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The Rules of Magic,
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Ceallaigh
It's not a mistake. It's not that unusual for a man to take his wife's name when she's the last in a long family line and they don't want the family name to be lost. It happened once in my family, and it happened to a friend of mine. Since we still abide by paternalistic tradition of giving a child the father's surname, even when the wife retains her "maiden" name, the only way for a child to carry the mother's name is for the father to take his wife's name. And It's not hyphenated in the book I read. The husband is Burke Owens, but the children are Owens.
Pamela
April was also an Owens. I figured it was a deal the women reached when they got married, which is kind of amazing.
Savannah
It's actually mentioned in Practical Magic that the Owens women always keep their last name, even when they marry. So it's kind of a call back to the original book.
Jackie Copper
That bugged the heck out of me, too! I thought at some point in the book we'd discovered that Franny and Jet's dad and mom were distant cousins with the same last name who had married, but that didn't happen. The book did say that Owens women always take the surname Owens, but that wouldn't account for their father having that last name. I had a great high school English teacher who said when you read a novel, keep your eyes open for the "mistake" because every novel has at least one...this must be the one for this book.
Maggie
I came here with exactly the same question. I'm also wondering if he is their biological dad. ...Also Gillian and Sally don't have their dads last name.
Rebekah
He was a hyphen Owens. Both parents were. The kids being Owens was strange, but perhaps given the mothers strong matrilineal heritage the father accepted that he was beta in this relationship and in their genetics.
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