To think the title Ms has connotations

[msripley]

• when it should really be the equivalent of Mr?

I've filled in an application form for something which needs to be approved by a government department.

I put my title, as I always do, as Ms. I've always regarded it as the female equivalent of Mr.

I'm married but decided to keep my maiden name. Supporting ID documents I sent with the application included my marriage certificate (showing that my name at marriage is the same as it is on the application form).

But a query came back asking me to confirm my surname was the same as it always had been "because you have ticked 'Ms' box for your title."

WTF is that all about? Is Ms regarded as unmarried? Mrs Ripley would've been my mother, not me. I ticked the box on the form to say I was married (which was a requirement of the application process), but in general, if it's not relevant, I regard my marital status as my business alone.

x-posts!

Oenopod not all banks accept a mixture of names. I got a cheque (from my Mum!) with Mrs Hername-hisname. Bank wouldn't accept it and had to have a new one.

I am married but chose not to change surname and am a Ms.
Every time I fill in a CRB form I have query over this.
Can't believe that in 21st century womwn sill have to explain their marital status when men don't.

I'm a Ms and have been since I was 18, and there may be plenty of us on here, but I often find with form-filling and giving details on the phone, there are lots of people who are still stumped by it, don't have an option for it on their system, etc., or just think you must mean "Miss" .

Society will catch up eventually. In the meantime I take any opportunity (like being asked to confirm the situation as in OP) to spell it all out to the poor (generally young, male) data input person who is lumbered with me, until they could pass an exam in women's studies.

I married 18 months ago and have kept my own surname.
I feel that I can't be Mrs Tigerbomb as that is my mother and I can't be Miss Tigerbomb as I'm not single and also because Miss makes me think of a young girl.
Therefore I am Ms Tigerbomb.
I feel that Ms is just the feminine form of Mr.

I haven't encountered any difficulties with the bank or forms (so far) but it does annoy my PIL intensely and they still insist on sending birthday cards etc as Mrs Married name.

On the positive side, it's a good bullshit detector when you have a cold call.

As in:

"Hello is that Mrs (DHSurname)?"

"I'm afraid no-one of that name lives here."

Click...

I've always kept my name, even when married, and have used Ms since I was about 18. I just don't see marital status as anybody's business if men don't have to say.

I changed my name by deed poll when I was 18 and the solicitor told me I therefore had to become a Ms.

Apparently Miss is used for unmarried women who have never changed their names

If you change your name, marry but keep your surname, or divorce you are Ms

If you marry and take their name you are Mrs

All makes sense to me!

I used Ms before I was married, and as far as banks etc are concerned I am still a Ms, mainly because although I changed my name with them when I married I forgot to change my title! Am quite happy to be a Ms.

I work in education though and so am Mrs there, have you ever tried to explain Ms to young children?

Miss, Mrs., and Ms. are all honorifics for women, but they have very different appropriate usages. Since a great deal of politics and emotion is bound up in the terms for some women, it is an excellent idea to learn to distinguish between the three. Learning about these terms can certainly help someone avoid a misstep. In the United States especially, Ms. is the generic term to use when referring to a woman that you know nothing about, particularly in the business world.

All three terms are etymologically derived from ?Mistress,? as in ?Mistress of the House.? Both Miss and Mrs. were in wide and often interchangeable use until the 1800s, when the meanings began to deviate. Miss came to be used to refer to an unmarried woman of any age, while Mrs. was the correct honorific for a married woman. The usage of ?Mistress? to refer to a lover had curiously begun several centuries earlier.

In the 1960s, however, some women began to chafe against the use of the titles, because they believed that the terms suggested a certain sense of ownership. A ?Miss? could be said to be the property and responsibility of her parents, as she was historically, and a Mrs. was the property of her husband, by being marked with his name and a change in honorific. Women wanted to find a term which could be used universally for all women without implying marital status, just as Mr. is used for men.

In 1961, Sheila Michaels thought that ?Ms.? might be an appropriate middle-ground. Her discovery was probably brought about by a typo, and it took another 10 years for the term to become popular. By the 1970s, many women, along with a major feminist magazine, had adopted "Ms." as an appropriate universal title. It was an important step for the women's liberation movement, because it created a new framework for thinking about women.

Sorry for the long post but wanted to provide an explanation.

Try being Dr -- I've lost track of the number of jobsworths who think that because I'm a Dr I must be a man

What I object to is 'Maiden name'. Think unmarried name much more appropriate, after all, was no maiden when met DH (or several millenia before that...)
beanlet, I know someone with same issue as you, to make it worse, she is also a Rev. Her husband has had several degrees bestowed upon him by people's inability to think both titles could possibbly belong to her!!!

Ms and Mrs both sound horrible to me and I avoid using titles wherever possible. But, I do think one title (if you have to have titles...) should be reclaimed as just meaning 'adult female'. So, I think as someone who has never married and has no intention of marrying, I may start to use Mrs just to see what happens

I had a call from my GP's office yesterday with the receptionist saying "Your records say you're married but we haven't got the information for your new name, the records still say Ms MyLastName." She was so very confused when I told her Ms MyLastName is in fact what my name is and always will be. "But you're married", she stammered.

Smokingaces, your solicitor is either an ignoramus or a liar.

Do titles such as Ms/Mr have any legal standing or can we legally call ourselves anything we like, such as Mr if we are female, a random made-up title?

or a random made-up title

"Try being Dr -- I've lost track of the number of jobsworths who think that because I'm a Dr I must be a man "

Or worse, that you might be of some real use in a medical emergency!

I've been Ms ever since I was 17, when I saw the amount of hassle my cousin had to go through when she changed her surname to her husband's. I looked at that, thought 'no way am I ever doing that', and have been Ms MaidenName ever since. Some people do therefore think that DH is Mr MyMaidenName, but he seems to come with that.

Ooooh...I'm glad to see this post...
I was always Ms before, and in the US (where I'm from), that was no big deal...over there, it IS the equivalent of Mr, so it's never questioned. However, when I moved to England, I was discouraged by my in laws from using it, because they told me it was used for women who were married but divorced. I think it's insane...I am double barrelled, and really do prefer Ms, and it's what I've been used to before.

Oh, also in the US...you wouldn't call a female over the age of 12 'miss', so I really can't imagine calling one of you (who kept maiden names) Miss so and so...to me, it's infantile!

I was sure Ms was supposed to be for people who had been married but were now divorced?

No, pitter, Ms is the equivalent of Mr, it doesn't reveal marital status at all. That's the whole point.

Sadly there are many people who somehow can't cope with the idea of a form of address that doesn't denote female marital status and those people have invented a story that Ms = divorce. They are wrong.

I usually use my Dr title because I am divorced and therefore "Miss" is wrong (and besides, sounds ridiculous on anyone over the age of 21), "Mrs" is wrong because I never used ex-h surname and I'm not keen on Ms because everyone assumes you use it because of divorce (which I don't want to advertise).

Dr also gets you better service in banks .

I am Ms X. Have been since I can remember, still am having got married, will be if I get divorced or whatever.

Nobody needs to know my marital status.

Of course, there is also an argument that says nobody needs to know my gender either. And therefore all gender specific titles should be done away with.