It's not cute and it's not funny

[ailbhe]

Why I am not Mrs Robert Collier.

History matters.

Comments

[grumpyolddog.livejournal.com]

History is dead. Anyway, what's the big deal about an 18th century perversion of a far older common-law tradition in which both parties were deemed wholly responsible the acts of the other? Without couverture, Catherine of Aragon could not have legally commanded the army that crushed the Scots while Henry VIIIth was busy wasting time in Calais.

I could produce literally hundreds of other examples where the law was empoering rather than restrictive.

There are fine and respectable reasons for keeping your own name on marriage. This? This is silly.

[ailbhe]

Fuck you.

[rmc28]

It happens that I don't like being considered property of my husband, and the form of address that dates from when that was normal. Mrs Rachel Finch - no problem. Mrs Tony Finch - offensive, please do not use.

[biascut.livejournal.com]

When my parents married, it was legally impossible for my father to rape my mother. When she said "I do", she effected activated consent to sex which lasted until fifteen years ago when the law changed.

It's not that long ago, wanker. And how DARE you decide which reasons are "silly" and which aren't? Who made you God?

[pauamma]

Oooh, a troll. Isn't it cute?

[cassandre.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that the historical example of coverture-related female empowerment that you cite refers to a QUEEN. Not exactly your typical wife, was she?

Also, Catherine's fate would seem to indicate that her husband called the shots in that relationship.

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

What I really dislike is the complete denial of the aggression involved in addressing someone that way when you know they dislike it. It is a classic power play disguised by the surface veil of 'it's not a big deal.'

[biascut.livejournal.com]

You are so right.

[kindermord.livejournal.com]

I disagree. But I'm content to let you all go hang on your own way, while I go hang in mine.

[surelars.livejournal.com]

Do people actually ever do that anymore? I remember my mum telling me how mad it made her when people addressed that way back in, umm, the 60's.

I haven't heard that form here since I was a wee lad. Is it still in common use there? It's so darn insulting in so many ways; I can't imagine anyone using it.

[rjw76]

Someone did it to me this morning. After they had been told that I haven't even changed my name.

*still fuming*

[taimatsu]

Some glossy magazines with photos of posh people do (or have in the last few years, I don't see them often) caption pictures with only women in as 'Mrs Robert So-and-So, Mrs Jeremy Thingummy, and Mrs Harvey Whatsit'. I find this really bizarre and offensive.

[kindermord.livejournal.com]

My darling future wife is planning to. I have no objections, my mother doubts her reason, but that 's her own affair.

[ailbhe]

Yes, more than one close relation on Rob's side has insisted and argued about addressing me as though I had no name of my own, whether forename or surname.

I think I've prevented it happening again, though.

[rosefox]

My husband's grandmother sends us holiday and anniversary cards addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Joshua Jasper. I file this under "dotty things that grandparents do". She's old and absent-minded enough that if I tried to correct her, she'd likely forget, and decades of training in "proper" address would reassert themselves, so I don't worry about it. I think it's also her way of saying that she really considers me part of the family, which I appreciate.

It's never been an issue with the rest of my family, as my mother stubbornly kept her name through two marriages and forced everyone else to get used to it. I also legally changed my name, unrelated to my marriage but around the same time, and that made enough waves that you can bet no one's forgotten it!

I can't imagine anyone not related to us assuming anything about proper forms of address until we've been introduced. There are simply too many options. I try to remember to introduce myself by my full name, to help with that. The most common error I get is "Mrs.", now that I'm married, and I just smile politely and say "Ms., please" and there's an end to it.

[kiya]

I have on my kitchen table at the moment an envelope addressed to Mr. and Mrs. teinedreugan.

[moustachios.livejournal.com]

One very elderly lady on my husband's side of the family insists (well, insisted; she passed away over the summer) on being addressed as Mrs Husband's Name. She's the only person (let alone woman) I've ever come across IRL who preferred it that way. But she was born in 1910.

I've never had it happen to me, but then, this Christmas will be my first big occasion as a Married Woman. We'll see who the cards are addressed to soon, I guess.

Re: It's not cute and it's not funny

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

it's mostly very elderly people who seem stuck on the full form of it -- addressing letters to "mr and mrs his-first-name his-last-name". but you still see an awful lot of "mr and mrs his-last-name". some of that is probably due to people not knowing what her last name is, and assuming the general case of her taking his upon marriage (most women here still follow that custom, so it's not totally unreasonable, if impolitic).

i hate the first case (and yes, old dogs can learn new tricks, update your social skills, grandpa), am mildly impatient but somewhat understanding about the second, politely correct people if they get it wrong once, and mark people down as twits who insist on one of those AFTER they have been corrected.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Ugh, yes. I totally agree.

(My mother insists on being Mrs Dad's-name-in-full; I'm not sure what I should do there. On the one hand I want to respect her wishes, but on the other hand I don't want to be referring to that historical nastyness)

[gmh.livejournal.com]

Everyone should be called what they want to be called, not what someone else thinks they should be.

As such, clanwilliam retains her original surname; and I'd never for a moment think of asking her to change it.

OTOH, paul_kruzycki elected to change his surname to that of his wife renarde; and it would be rood to call him by his maiden name.

I'd say your position is pretty simple: call her Mrs Dad if she wants you to. It's her marriage, and she and her husband have presumably made their decision on the matter; if you refuse to recognise their right to do so, then you're actually giving something of an insult to both of them, regardless of any historically-based trouser-wearing.

[oldbloke.livejournal.com]

History matters, yes, but is also dead. So more context is required, or I can't tell what point you're trying to make. I mean, I'm not one of those who think apologies to Africa for the slave trade or to South America for the various viruses actually do any good. Learn from history but don't live in it. I don't think anybody sane thinks you are or should be Mrs Robert Collier. Obviously there are still a very few places where people still think that way, but we all know they're bonkers, don't we? And delight in telling them so when the opportunity arises?

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

Hm. Speaking from personal experience, it's rather more difficult to tell someone who holds those views (and others, such as 'Men shouldn't let women buy drinks in pubs' and 'If a man and a woman are living together, there's something very wrong if she's doing any of the DIY') that they're bonkers when they're your boss. Or your boss's boss. Or a majority of your (male) colleagues.

[cassandre.livejournal.com]

Wow. These people crawling out of the woodwork into your journal, where are they coming from? Condolences.

I thought you were perhaps referring to this very annoying snippet from Sunday's Observer (also posted in the sublime oursin's journal: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,,2226776,00.html

We love nothing more than a celebrity wedding. The dress, the guests, the romance - even the pre-nup. But now the stars have found another way to express their love that's practical, yet strangely endearing: taking their husbands' surnames.

I don't find it cute either.

Any historian or scholar of the past will acknowledge that women found ways to negotiate power within the social/political/legal structures imposed on them by men (such as coverture). But anyone who wants to argue that coverture was a Good Thing Overall for early European women doesn't know their history very well. Sorry.

There is also the small matter of gender-based discrimination and domestic inequalities continuing to exist today, and of these injustices being the ongoing legacy of the "Mrs Tom Jones" mindset. Again, not cute.

I'm married, but just call me Ms (or Dr, even).

[gmh.livejournal.com]

Wow. These people crawling out of the woodwork into your journal, where are they coming from?

These people, eh? Terrible sorts, of course, and obviously more to be pitied than treated as fellow human beings who might have a point (no matter how poorly expressed!).

For the record; some of us having been reading this journal as long as it has existed. Some of us remember Ailbhe as a teenager, before she moved to the UK; some of us were there in the Porterhouse on her 18th birthday; some of us have seen the ups and downs of the last few years with her, and care very much about her welfare and that of her family.

Speaking personally; I am her friend. That does not mean that I have to see eye-to-eye with her on everything; nor does it mean that she would expect me to.

Condolences.

Indeed.

I thought you were perhaps referring to this very annoying snippet from Sunday's Observer (also posted in the sublime oursin's journal:

Who is also a friend of myself and my wife, and will (I hope) attest to the fact that I am neither a cretin nor a troglodyte.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

A linguistics lecturer of mine said that names are such compelling things that almost everyone on the planet has one, and that not giving someone a name or refusing to use their correct name, is a very powerful way of denying someone their personhood. IOW, it makes them a non-person.

Since then, I've always been very careful to use people's correct names, no matter what their reasons for choosing or using them.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Interesting that it's men who are saying "history is dead".

Mrs MW is my preferred choice, as it happens

[kelvix.livejournal.com]

I understand the concepts behind your view, and as gmh, would readily agree that you are entitled to call yourself what you wish. It is fundamentally important that each individual has the freedom to call themselves what they want, so long as there is no intent to deceive or offend.

I made a clear decision to call myself Mrs M W, when it would have been far easier to retain my maiden name - which required no spelling out letter-by-letter over the telephone and was far easier for the average English person to pronounce.

As far as I am aware, this format is the correct style when addressing a married woman (perhaps one that is used when the preferred name is unknown, or where the married couple are being written to at the same time), according to Debretts (there used to be a copy of it in one of the offices where I worked, to be consulted when writing to an Archbishop, or baronet, and not knowing the correct mode of address). SFAIK, to be called Mrs VW would indicate (following those rules) that I was a widow (or possibly a divorcee).

Re: Mrs MW is my preferred choice, as it happens

[surelars.livejournal.com]

As far as I am aware, this format is the correct style when addressing a married woman

What, then, is the correct format when addressing a woman married to a woman? Do you address both women in the couple as "Mrs <partners name>"?

[flybabydizzy.livejournal.com]

View of an old un here.
History is useful background here, and can explain different attitudes to some extent. I was raised that a married woman was addressed as Mrs Husband's Full Name. Mrs (Her first name ) (His last) meant that she was divorced - a heinous act in those days! When I married I was a bit uncomfortable about losing my name, but felt it wasn't my name anyway, it was my father's. My family name I consider to be from my mother's family. Thirty mumble years ago in semi rural Wales it just was Not Done to keep ones own name, anyway.
I write cards to Mr & Mrs Surname, if they are married - most of them are my age and older,a nd that's what they expect. It's tricky when I dont know the name of one of the couple, eg one card has gone out to David & Anita - no last name, as I don't know her name, but it definitely isn't his!

These days, I think it is up to the person concerned to decide how they wish to be considered and addressed, and to make it clear to others. Until it has been made clear, then any mis-adressing should be gently corrected. After then, it is downright rude and inexcusable. It is a way of dealing a rude put down in a way that older people would find socially acceptable, which is downright nasty.

On a personal note, I asked my future daughter in law if she was keeping her name on marriage, and she seemed surprised that I was happy that she was!