pakistan it is almost given that your father’s name will be asked on any kind of form you will fill out. From the application to sit in some board exam to open an account in the bank. Probably even to get the electricity bill paid.
I recently had the pleasure of filling out some forms for my pending trip to Pakistan. And yes, on each and every form there is a column for your father or your husband’s name. Often it is required that you provide even more information on him, like his CNIC number etc. What really intrigued me is that even the visa application for foreigners have a column for father/husband name and nationality. Thankfully there is no religion column, yet. (Here is a ToDo for the Mullah crowd)
I can somewhat understand that the concept of ‘last name’ is not so common in Pakistan. There might be many Malik, Chaudary, *Syed *but I am sure there are millions in Pakistan that share my name, ‘John Smith’ and so a father’s name can differentiate between two people with same name. As the likely hood of you sharing a name with someone who’s father has the same name as your father, is very slim. (Unless off course, he/she is your half sibling that you never knew). So for filing, record keeping, this rule might come in handy.
Though, statistically, the likely hood of the other person sharing your name, with the exact same spellings, having the same birthday and birth place is the same as him having your father’s name with the exact same spelling. Probably less.
So, the question is, is there a deeper cultural phenomenon that in Pakistan … you are to be always known as your father’s son. And a woman is either a daughter or a wife? Is there some unwritten rule that individuals must be linked and can not be recognized as alone? They must have, some blood or marital relation to the rest of the society.
Why?
Is the ‘katba’ on a typical Pakistani grave also says 'Muhammad Yunus wald Allah Yar’?
^ i guess the west dropped the idea of putting the father's name since their soceity is now such that often the column has to be left blank....
same is also true for the husband's name in case of women....
fortunately our society isn't yet so void of such relations and we can happily fill in these columns....
Its not if I like to be recognized through my father, I love him more than anything, its what does the state got to do with it if all I want to do is sit in an examination or come visit the country? Its the question of when an individual becomes his own identity in a society, responsible enough to be held accountable for his own actions?
And will the woman ever be considered that responsible?
i somewhat agree with armughal here. Even nowadays in european names you can find roots of this practice
e.g.
Paul John*son* is nothing else than Paul the son of John
in Dutch this has been changed into the suffix -sen, like Paul Jansen
Another example would be Iceland in which Jensson means the son of Jens and Jensdottir means the daughter of Jens
so actually in european culture, a person used to be also identified by the father's name, but that has been incorporated now into being the surname
I was going to say that.
In almost all socities people are known by their fathers name.
In addition to the above examples there's the Irish/Scottish Mc/Mac which also means "son of", Bin/Ben in *Hebrew/Arabic, *Zaad in Persian, Zai in Pashto, Ovich in Russian...