Ms or Mrs?

[ovumahead]

OK, all you intelligent articulate women here, help me! I just got married recently. I'd never really considered being a Mrs, to be honest I didn't put much thought in to it (?). When it came to changing my name on everything, I couldn't stand being a Mrs, so I put Ms on everything. I thought, well, women have fought for this, so why the hell not? Why should everyone know what my marital status is? (Besides, I'll be a Dr next year so it won't matter for too long...)

Apart from the contradiction, perhaps, in changing my name to my husband's (I did put a lot of thought in to that, and did want to, for complex personal reasons!), I don't think it's a big deal to be Ms or Mrs. I was Ms before on most things anyway. So why change?

I didn't discuss this with my husband, but it came up in passing when a letter came addressed to me as Mrs (obviously a mistake!). He asked me, light-heartedly, whether I was a hairy armpitted lesbian.

Now, don't get me wrong, I do find a lot of blokeish humour quite funny at times, and while I can see it wasn't a long, considered response from him, I did find myself giving him a brief lecture on why I'd chosen to do that. But I sounded like a hairy armpitted lesbian.

Now I'm left wondering - how can one overthrow these collectively damaging quips, if one sounds like a cliché when doing so?

And does anyone have a feminist opinion on the Ms or Mrs thing?

For myself it was important we had a family unit name, we discussed taking the name of our village of birth in Eastern Europe as a new family name. Maybe the reason I was so comfortable with taking his is that I knew he was willing to change too (in the end I decided I liked his name and was happy to be traditional)

Maybe, echt. I like in old books like "Tom Jones" where the (grown up) maids are called e.g. Mrs Honour.

My best friend is getting married and almost certainly taking on bloke's surname. I asked about it once then butted out (partly on advice of MNers) but am interested to see that our male friends are giving her a bit of a tough time about it. They tell her that it's sad that there'll be no more Rosie Jones (e.g.), just some Rosie Hisname person.

I will only ever be Ms. MySurname. My DH has always been perfectly fine with this and it only ever comes up in a jokey way between us.

His best friend teasingly asked DH once when I corrected him for introducing us to friend's new girlfriend as "DH and Cloudydays HisSurname" if he ever regretted marrying "such a feminist". Without missing a beat, DH said "why should I? She married a feminist too."

I love him.

Our DD is DD MySurname HisSurname, without a hyphen.

Elpehantsandmiasmas I would be quite happy to just use firstname surname when writing cards, but have been brought up to use titles and the habit has stuck, as it must have done for all my friends, we're in our forties, maybe it is dying out for younger people (hopefully!).

I also agree with you about names, it's the one I have had all my life and always been known by, why on earth would I want to change it?

Just curious - those of you who have chosen to go by 'Ms' on the basis that it's no one's business whether or not you're married, do you wear wedding rings?

Maybe MrsDinky, it would no more occur to me to write to my friend as Miss R Jones then it would occur to me to call my brother "Mr Miasmas" when I see him.

TBH The Handmaid's Tale put the nail in the coffin of my ambitions to change my name on marriage - something I'd always planned to do as my last name is cumbersome to say the least. Read it as a teenager and had a real CLUNK moment when I realised that the female characters being known as Offred (of Fred) or Ofjames is not a farfetched situation, but one that actually exists when women are called "Mrs Hisname".

Anyone who changed their name want to answer my first name question? I'm honestly asking - would you have been happy to change your first name as well as your last name, to a name that your DH or PIL chose for you for example?

I am Mrs and proud to be so. We have been married for 29 years and it never occurred to me not to take my husband's surname.

I think back then it was traditional to do so and it does make life much easier for us all to have the same surname.

I don't have any strong feelings about whether women want to be called Miss, Ms or Mrs. As far as I'm concerned each to their own.

I would be interested to know what the public perception is of a woman who chooses to be called Ms - strident feminist? Professional career woman? Unmarried woman who doesn't want to sound like a desperate spinster? Any other reason?

1Catherine1, I've had that argument from Catalan friends too, that our way of traditionally taking the husband's name is so outdated and sexist. Even Spanish women my mother's generation think it's ridiculous how we take our husband's name. If you think about it, though, in Spanish families the woman's surname dies out too, eventually, it just takes one generation more. So if I am Ana Gutierrez Sanchez and my husband is Marcos Corbalan Martin, Spanish tradition would dictate that our children will take Corbalan Gutierrez, keeping both the paternal and maternal grandfather's surname, but eliminating both grandmother's surnames. Same thing as our tradition really, just delayed a little.

i am unmarrried so no need to change names.but my name is mine,it is integral to who i am.i am known by it professionally and personally.

not sure what you are both getting at,saying "sounded like a hairy armpitted lesbian".is that indicative of how you feel.do you feel not changing names upon marriage is subversive

I have been Ms for over 30 years - ever since I went to Uni. I made a conscious decision to "claim" the title as I wasn't a "hairy armpitted lesbian"

I also have an extremely unusual surname that I knew I would always want to keep.

When I started work a few years later, I always chose to avoid any title. My first name, when combined with my Germanic surname, could be confused as being male and I was working in the chemical industry whenre females were unusual at the time, that was actually quite useful. People would come on the phone asking to speak to "myfirstname, mylastname" expecting a German male and would then be surprised that the Scottish female that had answered the phone was that person

I remember having an argument with a colleague (a real medallion man ) about business cards as he was unhappy that I didn't either Ms or Miss put onto my cards. He complained that "they wouldn't kow what sex I was". My boss pointed out to him that "since it is usual to hand business cards out, if they haven't worked out what sex she is, they have bigger problems....." (if I say so myself, back then I was a young, slim, attractive blonde with a figure I would now die for :))

Ds has dh's name so that he doesn't have to go through life spelling his surname as I do - and being right at the end of the alphabet. (I'm used to it now and like it).

And yes, I do wear a wedding ring - as does my dh. That is part of our commitment to each other - my name has nothing to do with that.

We did briefly consider double-barrelling our names, but with two unusual names (although his is easier to spell) we decided it would sound like a disease whichever way roud we did it as well as being far too long.

Someone asked about teachers: at ds' primary school, all teacher are now as "Miss", whether or not they are married. The kids seem to more than capable of coping with changing names - even where a teacher chooses to change her name after getting married, the kids are quite happy calling her "Miss Newname".

I kow of one family where the parents have each kept their own name (it is actually quite expensive for medical doctors to change their name for professional purposes) and have given their children a different surname again.

I take Mrs., and wonder whether the thousands of women out there who conform to Mrs. Husbandsname are not replying to this thread because it's not a topic they feel strongly about, or what?

I didn't consider anything other than becoming Mrs. Husbandsname. I do like the German thing where every adult woman is respectfully (and more anonymously) called Frau, and this would be ideal for me as a prefix, although I'd still want a family surname. I'm not prepared to have a separate surname to my children, and my priority is to be a family unit with my husband. After I got married I did have to work a bit harder in my work to ensure people knew who I was, but 7 years later that has long since settled down.

Meant to say that I also only got married at 37, by which time my name was well and truly engrained, both professionally and personally. But given how early I started using Ms, even if I had married younger, I wouldn't have changed it.

strawberrycake, I guess dd can choose which surname she uses when she's older - she can follow the Spanish tradition & lose the last name (ie mine), or British tradition & lose the middle name (which in this case is dh's). Or she might marry and take her new partner's name. Or indeed choose an entirely new name - her problem, not mine (whereas we had to put something on the birth register, so just went with the Spanish norm).

Kwini, neither DH nor I wears our rings habitually, though tbh that's more for practical reasons (machinery) than anything else.

picesmoon, I think whether you know lots of Mses depends on the circle you move in - many women I know use it.

Teachers is an oddity, though - for most of us the honorific is used only in writing, so Ms is fine, but it is undoubtedly hard to pronounce (indeed, for all I know some of dd's Misses could have been Mses). I think teaching is one of the few professions where people are still habitually referred to as Mr X or Miss/Mrs/Ms Y.

On a related note, is it just me who finds 'Sir' to a teacher respectful, but 'Miss' an unsatisfactory alternative for a woman teacher. I can see that children need a way to speak to unknown adults without worrying about how to address them (Miss, Miss, MISS,` Tommy is bleeding all over the playground!), but it still seems odd. Not sure what the alternative would be (perhaps Teacher, in the German style of using the profession as a mode of address?)

Sorry, teachers, clearly, ARE an oddity.

Well, this has made me think. From now on I am going to address all my friends' cards as firstname lastname. For all I know I could have been getting theirs wrong all these years too!

Whoever asked about wedding rings, yes, I do wear one but so does DH.

Am just curious why we are all referring to unmarried surnames as maiden names, yet determined not to be subjugated to men...

When I married I changed to Mrs Husband's Surname, it doesn't bother me in the slightest and I preferred his surname to mine, also it wouldn't have affected my career in anyway to change my name.

I like the fact that I have the same surname as my DS.

However, I do find the whole double-barreled stick your 2 names together for your kids thing rather irritating. (am now prepared for lots of ranting from double-barrelers, sorry but it just bugs me)

Dont know if this annoys anyone else but this is what happens to me:

I am recently married for the second time and later in life - in fifties. As I had already gone through the performance of changing my name back to maiden name after my divorce - after 27 years away from it - and as many of you will know on this thread it is a right carry on !

So I never got around to changing my name to my 'new model' DHs surname - rather than making a conscious decision about it I stuck with my maiden name by default really. So conversations with banks , utilities etc go something like this :

Q.marital status ? A. married

Q. spouses surname ? A. Mr Newmodel

' Right Mrs Newmodel '

Me: ' er no its not Mrs Newmodel - my surname is stil Suda '

Q. ' Oh are you not married '

Me. 'Yes but I still use the name Suda'

'Right Mrs Suda..'

Me. 'No I'm not Mrs Suda - (under my breath I say - no I havent married my father!).

' Oh sorry I thought you were married '

Me 'Aaaaarrrrgggghhhhhhh'

I might start a thread about why children get the father's name by default, this seems weird to me.

Yes Liv my DD did that with my DGS. ALso gave him 3 first names and his 2 surnames are long names. What a handle I thought for poor little mite. But anyway I dont dwell on it now and he always gets it shortened anyway - as long as they dont ask me to sew his name on his gym kit when he starts school!!

I am a Ms and have been since I was about 14 (was apopleptic at that age about being identified as married or unmarried, whereas men are not... despite the fact I could not marry at that age...).

I kept my name when marrying DH, although we purchased the house in my married name and have some bills in that name too... I think I thought I would use both but in practice I am still just me, with my maiden name. It's my name goddamnit, I've always been called it, can't see why I should change tbh.

DD has DH's surname, no problem there. DH is not bothered what my surname is but I think he would not have agreed if I wanted her to have my surname. Double-barelled would have worked for one generation.. but what if DD married another double-barrelled? Quadruple-barreled name?

Most people seem to get the keeping the maiden name thing (especially at work) but what gets me is that my bestest, closest friends insist on sending me cards etc addressed to me with DH's surname.

Gah!

Hi Suda

I suppose some of my annoyance stems from the fact my job involves taking people's details down and it can get rather confusing when they can't decide which bit of the surname it's going under or it's been misspelt and another member of the family has shortened the name so isn't filed with the rest etc, basically one surname makes my life a lot easier