AIBU to think that titles are old fashioned and should be scrappped?

[axure]

A thread has drawn attention to the fact that Driving Licences include Miss/Ms/Mrs for women, but no Mr for men. Do you think that titles are outdated and should be scrapped?

Personally I like being called Mrs X/Madam as appropriate, is this old fashioned?

Is it wrong that there is no title to denote a single/divorced man?

Do you still use Master for young boys, at what age do they become Mr?

Maybe you don't give a flying **either way, with far more pressing issues to worry about.

Dr Trills, could I please sprinkle mine with a little grated cheese, as well as the mayo?

Btw, when I got married, my dad quite genuinely sat me down and told me this was the event that would make me an adult woman. It was 2010.

The mind boggles.

Well as a spinster of the MN parish, I shall defer to you from hereon in Mrs LRD

How - er - nice of you!

Incidentally, apparently you can get offical-y stuff written with 'femme sole' instead of 'spinster' - how much nicer is that?! I found some old deeds for my great-aunty's old house and she's 'femme sole of the parish of xxx'

Yay for ladies here who used Ms before and after they were married. I felt awfully strange earlier but not anymore. And I'll be sticking to my guns,
Thanks

I would like some sole bonne femme...

Where was your aunty from, LRD?

PhD should stick to post nominal.

English is an evolving language and and it Mrs has evolved to Ms. then surely almost all the population uses Dr for medical doctor. And lets face it all PhD's are no where near the same merit if you consider what it takes to get a maths of physics PhD these days compared to a humanities subject area.

Another Ms before and after marriage here... And I've kept my original name.

When asked, I give my full name, no title.

And I have been chippy since birth.

I am married but kept my own surname. I am a Ms. Mrs sounds stuffy and mumsy to me.

I started to change to Mrs Pirate-Husband after we got married but realised it was a massive bore and I didn't really know why I was doing it.
So now I'm Ms Pirate again. I really don't understand why people bother with all the name change business. It struck me as an expensive, pointless waste of time.
My name served me fine for 32 years, why should I suddenly need a new one?

Personally I prefer the spanish naming system where it is illegal not to have two surnames. No one changes their name when they get married and the children take one half of the surname from the fathers two surnames and one from the mothers to give a new two surname grouping. It works well. No one minds if you use the paternal or maternal name to hand down so long as you use two.

She was welsh, jenai.

I don't like Ms. I am a Mrs. So that's what I use.

The use of Miss and Mrs is only a "statement of fact" because those words are currently still used. Change the terminology to Ms and that's still a "statement of fact" - you're an adult woman who may be married, or not. And FWIW I've used Ms as both an unmarried person and a married one.

What happens in Spain if you don't know who the father is?
(Channelling J.Kyle)

Signing in as another married Ms (still use my maiden name but that's for reasons other than feminist principles tbh).

Ha, I had a genuine 'woman Dr' moment today.

Next-door neighbour stops me as I go out to the car - 'You know, we've been getting some of your post recently. My wife put it through your door.'

Me: 'Oh sorry about that, I'll have a word with the postman.'

NDN: 'Yes, we nearly didn't bother though, as it looked like a mistake. It was addressed to Dr Someone-or-other, but I know your husband's not a doctor.'

Seriously.

Novack, what do you think you have to do to get a 'humanities area' PhD? I have one in English literature. It took working at least 6 days a week for three years, producing a thesis of about 300 pages long, and then passing an oral examination run by three professors which lasted two hours. That was two hours of having any questions they liked fired at me.

Personally, I found it challenging, but maybe I am a bit thick.

That was also not counting the conferences, publications, and teaching which formed part of my 'unofficial' PhD experience........

I liked being Miss, I like being Mrs. When I got divorced and reverted to my maiden name I also reverted to Miss. Its an indivisual preference surely?!

Thanks for the replies, I never realised that opinion was so divided over this and it's clear that there is no simple solution that will please everyone. I'm happy with the status quo, I don't have a problem with my gender or marital status being implied by my title. If I was ever clever enough to become a Dr I'd definately use that though.

Titles are pointless and sexist. I am a ms because whose business is it if I am married? I don't think we need titles but if we must have them then just ms and mr will suffice. It shows so little respect for women that they are judged on their marital status and feel they must take their husbands name.

Another here who is perfectly happy to be called 'Mrs' because that is what I am!

Another here who is perfectly happy to be called 'Mrs' because that is what I am!

But that is only "what you are" because language has developed that way. And it's gone that way due to sexism where women were men's property.

If we were all "Ms" then that would be "what we are" just as "Mr" is "what men are".

(meant to put Pendeen's quote in inverted commas")