When Bill first ran for governor in 1978, his opponent in the Democratic primary made a major issue of his wife’s name. (“Maiden name,” ironically, is an indelibly sexist and patriarchal label.) But in Arkansas, the move was still pretty edgy. The couple was married in 1975, smack in the middle of a decade when women’s use of their maiden names surged. Hillary Rodham’s decision seemed evidence not only of her roots in a city up north, but also of the future. This had to be some new import from Chicago,” she recalled. “I had never even conceived of such a thing. Virginia Clinton Kelley recalled in her autobiography that when Bill told her, the day of the wedding, she began to weep. Bill didn’t seem to have a problem with that. When she agreed to marry Bill Clinton-the third time he asked-she decided to keep her own name. Hillary Rodham was a product of the women’s liberation movement.
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