It’s not a strict requirement but it was part of the culture when the Bible was written, and fits with the general hierarchy which is specified in various scriptures – the most common justification cited is in Ephesians where there’s an injunction for wives to be submissive to their husbands. Coupled with the way the Bible assumes the traditions of the time (e.g. sons taking their father’s name, the patriarchal line of inheritance, etc.) it’s common to many Christian cultural traditions even though there are exceptions.
It was part of our culture before Christianity emerged, it remained part of the culture afterwards. Seems like Christianity didn’t have much to do with it.
It wasn’t “our” culture unless you still live in the Bronze Age but I’d think of it more as a historical artifact which was preserved in part due to reinforcement based on that religious text. If Christianity did not give that text special significance you wouldn’t have millions of people saying they _must_ continue the practice.
Culture is a continuity that builds upon the past - in that sense it's our culture. Also, I've never ever heard anyone say that wives need to take names of their husbands, because the Bible says so. Is that an American thing?
> Culture is a continuity that builds upon the past - in that sense it's our culture
Cultures share history but the whole point is that they’re not continuous. You specified the pre-Christian era, and there have been many significant changes since then which any common definition of the term would consider discrete boundaries.
> Also, I've never ever heard anyone say that wives need to take names of their husbands, because the Bible says so. Is that an American thing?
It’s not specific to the US but there are certainly American churches which have strong opinions on this point. One thing to remember is that these things aren’t just the literal text of the scriptures in whatever version of the Bible they use but also the collection of interpretation and custom around it, and people have a history of interpreting scriptural text differently based on a position which they want to support.
