@SoupDragon
Ah but people do this to women all the time, in real life and on mumsnet, in the name of "tradition". So much social pressure on women to change their surnames after getting married, even in 2022. And for women who don't change their surnames after marriage, or have children and are not married, there seems to be an automatic expectation that the children have the father's surname and not the mother's
Equally, on MN people are constantly telling women what their name should be by telling them not to change it and belittling those that choose to change. Just like you've done in your post.
To the two opposing positions above, I can respond from the experience of a woman who didn't change my name on marriage and was surprised at some of the pushback this provoked. I thought nobody would give the slightest toss what I called myself; an expectation deriving from my mistaken assumption that sticking to the legal default and using my own family name was a lot more commonplace than it now seems it is. We married in 2008 and in my profession it was and is more common to retain your own family name. I was
very wrong on all counts.
Strangers in business transactions wouldn't know I was married unless particular computer systems demand marital status and title together. The shit I've been given when I preferred not to use 'Mrs' really does defy belief. Outright rudeness is the last response I'd expected to receive on this score in the 21st century.
When I book something for me and DH in my name nearly everyone assumes in the first instance that 'Dr' is him. We regularly grin about it, but no denying it's casual sexism at work.
On the point of earning the 'Dr' title, I never intended to use this outside the workplace as I thought it pretentious. That was before I married and faced this Miss/Mrs/Ms shit all the time. It's now my default - because it neatly circumvents a conversation I can't be arsed to have.
After nearly 14 years, despite being requested not to, my MiL STILL persists in addressing me as Mrs Hisname.
I was told by an acquaintance 'Well, I RESPECT my husband!' Well, my husband and I respect each other. So much so - and I resisted the petty temptation to point this out out - that we were still married to each other.
There's been other stuff that's mostly gone over my head, but the title thing as well as the assumption that women have a 'maiden' (UGH!) name pisses me off far more than what other women do or don't choose to call themselves. The above examples haven't been a daily occurrence, but these are things I've not-infrequently heard over the space of nearly a decade and a half.
In sum, it is far easier for women to do what convention expects of them rather than step outside of it or act individually, even in so small a way as to express our own personal preference of identity.
Crackers - but here we (still) are.