Mrs and Mr Smith

[Oysterbabe]

When I write client letters I always put the woman's name first in the address and write
Dear Mrs & Mr Smith. The letters have to be checked before posting and my boss always swaps the names back because 'it doesn't flow properly'
AIBU for always writing the woman's name first?

Delighted to hear it 👍

Well done for marrying a decent bloke.

What's your weird obsession with predicting what my daughter might or might not do in the future? She's 13 😄

And why do you think the legal and financial protections offered by marriage would be taken away?

*sexist conventions are still sexist, even if people are used to them.
*
Mr and Mrs sounds familiar. That's it. I don't think correct comes into it anymore.

Did yours?

My family and friends would be in hysterics at the thought of any description of me being diminished and infantilised! I laughed out loud at that one!
Maybe i didn't keep my name because i didn't feel the need to make a point.
The subject of titles is another one that crops up on here often and yet again in real life i know of no one who is bothered by it. Marital status on here appears to be a closely guarded secret. How dare they ask if I'm married! There was a post a little while back someone was at a party or something and was most offended at being asked if they were married! It's just conversation! I'm not talking drop down menus i kind of get that but this was chit chat at a social event

No of course he bloody didn't. Men don't. That's kinda the point!

He could have chosen to.
That's my point

Are you willfully disregarding the points made here, or do you really not get it?
When a man gets married, he is not expected to change his name; it wouldn't cross the mind of the majority of men - however modern and enlightened - to do so.
However, for a woman embarking on marriage they are either expected to change their name, or announce their intention to retain their old one. Whichever choice they make they may expect that some will disapprove or comment on it in some way. And herein lies only the beginning of the inequality, i.e. the different expectations (from society, culture, convention, family, friends...) of men and women in the same situation, in this case entering marriage. Then it gets worse: if you do change your name, it's your husband's family name you adopt. You relinquish your own family name for his. There is no sociological reciprocal equivalent; men are not expected to concede any of their identity or background.

It could be argued that whilst women continue to allow different expectations to be made of them, then the more damaging and discriminatory ones can continue to flourish alongside the more seemingly mundane and harmless. If you're happy not to be treated the same, you really can't expect to be regarded as equal.

I received an email this week addressed to "Dear Sirs". I am not in the slightest on the pronoun waggon but I took delight in signing off

Miss Jam Maker
she/her

You really do not need to be so patronising. Do I really not get it? Yes I get it. I'm not agreeing with you. You do realise that others are entitled to have a different point of view to your own. Believe me no one treats me as less of an equal!
If it's so important to you to change what you perceive as an inequality then you could have had the discussion with your husband to ask him to change his name to begin to address the change in the system. Did you?

I think you’re being ridiculous and making an issue where there isn’t one. If I got a letter like that I’d think the writer was weird.

We have a Coventry Building Society mortgage and, as I am the organiser, my name is first. I'm also the organiser of most of our household admin and they are the only organisation that has my name first.

I address letters at work to

Ms Anne Smith & Mr John Smith
Address

Dear Ms Smith & Mr Smith

This is something I've started doing recently and is not what I was trained to do back in the day. No-one checks my letters .

Mostly though I'm writing to couples with different surnames so it probably doesn't stand out so much as being different from the 'norm'; and as a policy we tend to use Ms rather than Miss / Mrs.

I think you’re being ridiculous and making an issue where there isn’t one.

I think that better applies to the OPs boss who 'corrects' a perfectly grammatical and polite form of address for mere old-fashioned conventionality.

Or you could think thank god someone is challenging patriarchal convention.

I have sometimes wondered why we put the man’s name first if ladies have social superiority. I mean you introduce a man to a woman, stand when a lady comes into the room or raise your hat to her in the street, and yet the husband’s name comes first. What is the logic?

Yep!

The trouble is because ‘Mr and Mrs’ is such a well established convention, you are obviously making some sort of point by reversing it. The couple involved might take it personally. They can’t know exactly what your point is. In a business or professional situation this might matter.

Yep. I'd wonder why too.

In the same way that ANYONE stating pronouns sets off a little klaxon is so many people's heads, this would do the exact same for me. I'd assume (likely unfairly) that you were some lefty hairy legged tree hugging hesian wearing overbearing feminist.

I'm all for equality but little battles like this just aren't beneficial.

Traditionally, and I'm not saying that's best, separate names like that indicates a couple are estranged or divorced.

This thread is making me realise how set in my ways I am that I'd just prefer "Mr & Mrs Smith" than separate full names. Not because of anything to do with the traditional divorce thing above, but just because it's "normal".

@Cosyblankets

Instead of being told what to do by men, we're now told what to do by women!
Women who can't seem to grasp that anything other than what they would do isn't wrong, it's just our choice, not theirs.

This. ^ Why does it annoy the so called 'feminists' that MOST women choose to change their surname when they get married? It's naff-all to do with anyone else. Leave these women alone!

@FarmGirl78

...separate names like indicates a couple are estranged or divorced.

This. ^