Okay, so I mentioned in this poll that I had initially planned to do one about Paige and Henry's married name, but honestly, it was all an excuse! A facade! Because I wanted to talk about something and I must cast illusions and deception and whatever lmao. But I think we've all been missing something absolutely obvious for about twenty years and I'm here today to point out that obvious thing:
Henry definitely took Paige's last name when they got married.
Like honestly, once you think about it, I think it's actually more out of character for him not to take her name. Don't worry, I can back up what I'm saying. Obviously, Paige was never gonna take Henry's last name, which she canonically doesn't. It would never make sense for her to honestly, same reason why she never takes the Halliwell name. She had a family, a good and amazing family, and I think that one of the strongest ways we see her honor and connect to her parents is by retaining her last name. And I think this, just flipped a bit, is exactly why Henry takes her name.
Henry has never had a family, bounced around in the system until he aged out. It's part of why I love his and Paige's story so much because it's the first time Henry really gets a family (and also how Paige has someone who understands that part of her past in ways that, as much as Piper and Phoebe may try, never truly can but this is a Henry-centric post). But now Paige is his family, and he is hers! As much as I think that Henry has his struggles with it, he is very excited about being able to have a family and wants the typical family things, and I mean, a pretty obvious one is the matching last name.
And I think that honestly may be one of the biggest sticking points for Henry because the matching last name means that we're together, we're a unit, we're a family, we go together. I think that he'd have a really hard time with the idea of not sharing a last name with his wife. There definitely was some kind of argument about it at least once that we didn't see on-screen until Paige kind of just demands, "why does me not having your last name mean that we're not a family/together? why is me having to give up part of my identity a necessity for you? if it's so important to you, why don't you change your last name?"
And that's kind of where Henry definitely blue screens because like. He definitely had some issues of working through toxic masculinity, of how to 'be a man,' and one of those things was about the need for his wife to share a last name with him but I mean. Paige is right? Why is it her that has to sacrifice a piece of her identity, especially something that it so clearly important to her? And Henry never considered that it was something that he could do, and more importantly, he doesn't have anything close to the same attachment to his name that Paige does because it doesn't mean a family to him, it's just a name that he was given in the system.
And Matthews isn't only Paige's last name but it represents exactly what Henry wants so badly: someone choosing you and continuing to choose you, even when you fuck up, choosing to be a family with you. The Matthews did exactly what Henry always dreamed of, and they raised this beautiful, headstrong, amazing woman that he loves so dearly, who could never give up the first thing her family gave her (also something about how Paige's name was a gift from her biological and adopted family is fascinating, but not the point here).
So, yeah, of course, Henry changes his name, even when Paige gets it through his head that different names doesn't mean they're not a family (ft. Piper and Leo having different last names + Paige, Phoebe, and Piper having different last names), and instead of Paige Matthews and Henry Mitchell, it's Paige and Henry Matthews.
