To get annoyed that it's another year and I'm addressed as Mr & Mrs Chatnoir by MIL

[chatenoire]

I haven't even changed my name! I'm still Ms + Maiden name. I'd be more OK with Mr & Mrs his surname, but first name + surname just sounds so anachronistic to me.

I've actually made a point by every single time signing our cards the way it should be, but clearly to her it doesn't matter.

One thing that made me laugh was my auntie who is in her 70s phone my mum asking if I had changed my name yet not even a question of if.

Would you, in that scenario, not consider that your kids could be Smith?

Anyway: I have loads of friends where the adults have different surnames and I say, in casual circumstances, ‘the smith / browns’. If not ‘Jane and John’ or ‘Vita and Virginia’.

Not all of us originate from the UK would be one of my guesses. And there are linguistic conventions around weddings that we all tend to pick up on and replicate.

A more charitable interpretation of the phrase may well be that the bride and groom in the wedding are the centre of the event, and the other players (the person accompanying you down the aisle, the person handing over the rings, the celebrant) are relevant in relation to the bride and groom. So my dad walked me down the aisle, the best man gave my husband the rings.

I've also been walked to the bus stop by friends wanting to make sure I got on safely; they wouldn't have gone otherwise so I was the reason they went to the bus stop, they walked me there.

But totally cool to compare it to walking dogs, too. Why not.

I think you'll find I wrote that I like traditional and formal writing. I like to be addressed in a formal manner.

@BrimfulOfMash quite possibly! It would really depend on the surnames in question and my spouses thoughts on the matter! I feel a lot more strongly about keeping my own name than I do about potential children sharing it but that could easily change.

Phew thanks to all the posters who are backing up the OP. @JassyRadlett I love your madwoman in the attic. @Brefugee I totally agree about the Mrs Hisname Lastname. Who is that person please??

I once got a letter from school addressed to me calling me Mrs hisname Ourlastname. I rang them up (it was the PE dept) and asked them not to do that again, and to address letters to me to Mrs myname Ourlastname. Or just Mrs Ourlastname. Or even (gasp) Myname Ourlastname. Fgs. Tbf they did take notice.

Yes this is also a hill I will die on. NO it is not about a piece of cardboard that you will throw away. It is about my identity. I got married, I didn't stop existing. Mrs Hisname Lastname is not a person and if my birthday card says that it's going in the bin.

Language is so very very insidious. It's so important that we no longer (I hope) say chairman or fireman or policeman as women can be these things too.

I get very angry when I see (which I very occasionally do in my work) "he/she" or "he or she" I THINK YOU MEAN THEY.

I also get pissed off when a survey asks for my gender and offers male before female. Why? It's not alphabetical. It's not because there are more men. Oh so it is just because you think men are more important? Hmmmmm?? I always query it in any survey I take.

I think the overwhelming majority of women want to be addressed by the correct name, whether they've changed it or not on marriage.

When I get a card or letter addressed to Mrs husband-name, it's just not me. That's not my name, and it never will be.

. And there are linguistic conventions around weddings that we all tend to pick up on and replicate.

Exactly. I don’t think it is a matter of needing to be charitable but of maintaining critical awareness and deciding if it is what we really mean and what we really want.

In ‘he walked her down the aisle ‘ she is the object of the verb. He is the one who ‘does’, she is the one ‘done to’. Have we thought about it (as in your good example of people given active roles) or are we just replicating?

I'm still not sure it's definitely problematic; you're right in subject/object terms but it's not a phrase we use only in relation to weddings; we say "walked me down the aisle" , but "walked me to the bus stop" and "walked my child to school" which doesn't have overtones of traditional gender roles, but rather have the focus on the person who is the reason for the walk - ie the person being accompanied to their destination

But as I've said numerous times on this thread, we're none of us perfect in any of this, and I may well be wrong. I'll think it over but instinctively I don't have a huge problem with it and I certainly don't think it's a usage otherwise restricted only to pets - but of course there may be regional variations to this.

I didn't change my name and I would say every single card has arrived to Mr and Mrs hisname. All legal docs, Facebook etc are in my own name and still I get cards addressed like that.

I don't bother to pull people up on it, but the cards always seem that they are not for me..

Bangs head off wall

It's her name. Not just her father's. Men don't own names.

I have a relative that does this- so if DH’s name was David Green- I get cards addressed to Mrs D Green (despite my actually name being Rose White, for example). I do roll my eyes a bit, but honestly it’s a generational thing and what she was taught was the right way of addressing people- she isn’t someone who would have given that any critical thought over the years. She’s absolutely lovely. I can’t see the point of criticising her way of doing something- it doesn’t affect me that much, and it’s something that will have died out within the next generation or so anyway.

When all other forms of misogyny are past, I will care about this one. Not right now.

To me, this is so back to front.

If we can’t even be named on an envelope, WTF chance do we ever have of erasing the big forms of misogyny….. ?

Some people just like to tick boxes!

😂

Same. No giving away - no "obey" no bouquet toss. Just a big fabulous party

Does anyone promise to obey these days? Surely not.

I don’t remember. I got married in 1987 and made a speech. Big deal. I enjoy making speeches.

You sign your cards with your surnames, OP? Bit odd.

I hope not.

So Mr Smith marries Miss Jones. Their daughter is Miss Smith-Jones.
Mr Apple marries Miss Orange. Their son is Mr Apple-Orange.

Those children grow up and marry. Their child becomes Miss Smith-Jones-Apple-Orange? Where does it end? If you’re saying everyone should get to keep their own name, rather than bowing down to outdated traditions and rules. Someone has to compromise, surely. Whichever way you do it, someone’s name will get ‘lost’

I think the point is that it needs to stop being assumed that it is always the woman that has to compromise.

It would be nice to see men offer to compromise just as much.

Is it not sad that women's names and identities are systematically lost?

I have spent the last few years building my family tree and there are quite a few branches where I have been unable to go any further because all I know is that someone's mother was called Mrs Mary Smith. Without a birth name you can't find a birth record.

Conversely, in my French husband's family all civil and parish records use the woman's birth name, and we've been able to trace back about ten generations.

If I had changed my name on marriage then there would be nothing on my children's birth certificates to even indicate that their mother is British.

And yet the Spanish don't have connipations about it.

I see from the Debretts link how utterly ridiculous it all is. Miss (Chris) Evert won Wimbledon. As did Mrs JM Lloyd. JM aren't even her initials. See also Miss (Yvonne) Goolagong and Later Mrs CW (I think) Crawley. Thoroughly erased from their own achievements.