Being called Mrs *-*

[LorlieS]

I'm married and a Ms My Last Name - His Last Name (hubby also double-barrelled when we married).
So why do so many people insist on addressing me as a Mrs?! AIBU to be annoyed by this?

Then make a point of telling them when you're introducing yourself that you're Ms or do you expect them to guess.

There are lots of titles for them to choose from, they're probably going for the most common.

Care to expand?
It's my understanding that the legalities and rights in terms of finances etc are the same but the tradition isn't there

CP was introduced first of all for same sex couples. It was done at a time when they couldn't get married, ie didn't have equal rights, but the government of the time chose not to give equal access to the institution. They never said anything about it being due to the historical sexist connotations of marriage. Some people felt/feel CP to have problematic connotations because it stopped short of equality, others don't.

Straight CP exists because the government lost a legal case after same sex marriage was introduced.

https://www.familylaw.co.uk/news_and_comment/supreme-court-declares-civil-partnership-act-2004-incompatible-with-human-rights-law

It would've been possible to remove CP altogether, as the problem was the inequality of provision. However the government chose to open it up to straight couples instead.

Most of the legalities are the same yep. You can't petition for a CP to be dissolved on the grounds of adultery whereas you can with a marriage. It would have to be unreasonable behaviour instead. It's a personal call whether you think that's significant.

I have a name composed from the same elements as you. I am a Mrs and proud to be so. The term Mrs denotes a partnership with my husband. He has chosen to use the composed name too, even though it's longer and a bit of a faff.

I personally don't like being addressed as Ms, but that is your choice, but as pp said you have picked something less usual.

If nothing else, Ms doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

So in the case of @surreygirl1987 this could have been an option though

Don't know. Depends on when she got married.

Also, even for those who do have the option of both at the time they choose, there's the issue of international recognition. In UK law the differences are small but of course we don't have the power to make the rest of the world recognise civil partnership as an institution. So it depends whether that's a concern for the couple involved.

Fair enough

Each to their own. I personally have always found 'Miss' belittling. Actually, not always - I don't think I thought anything of it until I went to uni and started reading more widely - took me a long time to realise what the connotations or Miss and Mrs actually were. When I started thinking about it, I realise how belittling and archaic it was.

Also, who is trying to do the following:

What would be 'belittling' is trying to make another woman feel she had to change the name she's been perfectly happy with for many years because you think she ought to use something else, even when she has clearly said she'd prefer not to.

It wasn't clear who you were referring to. That wasn't what the OP was asking for...

Exactly this.

Yes apologies - I fucked up the quote @surreygirl1987 ; I can't find the post I was replying to now either .

My point was that every time this topic comes up, women who have chosen X, Y or Z are told by people who patently have too much time on their hands that they are wrong, or 'letting the side down' in some way. It doesn't seem to occur to them that policing other people's choices rather than minding their own business so everybody can call themselves whatever they like is hardly a shining beacon of solidarity.

To another PP (and I can't find that post to quote either), I also don't know anybody who uses 'Ms', but I don't work in education either, and we mostly just go by our names. Outwith work, I like ordering from Liberty where their drop down list means I can be 'Madame', 'Brigadier' or most recently 'Wing Commander'

I went for being Mrs Bfl socially and staying as Miss PreBfl at work. DH is a PhD type doctor but prefers Mr as Dr is who you go to when sick.

We did have a lady at work who was LtCol(rtd) and a Rev. Just two that stuck in my mind.

Just out of interest how do people pronounce ms?

I usually say ooms but is it mers?

Miz?

“Miz” outside the UK, always. As mentioned in PP, the title originally grew out of the regional slurring of “miss” and “Mrs” in some parts of the States.

It’s only in the UK that you seem to get this odd “muzz” pronunciation at times, or any confusion among native English speakers about how to pronounce it, which speaks to the fact that the title has still not really taken off.

Oh God, the “proud to be a Mrs!”people have joined!

Getting married really is not an achievement. Establishing a good marriage and keeping it going year after year can be a real achievement, but adopting the title “Mrs” does not in any way indicate whether someone’s relationship is a success or not, so….

Could you point me to all these posts where people have said that getting married is an 'achievement', @user1477391263 ? I must have overlooked them.

Also titles like Miss, Ms, Mrs have no legal basis- it's purely convention. Nothing stopping unmarried women from calling themselves Mrs if they want - no husband necessary.

@user1477391263 Absolutely. We women that don't title ourselves Mrs must feel so embarrassed about our martial status(!)

What’s mx? Why don’t I know about this one??

Only the teaching profession, whether with phD or not, would be so condescending. It’s in teachers DNA to talk down to everyone like they are the superior being.

I'm no longer married and am still a Mrs. Although I was called Miss not that long ago in sainsburys.
After my 1st marriage I did go back to my maiden name because I had no desire whatsoever, to be associated with that particular name.
I suppose it would get old really fast if I was constantly correcting people though.
In France you are automatically called madame after a certain age, dunno what that age is though.

Maybe I’m naive then but I don’t know a single Ms. I can recall one teacher that was a Ms when I was at school who was only there for about 6 months.. I even used to work in a school and didn’t know anyone who used it there.

and I absolutely think people should be respectful and use it when corrected. I just don’t think jumping straight to be annoyed when someone uses it not knowing is very fair.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs.

Very interesting. Including the advice on current usage (should use Ms unless corrected.) However I wish we had the straightforward European method. Though I could get used to being called Mistress like in an Elizabethan play!

One last thought from me. I changed my name when I got married and I go by Mrs. I love being all the same as a family.
However on a societal level I tend to agree with pp about the sexist disparity in choices for men and women. I don’t think any country does this, but I would dearly love a surname system (with a standard Mr/ Ms) that meant boys took their father’s surname, and girls their mother’s, and no-one changes them at any point in life. That way we would have matrilineal and patrilineal surnames equally. I know it would be awkward as families wouldn’t all have the same name: it would have to be a whole society thing. Therefore I’ll consign it to Dreamworld. But it’s good to imagine solutions, right?

And that’s fine but can you not see how annoying it is that men get to be called Mr no matter what but women get to be called different names depending on their private life?