People not using MY surname

[ChilliPB]

AIBU that I find this quite rude?

I didn’t change my surname when I got married, but all of DH’s family give me his surname on eg Christmas cards.

They address it to his first name, my first name, his surname.

Its a minor thing but I just find it rude not to use my actual name. They know for sure I didn’t change my name when we got married as when they send a card to just me, like a birthday card, they use my first name and my surname.

I imagine they’re either just defaulting to the His First Name, Her First Name and His Surname but surely in 2023 there are plenty of couples who don’t change their names on marriage, or live together and aren’t married? So they should be a bit more used to it? It’s not just older relatives - it’s his siblings as well.

How would you politely request they use your actual surname?

@RarrrrrrrrrrTheLittleLion I expect my great grandchildren will have 8 hyphenated surnames.

Or it may be that they have a think and a discussion and come to their own decision that works for them. There are many options open to them.

I do feel confident that my sons won’t impose patriarchal pressure and make the assumption that their partner or children will automatically have their name, and will be open to changing their own name if that ends up being the best decision.

Also… I do not have a ‘MAIDEN NAME’ I have my name!

It’s my name. I have no other. I have no married name. And maiden name is an extremely sexist term anyway . Yuk! Surely it’s name / married name. Or birth name / married name.

Men don’t have this. Imagine: “DH kept his maiden name when we got married”.

Please can we phase out ‘maiden name’ for birth name? ‘Christian name’ has been phased out, for example.

We should eliminate titles (except for professional ones to be used in the workplace) and just go with initials or first names and last names. Theres still the potential for people to ignore that a woman hadn't changed her name, but at least it round get rid of the whole 'declaration of marital status' that miss/mrs has.

It's annoying if someone uses the wrong name on purpose, to make a point, but if it's just because of old habit, I wouldn't get too worked up about it.

To the Dr upthread, you did all that work for you. It doesn't matter if others acknowledge it or not - it's about the value it adds to your life. You can't really expect extended or distant family on your dh's side to care about it as much as you do - to them you are just the spouse of their relative, so that's what they are thinking about when they address the card.

Perhaps titles should be optional? I refer to myself as a Mrs because that's what I am and that's what I want to be called, but I accept that other people feel differently and would never deliberately address anyone by a title or name they did not wish to use.

My surname before I was married was my maiden name - again, if people want to refer to a previous name as their birth name, that's up to them, but I don't think it's a term that needs to be phased out because some people object to it.

I think we generally are moving away from titles now. All to the good as far as I'm concerned. Where possible I avoid using them.

Couldn't agree more.

On every card she send to us my MIL will write ‘Mr and Mrs John Smith’ on the envelope as a passive aggressive protest that I didn’t take the ‘Smith’ name.

Drives me mad but I smile sweetly and don’t give her the satisfaction.

@BrimfulOfMash You are a legend. That is all! ❤️ Maiden name?!! No thanks!

I hate “maiden name” too. It’s so old fashioned, sexist and infantilising.

People have too much time on their hands. This issue is unbelievably insignificant.

@Redkite11 In what way would you describe challenging misogyny as "unbelievably insignificant"?

For men it would be his "virgin name".

Challenging misogyny!! What a joke. There are women in the world undergoing FGM. There are women in the world forced to marry their rapists. Girls in Afghanistan cannot go to school. Who gives a toss about the phrase “maiden name” or whether people use your husband’s surname by accident or convenience. No one’s life is actually impeded or genuinely affected by this. The only effect is being “offended”.

This thread just goes to show how society is desperate to put women back in their boxes, even for so minor an infraction as to retain the right to our own names. And it's those who do so who invariably find them on the receiving end of pushback.

I find the protestation that bestowing on someone a name they have never used, then claiming this is the 'correct' way to address them, quite funny. It's not 'etiquette', it's plain bad manners.

It's also entertaining that the women who can't resist popping onto these threads to share with everyone that they 'can't get worked up' about being called by a name they don't possess are almost invariably those who relinquished their own identities on marriage.

As to the claim that 'not a single woman I know' has ever retained her family name after marriage, unless you asked every single one of them, how could you possibly know? I assure you that in my profession this is common practice, and it's not just 'young radicals' who are doing it. I've been married since 2006.

DH's family have never addressed me as Myname. 'Ms' would do. But the courtesy of using my actual title of 'Dr' would really stick in their craw. It irritated me once upon a time, and DH has repeatedly asked them not to and been ignored. But clearly this says far more about their insecurities than it does about me.

A shout out to United Airlines is due, though! Booked a flight with me as Pax 1, title of Dr, my credit card details. When I checked the booking it had defaulted DH as 'Mr' (entered as Pax 2) to Pax 1.

He took the piss out of me for weeks for that one! Git.

I get this too. I just remind them I didn't change my name.

I do. I give a toss. So do a lot of other women. It doesn't mean we care nothing for serious, broader scale oppression and injustices against women.

These concerns are important, because a status hierarchy is bled into society on every conceivable level, and this views females as the subordinate sex. And this in turn affects the treatment of women, including serious discrimination, oppression and abuse.

But always, the default misogynistic response to women's concerns is 'don't you have anything more important to worry about?'

QED.

@Redkite11 You can look closely at language and have a critical response to it without being offended.

I am not ‘offended’ by the term maiden name. I am concerned that either explicitly or subliminally it says plenty about the status of women in and out of marriage that is both formed by misogyny and feeds misogyny. A misogyny that in turn casually turns women into fodder for porn, trafficking, a bit of banter in the pub that laughs at rape or abuse, etc etc.

99.9% of MN threads are people pondering Christmas presents, possible slights in supermarkets, whether bread is healthy, all manner of things less horrifying than FGM.

You carry on using a term like Maiden name if you like, knowing what maiden means and what it means that a woman is expected to change her name to reflect a sexual relationship in marriage.

But it costs me no energy at all, no difficulty whatsoever, to just say ‘name’ or as set against ‘married name’, ‘birth name’.