To call myself 'Mrs' even though I'm unmarried?

[DottyBaguette]

In the past I've used Miss/Ms. My preference is Ms, I think Miss sounds very young.

I've never been married. Two teenagers. Live with them in my own house, everything paid for by me as I've always worked and never had a man to depend on, I can't imagine ever risking my financial independence.

I've noticed that post 40, I'm almost always assumed to be 'Mrs'. School teachers, tradespeople, even the bank, refer to me as 'Mrs'. I used to correct it but now I can't be bothered. Why should men not be defined by their relationship status but women are?

So aibu just to let the assumptions continue and even start ticking 'Mrs' on forms, so I don't have to correct people who obviously think most women over 40 are 'Mrs'?

I tried to correct the bank, who seemed to think I'd need to post all sorts to get 'Mrs' changed to 'Ms'. So I left it, that was several years ago, so obviously the bank thinks I'm happily married...

I am Mrs and married and always known as such, I did not think too much about it when younger, but honestly recently I prefer Ms - it is like Mr and neutral re marriage.

If you are not married then Mrs seems odd.

I’m married and I’m a Ms because why should anyone need to know whether or not I’m married when they don’t seem to mind whether or not my husband is. I almost always correct, unless I’m (occasionally) working in school, in which case I don’t correct the teacher and pupils always call me “Miss”.

Totally agree.I get so angry about this. Men are just men but women are classified by whether they are married or not. It makes my piss boil. We have so many sexist outdated patriarchal institutions. Things need to change rapido. Just glad I don't live in America or I'd be the one going out with a machine gun shooting all the old white male rapists and abortion deniers. 😈

I divorced over 20 years ago and have been Miss ever since (mid fifties now). I get called Mrs all the time and it doesn't really bother me, except if I'm having a grumpy old woman day and it reminds me of my shit head ex husband! I have a pathological hatred of being called Ms, though. I'm not 100% sure why, but I think it has something to do (in my weird brain) with not being ashamed by my marital status. I've been divorced for a very long time and don't intend to marry again, so I'm a straight out, uncoupled Miss rather than the ambiguous Ms. Please don't think I have a problem with women who prefer to be titled Ms - I have lots of friends that do and it doesn't even occur to me to mention it. I just don't like it for myself, for some reason.

Please, please can we not dictate, prescribe, guilt trip, legislate, pressurise, ourselves into unnecessary compliance with tight lipped prim patriarchal traditions?

Women have enough tutting and judgemental crap to put up with without imposing it on ourselves.

Don't talk rubbish. Title infers nothing about marital status - that is why banks etc ask for your marital status as a separate question. You even admit this yourself by saying that Mrs could mean married, divorced, or widowed.

@BeautifulSkiez Pleas explain the scenario in which you think you could get into ‘hot water’ with a bank over a title that has no legal status and for which their is no male equivalent (so any such ‘hot water’ would contravene the sex discrimination act).

Banks run their services according to their policies and legislation that governs those policies.

You don’t need to be so frightened of phantom authority.

You don't need to peer and make a judgment, if someone is old enough to go to secondary school she is officially madame, so if you have an 11 year-old getting some official communication she will be either first name + surname, or more usually madame first name + surname.
Madame is historically the title of the monarch's female children, however young they are. It isn't to do with age or marital status but more respect and rights.

It was a female lawyer. I don't really see anything wrong with it myself but each to their own.

If they've given you advice on something whilst acting as your solicitor and it wasn't clear to you that this was non-legal, something's gone wrong somewhere. Especially if you've emerged thinking it's a 'should'.

Only in Frog Kingdom.

Sure, that sort of system works great. What I was concerned about was the idea of a system where women get called "Mrs" when they appear to be middle-aged or older, which is what I thought the original poster was talking about.

I can’t get exercised by stuff like this. I let people call me what they like.

I would like to use the honorific 'Granny' as in Granny Weatherwax. Like Esme Weatherwax, I have no grandchildren but I am old with much experience of life.

Completely wrong but you're not the only one with this mistaken belief.

Anyone can use Ms, Mrs, Miss, Mr...they have no legal basis whatsoever and have no real meaning. I know very very few women who go by Mrs, even though they're mostly married. We're all Ms

If your bank have incorrectly registered you as Mrs, it is down to them to correct it. You will probably have to show some kind of ID with your used title on it (driving licence) but it is on them to sort. You shouldn’t be put out having to provide lots of ‘stuff’

I can see no reason at all why you should have to provide ANYTHING to insist they use the courtesy title you prefer. And I would refuse to -it gives credence to the idea that there is some sort of legal onus on women to use the 'correct' title..

Having worked in banking for many years, they won’t just amend a record without evidence, for obvious reasons.

I’m not excusing the reasons for it, but that is the way it is

I haven't rtft, so maybe other people have said this already, but older unmarried women in respectable jobs often went by 'Mrs' until the early 20th century. Cooks, housekeepers (Mrs Danvers, Mrs Hudson), Reverend Mothers of convents. You'll just be reviving a tradition.

That said, I'm very ancient and I go by Ms or Dr, but there's no reason not to use Mrs if it suits you to do so.

But what evidence is there? A title does not form part of your legal name, you can use any of them, you can use a different one every day if you like. A letter with ms on it instead of Mrs doesn't mean anything. It's irrelevant to the bank and there's no proof either way.
I mean, do they want you to bring in the absence of a marriage cert?

Not sure this is true. I never needed any proof to update accounts when I moved from Miss to Ms, albeit that was a few years ago. Looking around now, some banks don't mention any need for evidence.

Nationwide just says come and tell them in branch and no ID needed.

https://www.nationwide.co.uk/help/your-details/change-your-name-title-gender/

HSBC also say no document needed for most titles, and 'all other' would include any move between Ms, Miss and Mrs. Quite amused by the bit about documents sourced from the internet that allow you to call yourself Lord or Lady. Sounds like someone came up with that one from bitter experience?!

https://www.hsbc.co.uk/help/banking-made-easy/update-your-details/change-name/

And yeah, there wouldn't necessarily be any proof for any of this, because Miss/Ms/Mrs don't have any legal meaning. You might as well hand them in a Tesco receipt, for all the proof it'd be.

I’ve got too much going on for this to have ever entered my mind.

Ms though is very old maiden.

Each to their own.

This happens in France where they have eradicated ‘Miss’ everywhere except for when you address young girls. I have the sand problem as you, where it’s assumed that I must be ‘Mrs’ and I have to correct it. Even the oncologist! As though we’re in the 1950s lol. I work in a school and there are lots of women who still use ‘Miss’.

Amen to this! Call yourself what the feck you like ladies. Men have been telling us what to do since the dawn of time. I for one am sick of that shit!