To hate addressing a letter to a women using husband's initials

[justarandomer]

On an address with the name as say;

Mrs M E Smith
When women is called Patricia Smith
But husband is Martin Edward Smith.

Why not Mrs P Smith

There must be a fancy term for this.

My MIL does it. It sends me up the F wall. I am a person in my own right than you very much.

On a birthday card or something personal she will still write it as
Mrs M E Smith.

I think she does it because she sees son as coming from above me, and so I'm lucky to be part of her dynastey.

I'm amazed this is still being done! Only person I know who does it is in her 90s.

Why do people get so het up about something that is really so insignificant in terms of world problems.

My second DH and I have been married nearly 30 years - about six years ago we received a card and inside was written to 'Ragwort and first husband name' - from an old family friend, my DH just laughed it off, who really cares about these sorts of things. .

Actually women being treated as inferior to men in various ways, large or small, or as having less of an identity, is kind of a big deal to many people, ragwort. They might believe that many small, subtle signifiers such as whose names are more important in a relationship add up to a big picture where women are still not treated equally to men in terms of status. You definitely don't have to agree with them, but writing them off as 'insignificant' is quite rude.

Yes to royal invitations, I had to refuse to receive an invitation to (ironically) a lunch about women in business sponsored by camilla because 'she didn't believe in ms' so I had to choose between mrs and miss.

Imagine an event about women being independently successful in business a) being patronised by Camilla who as far as I know has never had a successful business career and b) needing the first piece of information on the invitees to be whether or not they're married. Hilarious!

This winds me right up too. We had am invitation from DP's cousin this week addressed to Mr and Mrs HisInitial HisSurname. We're not married (which they know), we have different first names and different surnames. I've deliberately left it to DP to reply because I assume it's not meant for me. These are people in their 40s too, not an older generation.

I never use Mr/Ms/Mrs/Miss when writing to people, I just use their first name and surname, eg Pam and Bob Jones. I don't always know if they'd prefer Mrs or Ms so I would never assume.

Jackie0

Thanks for the birthday wishes

No, we weren't taught anything about how to address letters, etiquette, etc. It was all focussed on learning the topics in our various subjects, eg English Science, Maths, etc.

OTOH, my mum (now aged 72) did get taught this stuff at school. But has never bothered with it, as she reckoned it was a load of nonsense.

More importantly ragwort, why have you chosen this thread rather than any other to complain about people getting upset about supposedly insignificant issues?

MN is full of people making mountains out of molehills- and nowt wrong with that either, we all love a good parking thread. That's kind of the point of AIBU. It's a remarkable coincidence, it really is, that threads about women's names always seem to attract supercilious assertions that this is not the most important issue in the world/less important than world hunger, wars, various epidemics etc. From people who quite clearly are not spending their time dealing with world hunger or similar.

Drives me utterly insane. I didn't change my first name to Steve when I got married, so why should I be Mrs Steve Chocolateworshipper? Why not just write to Mr & Mrs Chocolateworshipper? Noone else with the same surname lives at this address, so why the need for an initial?

I must admit I did this till a few years ago, it seemed a reasonable assumption to me that if someone had taken their husband's surname and used Mrs that they would also use the traditional form of address with regard to initials. Anyway, I know better now, thanks to previous threads on the same subject. I tend to just go with firstname surname now, it's easier all round.

Mrs. means "the wife of" so "the wife of Jane Smith" doesn't make sense

No. Mrs does not mean "the wife of". It is an abbreviation of Mistress. So is Miss and so is Ms. At one time Mistress could be used for married and unmarried women and was often used with the first name for both. Eventually usage changed. No problem with changing back, then.

Return the letter 'no one with that name lives here' or 'unknown addressee'

I assume any woman who has given up her surname is aware of what it entails.
The key word in that sentence being SURNAME.
Why would you change a person's firstname when all they have changed in their surname?

I prefer it because it is correct according to the rule book
What rule book might that be?
Ancient idea does not make it a rule.

Bullshit. But no more bullshit than taking a man's name and automatically giving children a man's name.
But you are missing the point completely. It was MY choice to change my surname. You have no right to address me by a different firstname, calling me by my husband's initial is incredibly bloody rude.

I had an invitation from Buckingham Palace this year addressed to Mr John and Mrs Jane Oursurname.

Does that help to persuade any of you who still insist on using the archaic form because you believe it to be the only correct way?

Innismhor I am genuinely delighted to hear that!

Wow, people do get wound up about the most pathetic things on here. It's a formal way of addressing a letter, what's the big deal? I have no problem being referred to as the wife of my husband, I wouldn't be offended at being referred to as DS's mum either. I have often been referred to (although not in writing) as the dog's mum too, I quite like it.

I don't like it but I just can't get that worked up about it

Mamatallica - ask your husband if he'd like to be routinely addressed as Mr [your first initial] [your second initial] Mamatallica, and then come back and say people are making a big deal about it!

I love it when people come on and flaunt their inability to understand like they don't realise that's indicative of a problem with them, not the discussion.

I am obviously one of the few who just doesnt care. Its always older people who take the time to wrote using this. It doesnt change me as a person I am still Me but I also Chose to become one half of a marriage and to be addressed as part of that coupling using established language doesnt offend me in the least.
I cant be any more or less than i am just because of how someone pens an envelope or letter!

To be honest id rather this than someone who texts and calls me hun!

BertrandRussell is right, this is correct form, it was taught to me in my teens and I am 56 now. I have never, ever used it in an informal context.

This was one of the very many reasons we invented MS, back in the day.

But people carried on merrily abiding by the patriarchy anyway and using Miss because it made them feel young and pretty, until their inevitable marriage and taking of a man's name.

Now younger women look baffled when you use Ms and think it means you are divorced .

I would've said Ms=divorcee was more of a middle aged/older person mistake. In my experience anyway, I've never come across anyone IRL younger than about 50 who thinks that. One or two on MN though, or claiming to.

The middle-aged and Boomer age group INVENTED Ms so anyone in that age group getting it wrong must have been in a cave for 40 years.

I've explained Ms to many 20-somethings and made quite a few converts, I'm glad to say.

Women were non-people for a long time. There are many influences that would love us to go back there.

Sorry, mild rant but vaguely on topic as all formal address terms for women were man-dependent.

Master became Mr when he was 21, not when he married.

Ms has been around for longer than 40 years.

interesting article

TheDowager - I asked him, he doesn't care. Said he'd be fine with it and we could all change our names to my maiden name if I was that bothered but I'd have to do the endless paperwork involved, which seems fair.

Discussing something on MN doesn't indicate being 'wound up', you know. Mildly pissed off by a small example of completely unnecessary sexism is nearer the mark maybe.