Am I incredibly odd? N/C on marriage

[Toonoisy]

I married dh last year, I decided to keep my own name. My reasons were, I have a son who shares my name. I really like my name, it's me. I didn't want to be Mrs Hisname because to me that's his mum. I also feel as though the assumption that the woman will change her name is a bit of a feminist issue.

I don't want to be Mrs Myname either so I'm Ms Myname.

Dh was very upset about it despite always knowing how I felt. He thinks I'm mad but he's given up mentioning it.

Now I've found that the times I've had to give our names for anything it totally baffles people.

It's happened a couple of times where it's been quite important to acknowledge we're married. A mortgage application and me ringing the hospital when he ended up in a&e.

It's seems to completely confuse people, they say you're not married, I say that we are, so they ask are we Mr and Mrs Hisname, I say no were Mr Hisname and Ms Myname, we are married, I have kept my name.

One friend had parents where her mother was a Dr and her father was a Mr

The amount of letters that used to come to Dr and Mrs instead or Mr and Dr

Similarly a friend is Dr Hisname while is wife is Dr Hername. The amount of letters she gets addressed to Mrs Hisname. Wrong on both accounts!!

Actually, why have a title to identify your sex/gender at all?

Titles are usually used to show respect. Do we need a new perfectly PC, gender neutral and vegan-friendly title? MissTer? Mastress?

Lets not not look for offence when none is intended.

I'd use Mrs or Miss swapping between the two when the addressee is approx. 17 year old.

We already have a perfectly good female gender title in Ms. It denotes a female like Mr denotes a male. No deeper level of status is necessary.
I wouldn't like to not have titles, a title is polite. It's hard to think how I'd address a parent in a phonecall from the school office. Yo, Jimmy! doesn't sound right somehow.

I've asked DD's school staff to just call me by my first name. I'm there a lot, they call a lot (I chair the PTA). But thinking about it, no matter how many times the head signs off with just his first name It feels weird to use it!

How is Master > Mr different to Miss > Mrs?

If Mr has been appropriated to mean man-male, it seems like Mrs has followed suit as regards lady-female (as opposed to girl) and I know I'd think 'twat' if I was corrected by someone who said, "I'm a bachelor actually, so Master X".

Lasswithedelicateair
I don't think that is right either. Master Jack is usually how a servant addressed a child of the family they worked for. When they address an adult like that it signals old family retainer, knew him from a boy. Servants don't usually address adults as master anything. (In fiction at least, I don't move in those circles!)

Bananafish, why not Dr and Mr?

Potato Mrs isn't all adult women though is it? It's married ones.

Good question catfish. Very good question. I would assume that as the utilities, schools etc were in the habit of writing Dr and Mrs the defaulted to Male partner and Female partner. Which is no reason at all obv. But 20 years ago it was certainly the default as I suppose it still is now

*catkind not catfish. Apols for n/c you!

If people call me Mrs Myname, unless it's relevant I don't correct them or take offence.

However having a generic Ms for all adult women would be far simpler and save any confusion.

You could say "does it matter", but in that case we ought to have a married title for men.

Using google as a source is one thing. Resorting to information from Middle Earth and Gotham City is something else entirely. I'm not going to take advice on titles from sources which contain giant spiders, an army of undead and a flying man in a bat suit.

Re the dr/mr thing it's very common to assume a dr is male - to the extent that some databases apparently default to male gender if the title is doctor. Hopefully as we get more same sex marriages this nonsense will die out.

I am a lesbian married to a woman. It never occurred to either of us to change our name to the other. I was also married to a man years ago when I was young and did change my name to his. I never really felt as if I was entitled to that name though- I just married it. So I think it created an identity issue in me. Years later when after we were divorced and I came out, I changed back to my birth name and it felt really good. So I conclude that giving up your birth name is giving up something of yourself and is probably not healthy. Regarding children, I as a feminist believe they should rake their mother's name- they came out of her body for goodness sake. This is also the case in some cultures where children take the matriarchal name

" And while you're at it, learn that pissing around with new titles every time you get married or not married is difficult,"

everytime you get married!

@Joystir58 what will you children be called if / when you (or you may already) have them? If your wife was the bio mother, then they'd only have her name?

And what's wrong with that? It's only a name it's not the defining aspect of a relationship with a child.

I feel you are making the issue worse by emphasising it. It is quite normal for a doctor, dentist or many other professional to keep there name as that is what they have qualified as but others tend to get round the problem by having a double barrelled name and I actually wish I had done that myself. It seems you are much more concerned with keeping your own name than with having a happy marriage which in the beginning is difficult enough. It is typical feminism - I have always worked very hard for equality of rights and pay for woman and in many ways succeeded but I have never been a feminist with all it problems.

YANBU.

DP is taking my name when we marry next year :D

YANBU, Im Ms Myname and also Mrs Myname Hisname ( but only at one bank where we tried a joint account and the drs/dentists where the receptionist couldn't understand me being Ms Myname and the kids being different to me, so she put it as Mrs Myname Hisname).

Our kids are Myname Hisname, no hyphen, DH absolutely hates it after ten years and still moans and actually did two deed poll on the DC to get Myname put as second middle name and not as surname for the kids as he didnt like the way the passports looked and then paid to have the passports redone so it shows as first name: Blah Blah Myname and surname: Hisname, as previously it showed as first name: Blah Blah and surname: Myname Hisname (which is what birth certificate showed and he agreed with as he had to be at the registration, then came two years of argument and saying he had never meant to agree!)

This may sound selfish but NO 1 its my name and NO 2 my life, im very guarded of my name because as a child I lost it when my mother changed it to her then husbands name and I hated his name. I always felt the loss of myname and it was one of the many reasons I was happy to have my name back when she divorced. My original name also is not my fathers name but my grandfathers name and I was always proud to be part of that family as so many of us had this name both married and unmarried, we were and are the mynames, this is a huge part of my identity and my dh name means absolutely nothing to me.
Im actively changing the last few things that are either sent Mrs Myname or Mrs Myname Hisname to just Ms Myname, it means alot to me, maybe it shouldn't but it does.

it is not necessary to give up your identity on marriage and declare to every person you meet whether you are married or not because MEN DO NOT DO IT!!!!!!

Men tend to keep their name and don't change to a married version of Mr so why should a woman feel she needs to?

I always explain, if anyone is rude or nosey enough to ask, that DH decided not to change his name on marriage because it's the truth. I never even considered changing mine. Why should I?

Since when did getting married equate to giving up your identity? Such angst about so little...

Teatime, it is so obvious to us but it's threads like these that highlight how entrenched this implicit inequality is after all these years and how so many people can still not see it!

If it's so little floggingmolly then why do it? Surely it's easier NOT to do something than to do it

Was so worked up by first page posted before reading more posts, sorry.

The stature of the Different gender titles is highlighted to me every time someone calls me Mrs and I correct them to Dr. They apologise for belittling me i.e. they consider Mrs to be lesser ... why? Because it is only for women? Most of my friends without Dr in front of their names are a damn sight more successful and financial stable than me