To ask if you mind being addressed by your husbands initial?

[Zaratall]

In the process of buying a house and have just received some documentation.

I kept my own name when I got married so my name is Ms Zara Tall.

I've found that this has caused much confusion when dealing with anything official. People can't grasp that I'm a married Ms. So this latter has been addressed to Mrs Zara Tall and Mr My Husband. No biggie.

However the vendors have been named as Mr and Mrs Mansname Vendors.

I can't believe in this day and age people are still leaving women's names off official documentation concerning them.

Do you mind this?

Actually, the answer to calling Ms Hername and Mr Hisname "Mr and Mrs John Hisname" is "Miss and Master Stella Hername".

I hate it and find it very offensive.

I don't mind but I wouldn't request to be addressed that way or write to someone else that way.

Couldn't give a rat's arse.

gillybeanz's post is the first in a long time on this website that has left my gob well and truly smacked. I don't even know which part of it to begin with. The skin crawls.

I don't mind at all. It's a formal and traditional part of our culture. We seem to be the only country that doesn't value its culture and history and that makes me sad.

For those wondering why so many women think it doesn't matter, or that's the right way - it's because they have usually been raised by mothers who were raised to believe the same.

It's highly unlikely, although anything is possible, that my SIL who believes the man is the provider of the name and the food, and the woman is supposed to keep house for him, and of course take both his names, will raise her daughter with alternative values. She also believes genuinely, that girls aren't any good at science.

On the other hand, it would be highly unlikely, that my mother, raising me in a 'third world' country with it's patriarchal violence against women, while doing a PhD on the works of Doris Lesing and Virginia Woolf would raise me to believe the above. Whatever her faults were and gosh are they staggering, raising me to think as SIL above wasn't one of them.

happycamel - I'm sorry, I take back my words about gillybeanz. Her post has now faded into insignificance. You have arrived.

Most people would be annoyed if their name was regularly being misspelt or mispronounced, and yet there are women on here who don't even mind when their name is not used at all, but replaced entirely by their man's.

I find it incredible.

I hate it with the heat of a thousand suns.

And it's not 'etiquette', it's an antiquated practice that is being consigned to the dustbin of history, thanks to most thinking people no longer doing it.

One day, our descendants will look back in that it was ever considered acceptable.

Its offensive. I am not am offshoot of someone else. But it is weird watching people tie themselves up in knots. I once had to inform an estate agent that I was Dr Myname Ocelot and not Mrs Mansfirstname Mansurname. But on no correspondence could they get it right - and that was to do with selling a house held in my name!

I know ocelot. It's quite shocking how deeply the brain washing goes. I hadn't realised how often paperwork comes back with dh as group leader or named correspondent.

Women, know your place!

I don't mind at all. It's a formal and traditional part of our culture. We seem to be the only country that doesn't value its culture and history and that makes me sad.

Since we have spent more time without surnames than we have with the particular backwards piece of misogyny the thread discusses, if you really valued culture and history you'd want to get rid of them altogether. Your dismissal of tradition makes me sad.

I don't mind at all. It's a formal and traditional part of our culture. We seem to be the only country that doesn't value its culture and history and that makes me sad.

Nope. In Scotland it is extremely recent for women to take their husbands' names. Even in England, it's not been absolutely standard throughout recorded history, and 'Mrs' for unmarried women of a certain status was common right into the last century.

OTOH, if you'd said ignorant people co-opting British 'culture and history' to support outdated and stupid practices made you sad, I'd be right with you.

God, one or two posters on these threads make me realise that we haven't moved on very far at all.
So depressing.
Getting married to be called Mrs?
Taking someone else's name is cultural?
Jeeeeze

As for gillys knobbish suggestion that we are all insecure, surely it's a very secure person who can buck mysoginist tradition and be happy to be in a partnership with someone without morphing into them.
I kept my name when I married fur the second time so I am
Mrs (xh surname) my dh couldn't give a flying fuck, our relationship is about a lot more than sharing a bloody name.

I think the security thing might be the other way round in some cases. A male friend of mine once said "I think it's so sweet that my fiance wants to take my name". He was genuinely proud about it. I asked him why and he said it made him feel more secure. A female friend also said she took her husband's name because she wanted to make sure all their kids had the same surname "So people don't think I'm a four by four". Which, as attitudes go, also struck me as rather less than progressive.

My DH, by contrast, when I teased him after getting engaged by suggesting that I would become Mrs DHSurname, looked horrified and said: "You WOULDN'T, would you? But we're modern!!"

My dd is 14 and when I asked her if she'd. change her name she was literally pissing herself at the very suggestion. It was only when I pointed out that it was pretty common that she realised it was

I second the poster who hates it with the heat of a thousand fiery suns.

I hate it. I especially hate it from my in-laws, who should know better!

(and have been told).

I've been married for almost 25 years and never used my husband's surname. In fact he has been called 'Mr Mavis' a few times and DS gets called 'Little Mavis' often (which tickled us as that was his granddad's name).

shovetheholly I agree. If changing surnames upon marriage was purely about all having the same name as one family "unit", why don't as many men as women change their surname to their spouse's after marrying? I suppose I'm currently correctly titled "Miss" as I'm 16, but once I'm 18 I'll be "Ms" for good. If I get married I'd like my potential future husband to take my surname too, though wouldn't dictate it, of course.

Ledkr I'm glad your daughter wasn't too keen on the idea and hope she doesn't think because it's common she should!