Do titles matter?

[Cheeseandolivesplease]

I had this debate on a general board and the over-riding consensus was that "titles are irrelevant" (insofar as it makes no difference if you choose to be a Mrs HisName).
I vehemently disagree.
Someone suggested I'd get a different perspective on the Feminism board so here I am.
Is the fact that I am a married Ms MyName a "complete irrelevance" to fighting against the patriarchy do you think?
Do female honorifics matter?

What matters most is respecting others choices instead of insulting people for making different choices to you.

Marriage, name choice, title choice, javing children etc... everyone has their own reasons.

You want to be Ms... brilliant.
Other people prefer Mrs.

It absolutely matters that we should have the option of using a neutral title IE ms and also that we should have that option respected where we choose to use it.

@BirdLandedonmyHead Not sure how my post is in any way insulting?

I don’t think it’s the biggest action you can take to challenge patriarchal conventions but I wouldn’t say it’s completely irrelevant. I am not married but have been with my partner for a very long time and people who meet us usually assume I am Mrs HisName rather than Miss MyName. Correcting people who assume that is a tiny nudge to make them possibly think about their assumptions and why they assumed that.

I don't want a title on paper but if people want to acknowledge me formally then I suppose it reluctantly would have to be Ms.

@SilenceInside What bigger actions do you think we can take? I'm up for it.

Same. Why do I need a title.
I remained as Miss ‘My Name’ as refused to make any change at all - my husband didn’t. I also don’t wear a wedding ring.

I can’t tell if that’s a sarcastic question or a genuine one.

I carried on being Ms MyFamilyName through two marriages. It's important to me because of the significance of [A] women's honorifics advertising our marital status, while men's don't, and [B] the fact that changing the surname reflects the historical transfer of ownership of the woman from father to husband.

I think it was your thread where women shared stories of banks and other institutions changing their accounts from Ms to Mrs without asking, and even making their husbands the primary account holder! We've a long way to go yet!

Yes the Ms/Mrs and whose family name is completely irrelevant for feminism.

@SilenceInside A genuine one. It's the small steps that add up to the big steps, after all?

@NullaEffugium I really don't think it is. @GarlicEverywhere has given two reasons already as to why it isn't.

Well I do think it is irrelevant.
Countries where the tradition is that the woman keeps her name after marriage, still patriarchal.
Countries where the tradition is that man and woman double barrel their names after marriage with the last name being the woman’s still patriarchal

Ms/Mrs what they mean differs by country in some there is no difference and they don’t indicate marital status or ‘ownership’

In a patriarchal world if a woman is with a man, she is his doesn’t matter what the label is.

I actually think that titles are more important than the last name you choose to take.

It is completely wrong that the “standard” titles for women reflect their marital status, while those for men do not.

i’d like to see Miss and Mrs completely abolished. If men have one generic title, so can women.

Yeah @GarlicEverywhere reasons A and B aren’t technically historically accurate.

@NullaEffugium No, I'm not my husband's any more than his mine.

Well not today, but we were talking about patriarchal traditions and how current titles and naming conventions represented past ownership. My point is that while yes in ye old days the man owned the women, the Ms/Mrs and the family name did not signal that.

@NullaEffugium It does today though. Most people assume Mrs = married.

So calling yourself Ms or Mrs or keep your name or not, it makes to difference to the patriarchy at all. Irrelevant.

Ok and today does marriage equate to being owned? No. So again irrelevant.
In the past Mrs did not indicate married btw, it indicated a status or independence.

@NullaEffugium Ms is a neutral title. It doesn't declare marital status. Just in the same way Mr doesn't for men.

It has negative connatations for many.

@BirdLandedonmyHead Such as?

That’s where you are wrong, Ms was simply a shorter abbreviation of Mistress just like Mrs.

It didn’t get rebranded as neutral on marital status until after the women’s lib movement.

And by then marriage didn’t mean any male ownership of their wife’s property or assets.

@NullaEffugium I'm talking about now, in 2026.