Miss Mrs Ms

[DinosaurDiana]

I know we’ve had this discussion before, and I said that I wish we had one title for women like men. I was told we do - Ms, but I’m not that fond of it. To me it says left on the shelf female, but I’ll no doubt be told that that is my own prejudice !! It’s actually from having older, unmarried teachers at school.
However, I am going to use it on unofficial things like my Tesco and Next account to change my own attitude.

No, I'm saying that would have been the case 25 years ago. It is however still usual form today. And no he wouldn't have lost his job but 25 years ago eyebrows would have been raised and there may have been an impact on decisions.

Many people I know do check Debretts especially if people they know have received a gong or have left the cabinet and may be styled differently from before.

@RosesAndHellebores I get that it might have been more formal 25 years ago, but I got married 27 years ago and have never been Mrs. I certainly wasn't that unusual back then, plenty of women didn't take their husbands name.

To be honest if I had my time back again I wouldn't get married at all. I'd just have some sort of formal financial arrangement and leave it at that. The whole marriage ceremony and expectations around marriage are steeped in misogyny.

@Summerleaves

To be honest if I had my time back again I wouldn't get married at all. I'd just have some sort of formal financial arrangement and leave it at that. The whole marriage ceremony and expectations around marriage are steeped in misogyny.

I would have had a civil partnership rather than get married but they weren’t available to straight couples then.

As I said previously, had I not changed jobs at the same time as getting married I probably wouldn't have changed my name professionally because it would have been a bother.

The fact that there is a formal construct that socially means I may be addressed as Mrs John Hellebores does not make me less of an individual and neither does being addressed as Ms Roses Hellebores mean that the marriage we entered 30 years ago is in any way diluted. The same marriage where our union was blessed by God. We have sufficient confidence in our independent selves and in our marriage to really not mind privately or personally and to accept other people's practices with good grace they are intended.

I entered my marriage with a sound career and financial independence - I continue to have both and the added bonus of a long and happy marriage where dh and are closely bonded and actually I am a part of him and he is a part of me because that is what love is all about.

I'm a married Ms. The only people who have ever raised an eye at that have been older and pretty closed-minded.

It's very much the norm to use Ms amount my peers (late 20's, early 30's) because it's nobody's business what our marital status is.

I wish we could just do away with honorifics entirely in most circumstances- it's generally irrelevant to the context and just a way of continuing to distinguish the people with titles from the riff raff. I live in the US and it's extremely uncommon to ever receive a letter with an honorific- a much nicer experience IMO.

It's also pretty tough for older people to be considered rude when they are in fact using language that they were taught was polite when they were growing up.

I reckon older people who used what are now considered unacceptable terms for people of ethnic minorities, gays and other groups have mostly learned to use terms which are currently more acceptable. I don't think titles will involve any more adjustment, so there will be some who insist on continuing to use terms from their childhoods when there was still a British Empire and homosexuality was illegal, but most reasonable people will understand things move on and change and they can change with the times.

After all, the Married Women's Property Act was in the 1880s.

We have sufficient confidence in our independent selves and in our marriage to really not mind

One does not follow the other. I have complete confidence in myself and in my long and happy marriage. I still don't use Mrs though, because the title has sod all to do with that. It's a rejection of an unequal, misogynistic tradition whereby women are classified and judged by their marital status.