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Patronymic

When a couple in Sydney, NSW, Australia, got married, the husband decided to take on his wife’s last name. “My wife has no male cousins and is the last in her family’s lineage with the name of Phillips, so it would die out after her,” Grant Phillips said. “I was completely taken by surprise that in 2017 this was something that was making noise.” And noise there was when he made the announcement on Facebook. Men — and they were all men — from around the world sent abusive messages to Phillips ranging from “Do you get your period too mate?” to “I hope your wife can’t have kids, that’ll be god’s way of punishing you.” A total stranger told Phillips, “I hope you and your whore die in a car crash so that your genes don’t continue.” (MS/Sydney Morning Herald) ...Because eliminating obliviots from the gene pool is too much to hope for.