Title and name when married

[Nicknamegoeshere]

So when I marry OH I am remaining Miss Family Name. I'm 40 and divorced, this will be my second marriage.

My mum is shocked at this and says I will be Mrs Husband's Surname. She thinks anything else is "disrespectful".

My in-laws are less judgemental but also just assumed I'd become Mrs Husband's Surname.

The idea gives me the rage!

I know we're going to get cards to Mr and Mrs... eurgh!!!

@OneEpisode

Cards are fine. Perhaps in 2020 no cheques made out to Mr & Mrs his name.

I have a relative who, almost 20 years on, sends me a cheque in “my name” in an envelope labelled “Mrs Hisname”. Does my head in. Why?????? 🤷🏻‍♀️

(First 5 years the cheque was as well, rendering it un-cashable.)

I didn’t change my name on marriage and nobody cared. DH is from a culture (N Africa) where women don’t change their name so he didn’t expect me to either. It’s not a universal custom even in Europe let alone the rest of the world.

@tryinganotherusername

I didn't take DH surname. He didn't care and ILs have never commented and have always respected my choice in post/cards/the odd cheque etc. Disappointingly the one person who really seemed to object is my DM - we live quite a distance and every single posted item from her is addressed to Mrs "DH surname", regardless of the numerous good humoured reminders I've offered up in the hope she'd get it. When I finally pulled her up on it in less of a more serious tone, she declared indignantly "but he's your husband". WTF. I despair. So just because she gave up every modicum of her independence and identity when she married my emotionally unavailable, violent, misogynistic and abusive DF, it seems I'm also expected to do so. Right on mumsy.

I started sending post to my dad as ‘Master [mums Christian name] [mums maiden name].

Weirdly he then felt that being given a title he didn’t choose to use and then being known under the name of his spouse wasn’t pleasant. Who’d have thought!

Sorry meant to say first name not Christian name, guess we all suffer from some kind of social conditioning 🙄

When I got married I learnt that some people, both male and female, feel very strongly about this issue. My work actually changed my name and email address while I was on honeymoon and were really confused when I asked them to change it back because you know, that's not my name. Turns out that when I had the conversation with my manager he thought I said I wasn't changing because I didn't want to bother HR with a name change request!

I’ve only ever encountered this on Mn. None of my female friends changed their names or considered it anything other than a ludicrous sexist hangover. About 75% gave their children both surnames, though some gave the boys their fathers’ names and the girls their mothers’. I’ve also never encountered in RL that weird Mn thing where women declare they’ve always hated their birth surnames and regard taking their husband’s surname as liberating.

The only discussion we ever had was in which order we used our surnames for DS.

You have your father’s surname and he gives you away so you then are your husband’s property instead. So, in essence you are either your father’s, ex-husband’s or new husbands’s property. Which one do you like best?

@SlightDrizzle

I’ve only ever encountered this on Mn. None of my female friends changed their names or considered it anything other than a ludicrous sexist hangover. About 75% gave their children both surnames, though some gave the boys their fathers’ names and the girls their mothers’. I’ve also never encountered in RL that weird Mn thing where women declare they’ve always hated their birth surnames and regard taking their husband’s surname as liberating.

The only discussion we ever had was in which order we used our surnames for DS.

I wish I had friends like yours!

Mine all took their husband's name. One male friend I had wanted to merge his name with his wife's but she was having none of it and insisted on taking his name after marriage.

@Zandathepanda

You have your father’s surname and he gives you away so you then are your husband’s property instead. So, in essence you are either your father’s, ex-husband’s or new husbands’s property. Which one do you like best?

Oh, this old chestnut.

By that reasoning, your husband's name isn't 'his' it's his father's. Which is in turn his father's.

So you're either taking the name of a distant ancestor to whom you have a biological connection or you're taking the name of a distant ancestor of someone else.

Which would you prefer?

My dear old aunt addresses all post to the man of the house, seems to think women are not entitled to receive mail or something. And my MIL pretends we are married, she just couldn't handle us living together. This all used to piss me off but these days I don't have the energy ...

Honestly, it's just a name. I and all my friends have taken our husbands surname, but it doesn't diminish us as people. I just don't get the outrage, in a modern world it really doesn't have any moral or legal consequence.

It is an administrative nightmare however trying to get school event cheques from the PTA to mums via their children when they don't have the same name. Lots of lost or misnamed cheques. Minor inconvenience I know, but a very personal one!

@Zandathepanda, not always. My name isn't connected to any one in my family/life. In fact it spans from a bit of an identity crisis so i took it and kept it to stabilise myself.

My surname is my LONG buggered off Step Dad's surname, I was "known as" since I was 7 but legally changed it before getting married because I didn't want my birth name appearing on my marriage certificate as I've totally disassociated with it.

My Step Dad found me on social media and messaged me to ask "why the fuck are you using our name, your fuck all to do with us?!". It's about time someone half decent was added to that family tree 😁

He was a prick of the highest order but it's MY name. I don't belong to anyone.

I do not understand how women don't see the blatant sexism of the title Mrs. There is no male equivalent. Women should all use Ms throughout our adult lives regardless of marital status. Men are always just Mr. Why, except sexism, should it be different for women?

@Baaaahhhhh

Honestly, it's just a name. I and all my friends have taken our husbands surname, but it doesn't diminish us as people. I just don't get the outrage, in a modern world it really doesn't have any moral or legal consequence.

It is an administrative nightmare however trying to get school event cheques from the PTA to mums via their children when they don't have the same name. Lots of lost or misnamed cheques. Minor inconvenience I know, but a very personal one!

I’ve chaired our PTA for 5 years and never needed to issue a cheque to a parent.

If we needed to, the school secretary would help with parental names. (I myself have a different surname to DD (she has mine as a middle name) but it’s caused precisely fuck all issues for over a decade.)

I should have put a at the end of my post. It was meant to show the point that your surname is from a male ‘ownership’.

I debated mine. I preferred the sound of my first surname but wasn’t that bothered (neither was Dh) so thought, as I was moving job, that I would change as I wanted our future children and us all to have the same name.
Ironically it turns out the one who couldn’t get used to it was my narcissistic dad who kept thinking Dh must have my dad’s surname and sent confidential emails to a random distant relative on more than one occasion.

Mrs was a contraction of Mistress, as in Mistress of the House. The word Mistress developed into Mrs for older, married women and Miss for younger, unmarried women.

In European languages, forms such as Señora and Madame are now used for all adult women regardless of marital status. Señorita and Mademoiselle are reserved for little girls. I'm not sure why this didn't happen in English with Mrs.

Miss and Mrs both strike me as terribly old fashioned. I adopted Ms as my title on my 18th birthday and haven't looked back.

Feminist1010 I assume you have the bank details of all your parents then? We run second hand uniform sales throughout the year, so send hundreds of cheques out for those, plus cheques for committee members and class reps for purchases for events. We don't like to bother the school secretaries, they are busy enough.

@Zandathepanda

You have your father’s surname and he gives you away so you then are your husband’s property instead. So, in essence you are either your father’s, ex-husband’s or new husbands’s property. Which one do you like best?

Yawn. My surname is my birth surname. It is mine in the same way that my husband or brother’s birth name are theirs. My birth surname is not less securely attached to me than any man’s birth surname is to him.

I cannot reach back in time and alter the fact that my parents, and their forebears perpetuated a sexist surnaming convention, any more than I can retrospectively make female suffrage happen earlier.

But I have my own surname and will keep it for life, and DS has both my and DH’s names. He and his wife, if he marries, will make less kneejerk sexist decisions on their marriage and what their children are called.

It should be the norm. It would make geneology a lot easier.

I cannot reach back in time and alter the fact that my parents, and their forebears perpetuated a sexist surnaming convention, any more than I can retrospectively make female suffrage happen earlier.

This.

However, as I've mentioned before on these sorts of threads, there are surnames which come from women.

Baxter is the feminine form of Baker.
Brewster is the feminine form of Brewer.
Webster is the feminine form of Webber.

It's your name. Not your husband's, ex's, or father's. It's your name. You should chose it.

I always ask now with friends getting married what their plans are. People have their own reasons for changing or not changing. Some change their minds as well.

We have friends who legally have different names. Socially (with friends) they are known as a combination of the two (social media, Christmas cards etc).

I kept my name, and we double-barrelled the children's surname. It just made sense to both of us at the time, and we've run into any issues stemming from it.

My parents were completely unflapped about all this, but my ILs were shocked. After banging on at me about how most Englishwomen regarded taking their husband's name as completely standard, they ended on that hoary old gotcha, "And what will happen with surnames when your boys grow up and marry someone, hmm? What then?"

They had no response when I pointed out that in their model, the boys' assumed English female partners would undoubtably adopt our double-barrelled innovation without batting an eyelash.

I'm Mrs Husband's name. I was very happy to take it and I wanted the same name as my children. But while my husband was pleased I did I don't think he would have cared of I'd kept my own. As it is second marriage and a bit older I see even less of a reason to change your name. Everyone it entitled to an opinion and as it is your mum you'll just have to seethe inside.

@Baaaahhhhh

Feminist1010 I assume you have the bank details of all your parents then? We run second hand uniform sales throughout the year, so send hundreds of cheques out for those, plus cheques for committee members and class reps for purchases for events. We don't like to bother the school secretaries, they are busy enough.

In 5 years we’ve never needed to pay a parent anything. Expenses are paid in cash taken at events. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Only cheques we write are to the school when we are paying for something for them to buy.

It's your name, so the only person whose opinion matters on this one is you. It's a bit of a faff changing it anyway so I wouldn't unless you really want to.

I changed my name to my husband's name when we got married and just couldn't get on with it. My name is still his name officially, but I always refer to myself as my birth name. I'll change it back at some point.