To object titles tagged to marital status;Miss, Mrs. Ms

[chaoswoman]

MS Understood
You may be married but separated or widowed. You may be separated and living with the man you left your husband for. You may be long divorced but choose to use your married name and title. You may be waiting for a divorce, legally still married, choosing to drop the married name and title. You may be over 40 and never been married! You may have several children and be single, or happily married but use your single name for professional reasons, you may be in a civil partnership, you may be recently widowed or divorced. Do you know which title to use? Are you Miss, Mrs. or Ms?

Why, in the UK can a man be a simple Mr. or Sir which doesn?t require qualifying any further, whilst a woman is asked to be a Miss (single/young), Mrs.(married) Madam(mature) or Ms(??)?. I for one don?t have a clue which applies to me, I put ?Ms, but don?t know what it means and have never heard it with my ears. It sounds a bit harsh when said out loud?.

As I reached my early thirties and owned my own home, tradesmen and service providers were calling me Mrs. ...... and I realised at my age I aught to be married, this was their assumption. Did I correct them with a sorry or evocative, Dick Emery, ?I?m a Miss?. Did they need to know?

When I fell pregnant and had a baby without marrying the father. All the midwives called me Mrs.W and I felt compelled to correct them, ?I?m not married, call me C?. (I?m an unwed mother, single parent to be, my child is illegitimate; too much information!). Quite frankly, in this day and age, I was surprised, they continued to assume, or felt the need for this formality. Amusing though it was to me, the father of my daughter was addressed as ?Mr.CW?(right title, wrong name), which he politely ignored.

A multitude of application forms, I realise, require a title with your name. In this day and age, if marital status isn?t required information, why do I have to prefix my name with a title tagged to marital status?

I actually, don't like being called Mrs. I am not married and didn't like it even when I was, but feel dishonest if I don't correct the assumption and rude if I do. I like formality in certain situations, what is a polite stranger to call me?

In the name of equality, dignity, privacy and clarity, I would like there to be one title to fit all women in a formal situation, as there is for men.

My staff are trained to address me as Excellency.

Problem solved.

Ms may have been for divorced or separated years ago; not now. If I am writing to a woman I write Dear Ms Smith unless I am answering a letter which signs off Susan Smith (Mrs) or Susan Smith (Miss) - God alone knows why I still see such letters but I do and I respect the choice of the people who write them.

tinker! I am in 14 year relationship but now even we wed I would find it hard to use another name...I I'm Miss Madhatter and always will be. I can marry, divorce whatever but I'm ME and that's my name..no more to say!

I'm 25, single, never been married single mum... I am and always have been a Ms. I always hated Miss... It felt to much like a little girl.

I don't like the look of Mrs either, so will prob stick to Ms (with my own surname) if I ever get married.

YABU, just use Ms if you don't want to give anything away.

I do agree it's bad that men don't give their status away. If there was a 'married man' title DH would use that, because like me he would be happy to tell the world he's married :)

If I'm asked my name now I give my first name and last name. Many people assume Mrs (and one salesman recently decided that if I was a Mrs then there must be a Mr who should be consulted before the little woman chose to buy his product).

If I have to give a title, I'll use Ms - am divorced but have kept my married surname so I have the same surname as my children, but the use of Mrs does seem to others to imply there is a Mr to whom I am attached.

You don't know what Ms means? It's just what you're looking for, "a title to fit all women in a formal situation, as there is for men." :)

I love being Mrs. Had a very different experience to the OP when children born, they refused to call anyone Mrs which I found slightly offensive.

Mrs John Smith = married woman, widowed or otherwise
Mrs Jane Smith = divorced woman
Miss Jane Smith = unmarried woman
Jane Smith = totally neutral

All of the above are entirely factual and I have never understood why some women have issues with factual titles. All Ms says to me is that the woman in question feels insecure about her marital status.

What a ridiculous assumption, marriedinwhite. Is a man insecure about his marital status because he is always called Mr, married or not?

"All Ms says to me is that the woman in question feels insecure about her marital status."

I generally just use my names if asked, but otherwise it is always Mrs -I can't stand Ms. However it is all down to personal choice.

I have always used Ms as I don't like Miss and think it sounds like a child. I am mid-20s and single.

Well, I have a DP but I mean not married!

I'm Ms, or Dr if the person asking is being particularly arsey

Am Dr. but beginning to insist on Brigadier.

marriedinwhite the titles you give are not 'factual' they are cultural. And there is one word for a culture that requires women to broadcast their marital status and to identify themselves by their husband's surname, or even by their first name in your first frankly bizarre example: Patriarchy

Of course I'm Ms and I have no insecurities about my marital status. I just don't think that it defines me or that being married is such an achievement and should be the first thing I need to inform everybody about. Luckily I live in France and all adult women here are Mme., no matter if they are lesbians who can't keep a man (why would one want to?) or not.

If it was up to me, I would get rid of all titles - in most cases, it does not matter the least if the person you are dealing with is a man or a woman.

i am a ms i am not insecure about my martial status i am separated and will get divorced at some point. i never used ms before but to be fair i never really liked any of the female titles and may just start referring to my self as sir. i use it now because mrs is for when you are married and happily i no longer see myself that way and frankly its no ones business if i were to remarry i would not change it back to mrs as i find it old ladish. i spent all of my 20's as a mrs, i shall enjoy my 30's as a ms.

If Ms means you're insecure about marital status, well I must have been insecure about it as a teenager, as a single woman, as a co-habiting woman, and now as a married woman, as I've always used this title.

Spooks I gave a tiny cheer when I read that [hgrin]

MarriedinWhite surely you can see it's a basic issue of equality? Miss and Mrs might be 'factual' but the question is why women need a 'factual' title at all when men don't. Women are perfectly at liberty to choose to disclose their marital status in their title, but other women should be at liberty to not disclose it, as men don't. We just want the same treatment that men expect and are given, it's not too difficult to understand :)

Agree with OP.

I can never understand all this 'proud to be a mrs' business.

I've refused to buy from companies which only offer Mr, Mrs, or Miss as titles. I tend to use Dr when it's available, although most companies tend to ignore the Dr and call me Miss regardless (Vision Express, my dental surgery, and GP surgery, I'm looking at you...). If there's no Dr option, I use Ms, despite being married. I'm still me regardless of my marital status.

I'm not insecure about my marital status. I find the UK quite backward with it's insistence on using Mrs or Miss. I'm from NZ where the default always is Ms unless you have been notified otherwise.

It actually winds me up this belief that I must be identified as either married or unmarried. I've been known to spend a happy 10 minutes haranguing companies (yes, I'm looking at you Lloyds TSB) who find it difficult to grasp the concept that my sexual availability has nothing to do with my ability to pay a bill.

Where did this 'Ms is only for divorced women' myth come from? That has never been the case.

slug, I totally agree, I find the use of titles in this country really behind the times compared to where I'm from (N. America). There Ms would always be the default and I can't imagine a 35 year old woman calling herself Miss.

I must say it really rankles when I see papers referring to Mrs. Clinton and Miss Harman!

I thought Ms was for when a women was divorced.

My mum went from Mrs.X to Ms. X when she divorced my dad.

Miss, Mrs and Ms are all contractions of the same word, "Mistress".