I don’t know if it’s this way in all school systems, but in our school system there is a big change between 8th grade and 9th: up through 8th grade, a parent must go into the school and sign a child out, if the child is leaving school mid-day (like for a doctor appointment); but as of 9th, the parent can wait in the car, and the school lets the child walk right out at the time the parent pre-arranged. If you try to go in to fetch your child, the school secretary raises her eyebrows at you with amused pity, as if she is seeing you try to hold your 11th grader’s hand to cross a street.
It is an odd and sudden shift, and there is nothing about it in the handbook: you find out the first time you try to go in. That first time it’s embarrassing, but then after that it’s really lovely not to have to go in anymore. (I ITCH to be allowed to re-write the school handbooks, though. It would not be difficult to write a paragraph here and there to tell parents what is expected of them so that they don’t have to hear it from the secretary’s eyebrows.)
The other day, however, I did have to go in, because it was more than five minutes past the pre-arranged time and my child had not yet appeared. After a consultation with the school secretary, I was invited to wait out in the lobby for the child to emerge. While waiting in the lobby with very little to do, I tried to look casual by faking interest in the plaques up on the walls.
There was a really big one, put up to commemorate the people who were involved in the building of the school in the 1960s. It was super fancy, with people’s names in raised metal letters. And on this plaque, all the women’s names were instead the names of those women’s husbands, with a “Mrs.” tacked onto the front.
I have been cranky ever since, with a low simmering rage-ennui that is not passing off. The women’s own names were COMPLETELY NOT THERE AT ALL. There is no way to even know who they were, except to look up their husbands’ records and find out who those husbands were married to during the year the plaque was made! What a crappy, crappy, CRAPPY system someone came up with, and how TRULY SHOCKING it is that anyone willingly participated in it, ESPECIALLY in the name of it being the polite and proper way to do things.
When my mother-in-law was alive, she addressed my mail to “Mrs. My Son’s Full Name” just as if that were a reasonable etiquette-based thing to do and not a practice that fully redefines a woman’s identity as “whoever is currently married to this man.” It’s a system that uses one person’s name as the primary identification for that person and ALSO for A TOTALLY SEPARATE PERSON. It takes THE WHOLE POINT OF NAMES, which is to tell one person apart from another person, and OBLITERATES IT. But only for married women. Everyone else gets their own names. It makes me want to drop Paul’s surname and go back to my own family name. I really might.
I will say again that this plaque was made in the 1960s, which was only about 50 years ago. And many women still prefer to be addressed as “Mrs. Husband’s Name.” It’s so hard to imagine any man thinking it was the polite and proper thing to do to give up his bachelor’s name and go by “Mr. Catherine Wife’sFamilyName,” or that he would find that a reasonable way to be recognized in raised metal letters for his contributions.
I couldn’t agree with you more. I kept my own name when I got married. People make me feel like a mean, unreasonable b***h whenever I say something like you just expressed.
I battle myself with this ALL THE TIME. sometimes i want to just make up a new name for me
You’d get a kick out of roller derby. Pretty near ALL the husbands are identified as “Mr. Wife’sDerbyName” and wear t-shirts with their moniker screenprinted on the back. Most of them, I don’t have clue what their actual name is.
I’m already itching to join a roller derby team. This comment may be the last push I needed.
This infuriates me, too. My husband and I both kept our original last names and hyphenated the kids’ last name, but there are still people on BOTH sides of the family that address me as Mrs. MyFirstName HisLastName and one person (my freaking side) who continues to address me as Mrs. HisFirstName HisLastName, which makes my blood boil every time. Sure, I’ve kept up with her three name changes, but she can’t be bothered to remember my one name?? Ugh. I try to remember that I’m the one being polite by remembering her preference, but how I’d love to address just one card to her in some crazy fashion.
My very own mother (age 83) addresses mail to me, her very own daughter, “Mrs. Husband’s Full Name.” Mail to our kids, her grandchildren, is addressed “c/o Husband’s Full Name.” She still identifies herself as “Mrs. Husband’s Name,” although her husband, my dad, died more than a decade ago. Consistent, maddening, and ludicrous, so we have turned mail into a running joke and open it only with Husband’s blessing, granted after deep, theatrical, stereotypically patriarchal consideration.
That is pure awesomeness.
Yes! I agree completely and wholeheartedly. My mother-in-law addresses all of my mail to Mrs. husband’s name as well…and I didn’t even take his name. My legal and actual name is still the same as before I was married, yet she (and my entire in-law family actually) consistently addresses all mail in this way. Depending on my mood, I vacillate between “trying to not read into things/giving the benefit of the doubt/they just think that’s good manners and don’t even think about it” mindset to a more blood boiling “they’re trying to deliberately disrespect me” mindset.
This exact thing happens to me, with the added bonus of her using a freaking C to spell my first name instead of the K on the inside of the card.
I was talking to a friend about Christmas cards and she lamented, “I just wish I could get ONE card addressed correctly!” “You did!”, I squealed. She got one. It was from me.
This practice HAS to be dying out though, right? I can’t imagine people of any generation below my mother’s writing Mrs. Husband Lastname on anything.
My son recently married and his wife has not taken his name. I would not address mail to her with his name because I know that’s not her legal name and she prefers her name. But though I wouldn’t tell her, it hurts that she has not taken our surname. It feels like a rejection. Just a thought from the other side of the fence. I don’t know what societal remedy could ease this name problem but I suspect it’s just time. It may take several more generations, though.
I wonder if it would help at all to think of it this way. Let’s say we were to find out that not only did your daughter-in-law not take your family’s name, but that she requested your son to take her surname. And let’s say he declined to do so. Would that seem to you like a slap in the face to your daughter-in-law’s family? Or would it seem natural that he would want to keep his own name and not take hers? I realize tradition is not on the side of this way of thinking, and I think you’re right that it will take a lot more time for it for it not to feel the way…well, the way it DOES FEEL, when people go against tradition. But for myself I find Coping Thoughts can be helpful, and this is the kind of Coping Thought I would attempt in this situation if I were you: flipping things around often helps me. If it’s not helpful for you, then I rapidly withdraw it, with sincere apologies: there are few things more obnoxious than a coping thought that doesn’t fit right at all!
It’s interesting you mention this. When my husband and I were engaged and discussing the surname issue, I asked him if he would consider taking my name (mostly to prove a point that a name is hard to give up when it’s suddenly your own). He definitely balked at even the thought of this, as well as giving strong opinions against hyphenating (although he was fine with hyphenating my name to include his; he just wouldn’t consider changing his name in any way) and against giving our (then) future kids any surname but his. And what I find most interesting in hindsight is that I wasn’t offended or hurt by his opinions. I understood (for the most part) where he was coming from.
When you say “our surname,” do you mean your husband’s always-surname that became your surname because you changed when you got married? Or are you one of the lucky few who happened to marry someone who had the same last name as you?
When you changed your name, was it a big exciting culmination of something you’d always dreamed of? I think of women who used to doodle new possible names for themselves and always looked forward to becoming Mrs NewName, and I think it’s hard to imagine that someone wouldn’t want that if you did, just as can be hard to imagine anyone wanting something we don’t want, or not wanting something we do. (Cruise vacation! Tattoo! Yorkshire terrier!)
But traditions do change, and people learn to be happily married without being carried across a threshold or having the bride’s parents pay for the whole wedding or embroidering several cubic feet of linens for the hope chest or handing over a dowry or wives meeting their husbands at the door with a drink in hand and a pot roast in the oven.
Yes, yes, yes, this exactly.
I ALSO take issue with the fact that we have different honorifics (that’s what they’re called, right?) for married and unmarried women. Mrs. Smith vs Miss Smith. WHAT.
As a teacher, this comes up very regularly, since within the walls of the school I am know exclusively by my honorific and last name.
Last year, I went by Ms. Lastname, but most kids would still pronounce it Miss or Mrs– even going so far as to write that on papers. Which. UGH.
So this year, I’m going by Miz Lastname (the visible Z helps them understand how i want it pronounced), and correcting anyone who calls me Mrs. or Miss. I’m MUCH happier with this arrangement. (There are still mistakes, but it’s definitely better). I explained to my (7th grade) students that being married or unmarried is not a significant part of my identity, so I don’t want to be a significant part of my name, and to please call me “Miz, not Mrs. or Miss.”
And let’s not ignore that if someone is Mr, that person is Mr whether they are old, young, married, single, etc.
What weird, patriarchal titling system we have.
Interestingly (or maybe not, YMMV), though it’s fallen out of common usage, the male equivalent to “miss” is “master”. I think I’ve only seen it used on things like flight/hotel confirmations for my son who is 7.
Yes, I heard that used on my brother when he was very young. It seems to be used exclusively for young children, at least as far as I have ever seen. Interesting that men grow out of the diminutive honorific, but women don’t.
I kept my name when I married, I never even thought of changing it. Now I am a substitute teacher, and I have given up trying to get the kids to call me Ms. MyLastName. So they call me Mrs., even though of course it isn’t my husband’s last name. I don’t know why it has been so hard to the students to call me Ms.-even the other teachers would use the Mrs. title. I wonder if it is because I am older, silver haired, and look like I could be their grandma? When I was younger I was pretty militant about being Ms.-but in the schools-I’m OK being called Mrs.-I guess because it is my real last name?
My MIL has for 23 yrs addressed me as Mrs. Myhusbandslastname. My own father sends me things in the mail with my husband’s name, and he knows I didn’t change it. The kicker is my stepmom never changed her name, so what’s up with that?
ALSO I have come up with a solution to taking/not taking a partner’s last name that I love. It almost totally obliterates the ability to track lineage, but… whatever.
Take half of parent 1’s last name and attach it to half of parent 2’s last name. That becomes the kids’ last name.
So, Jane Smith and Daniel Clark may have a child name Rebecca Clith or Rebecca Smark (not the prettiest of names, but neither are Smith and Clark. So.)
Rebecca Clith and Jenny Johnson could have a child name Patrick Clison
etc.
I tried to advocate for this for our kids (our blend is “Camley”, which I thought sounded not too bad) but my husband didn’t go for it. Instead our daughter got my last name and our son got his.
We did this! I have my original surname, Husband has his, and the kids have a “new” that name that is a combination of the begnning of Husband’s surname and the end of my surname. My mother and mother and law both hate it. The kids think it is cool and my eldest (9 years) has expressed surprise that woman would ever take her husband’s last name. We get varied responses from people; from the lady at the social security office who asked with horror “Is that even legal?” to friends who have now done the same thing with their kids. It was absolutely the right choice for our family and I love it.
my mother in law addresses cards to us as Mr and Mrs Herson’s Firstandlastname… it drives me nuts but it was etiquette in her time and also both in laws act all “who the hell does SHE think she is?” when I want my own identity… because of that and some other things I’m starting to not think of them as products of their generation, but instead I sometimes think they are a bunch of sexist jerks… so there. But then you have some older women who would be aghast if you directed an envelope their way with their own name on it.
I have never regretted keeping my name. It’s MY NAME. Our two children have my last name (and his as one of their middle names), because hyphenating would have been ridiculously long, and my husband already has a huge extended family so we figured there were enough Hisnames out there already. We occasionally get mail to “The Hisname family”, but most of our friends & family have taken it in stride.
Oh, and Blythe, we almost went for the blended name thing you’re suggesting — but one way sounded, well, boring, and the other way made something VERY rude.
Yes, I suppose that is a risk with it! Probably wise that you choose a different route.
But then, I knew a family when I was growing up whose last name was the Slutz. So I guess no one is safe.
I never took my husband’s last name when we got married.
My MIL tried to sound okay with it when I told her that was the plan, but then she proceeded to ask me if I was “going to be one of THOSE women” who gets upset when she addresses to Christmas cards to Mrs. Husband’s Lastname.
I JUST TOLD YOU THAT’S NEVER GOING TO BE MY NAME, YOU COW!
My grandmother very much preferred to be addressed as Mrs John M Taylor. Partly I think because it was what she was taught, partly because her parents divorced in the 1930s and she felt ashamed of that so wanted to shout that she was still married, she also got a little more fanatic about it after granddad died (in his 70s, she lived until 90s), and partly (largely) because she really did define herself as Granddad’s wife. That was partly because it was what she was taught, probably partly her own issues, and partly because Granddad was famous in a sort of random way (and in very specific circle.).
Sorry–children fighting abruptly ended that comment and broke my train of thought. I always thought it was so strange, because my grandmom was a pretty neat woman and did some cool stuff, and I never understood why she didn’t shout her own name from the rooftops.
I obviously don’t know your grandma or her life, but I will say that one older woman I know who still addresses her mail as Mrs. Husband Hislastname does it partly, I’m sure, for reasons of tradition. But partly, I think, she does it that way because they adored each other, and now that he’s passed away and she faces what could well be 25 years without him, she still wants to think of them as a unit and make sure he’s remembered. I think it would appall her should anyone suggest she do otherwise not because it violates some old-fashioned etiquette, but because she would see it as somehow erasing him. Also, my understanding was that her own family was pretty horrible, so I suspect she was more than happy to identify him as her new family in whatever way possible. With anyone else, I’d probably pop an eyebrow, but for whatever reason, when I get her Christmas cards it just seems sweet.
Yes! You added the thought that escaped me as I dealt with warring children. I do think it made my grandmother feel closer to granddad, as she loved him very much and lived 23 years after he passed. I do think it made him stay alive and relevant for her. Thank you for articulating that.
Although I would probably view it as sweeter if she wasn’t the only person to always address me as Mrs Husband Name, when I have never changed my name. Ha.
I kept my own name when I got married, just because I like my name. And it never needs to be spelled out because it is so common, while my husband’s name always does.
Just today another mom was telling me that my different last name caused a lot of confusion on the PTA, because DD and I don’t match and apparently the mom in charge thought I might be a lunatic trying to get free tickets to the school talent show by pretending to be related to DD.
No one in her right mind wants to go to the second grade talent show unless she has a second grader, people.
And most of us parents wish we could come down with the flu and miss the whole thing ;)
So the obvious explanation is that either I never changed my name or I remarried, not that there is a crazy person who really wants to see ten girls lip-syncing to Taylor Swift.
This comment made me lol.
I find it very hard to understand, how in this day and age-people don’t understand that women may not have taken their husband’s last name. I used to get that kind of attitude at my daughter’s school, or an attitude of “oh, you are married?”. Why yes, this man you have seen with me at every function for the last 12 years, is indeed, my husband.
Cracking up at the “No one in her right mind wants to go to the second grade talent show unless she has a second grader, people.” Truer words were never spoken!
I have a lot of cookbooks from the 30’s to today. Think of church lady cookbooks, Junior League, that sort of thing – where ladies contribute recipes and they are published. It’s really interesting to see the progression of everyone being Mrs. John Smith (up until about the mid 1970’s), to Mrs. Jane Smith, then a few Ms. Jane Smith, and finally now they all the recipes (even the ones from conservative churches) were submitted by Jane Smith.
We got married in 1986 and my MIL lectured me about the Mrs. John Smith etiquette. She wanted to be sure I was appropriately addressing the invitations, thank you notes and any snail mail correspondence with her. It wasn’t like that was the first time I’d heard of it but it certainly wasn’t anything I’d been taught previously.
As an old married lady, this PISSES ME OFF. I did take the husband’s name but I always select Ms. when filling out forms and expect to be Ms. heidi lastname. Seeing Mrs. Husband lastname makes me extremely angry. Many people find this ridiculous but – what can I say? I feel like I lost part of me when I changed my name and kind of regret doing it. Although, it is nice to have the same last name as the kids.
It also infuriates me that when I donate to the college I attended (same as the husband), they always send the tax forms to Mr. & Mrs. husband lastname. HE DOESN’T WANT TO DONATE MONEY TO THEM. I do. I can not tell you how angry it makes me. I have even spoken to them about this but it still happens every year.
OH! I am a member of an alumni group, and my husband and I were both a part of it and we always get donation solicitations and thank you letters to Mr and Mrs Husband Name (when they knew me by my maiden name and it is still my name!) or the letters simply come to Mr Husband Name. It makes me SO angry.
I refuse to ever be a Mrs. I am always a Ms. Why should women be identified by their marital status, but not men? I refused to change my surname too.
I waited until I was thirty to marry (in my family, this was a REALLY long time, in other families, maybe not so much?) and I was Mrs. His-last-name for a WEEK before I realized I was waiting for the ghost of my mother-in-law to enter the room. So I yanked back my name (MY NAME) in a hurry. I’m hyphenated, and yes, I’m a long Dutch name hyphenated by a shorter English name, and yes, it was A COMPLETE PAIN IN THE ARSE getting all the documents redone – amid heavy disapproval from the older generation (all except my husband, who didn’t CARE) – but now I’m ME, and now that my kids are getting tweeny/teen-y, they’re asking why they arent hyphenated TOO.
My husband actually decided to take my last name when got married, much to the dismay and shock of his family. It was his idea, and though he is kind to his family they mostly frustrate and confuse him. So, he didn’t do this to hurt them, he made the choice in order to be closer to me and our future children, I was always planning to keep my last name and really wanted to give the kids my last name as well. Mostly he encounters positive surprise when people learn this about him, but his own family has always resented it. Passive aggressively addressing things to Mr. and Mrs. His Maiden Name. They refused to even tell some of the older members of his family that this had happened, hoping they would never find out, I guess because something so hideous and shocking might kill them?
At any rate, my husband, who is a school teacher, is called Mr. His Married Name pretty much every day of his life, and I’ve asked him before if it’s weird or off-putting, but he said, not really it’s just his name now. However, it’s not like he is completely erased as the women in your example because he’s still Mr., and most everyone just assumes it is his last name. In his mind, we are his family and this is his name. I realize that our situation is particular to us, it gets a lot trickier when both families are perfectly wonderful.
This is the decision that worked for us, and mostly I don’t think about it, but I have two daughters, and I wonder what choices they will make. It is a tough situation all around, and there is no current solution that really works for everybody.
As a fun aside, when my son was born, after our two daughters (which annoyed me because we just wanted another kid, we weren’t trying for a boy, but the whole world sees it this way, urgh!) my in laws pushed for us to use my husband’s maiden name as my son’s middle name. Something they had not done with my daughters. It was easy to say no to that kind of crazy patriarchal BS, but man, sometimes I can’t wait for the future.
You’re one of the few other people I’ve met who’s done this! My partner and I aren’t legally married, but back when we joined up, we wanted to share a name for ease with future kid stuff. I was open to any option that *wasn’t* taking his name, and he liked the idea of taking mine, so here we are.
It’s completely understandable that most people assume that I took his, but it’s a rather unexpected situation for me nonetheless. (I feel a mild twinge of sadness whenever a female friend marries a dude and takes his name, but I was ADAMANT about not doing it myself. So dealing with the assumptions is probably a good karmic comeuppance in some way. :) )
In terms of multigenerational approaches, I don’t think there’s anything that will ‘always’ work. I like the prospect of a lot more variation, so that no choice has the Oppressive Weight Of Tradition hanging off of it, because then people can pick the name that suits them best, that they like best, etc. As more same-sex couples have kids, some of this will happen naturally, but I’m impatient. I want to live in the future NOW.
I kept my maiden name upon marriage. My husband kept his too. We opted to give the kids my surname because hyphenating would be 19 characters long. I only have a sister, he has 2 brothers and 6 male paternal uncles. There are a lot of “His name”s running around.
Any professional does not bat an eye about it; likely due to the assumption of divorce/remarriage, etc. We’ve only run into issues a few times at school, because some of the “His name” cousins attend the same school as our kids.
We get *all kinds* of different titles on card envelopes. I’m over it, and don’t care what people put anymore! We do go by “The Myname-Hisname family” but I guess that’s just too confusing for some people! Even “Mr. and Mrs Hisname” doesn’t ruffle my feathers! I let people live in their own fantasy world, whereas I live in my own family’s reality.
I’ve met *several* couples in which the male party has said they would NOT HAVE MARRIED THEIR WIFE IF SHE HAD NOT AGREED TO CHANGE HER NAME. How sad for them.
Yes! This last bit! I know a couple who, when they were engaged I asked if she was keeping her name or taking his, and when she said she was taking his, he added the following statement: “If she doesn’t want to take my name, there are lots of women who will.”
I was APPALLED!
They got married, and have 3 kids now, but we’ve lost touch over the years.
Surprisingly few people have ever mistakenly assumed my husband’s last name was his original last name, and that I changed my last name instead. At least, to my face. Maybe this had happened more often for my husband, I will have to remember to ask him. Though it does make me feel similarly indignant.
I agree that the wonderful influx of legally recognized same sex marriages and other previously “untraditional” family relationships will bring a welcome variety to this discussion, and hopefully speed things along in a direction less bound by the heavy weight of tradition that you reference.
I don’t think I knew about the idea that there might be a difference in a divorced woman’s name versus a married woman’s name. That’s something to think about. Though, men refusing to marry women who refuse to take their names? That’s not something to think about. Rage, rage, ragey, rage.
I like sharing a last name with my husband and kids. It identifies us as a family. I do, however, prefer to use my own first name. :)
Being southern, neighbor kids don’t call me Mrs. Lastname though; they call me Miz Emily.
It’s the only reason I was willing to take my husband’s name: to avoid being the only one “left out” of our family’s surname. But I bitterly resent that this is the way it is. It feels like a threat: “Take his name, or else you can’t share a surname with your children!!” We could also all share a family surname if it were MY family’s surname.
I hyphenated, and my name, while still only having four syllables, seems to be a mountain for every single receptionist to climb. For that and other reasons, I still find myself wondering if I should just take our “family” name instead. But when I mentioned once to my otherwise fairly enlightened husband that he could take my name, it seemed completely inconceivable to him. And I really do wonder what’s it’s like to live in that default mindset, because of course my whole life even I assumed I’d change my name.
Isn’t that interesting, that it’s SO DIFFERENT for the female spouse to change her name than for the male spouse to change his name, when theoretically they are equal partners in the relationship, and men are not better than women, and men’s families are not more important than women’s families? And yet one way of choosing a surname is totally normal, and no one blinks, while the other way causes HUGE ISSUES, and is a SHOCK. Highlighting that actually we do not consider them equal.
Ha, I recently wrote you a VERY LONG LETTER about this, asking if you saw any brilliant solution I’d overlooked.
I eventually decided that since we were going to hyphenate the kids, I’d hyphenate along with them, and he could do what he’d like. We’d be the One-Two family, thankyouverymuch: Ms. One-Two, with lots of little One-Twos, and a Mr. Two, who has the right to make his own choices.
Mr Two came back after six months of silence (we’re actually married now!) and offered to take my surname as his middle name. *blinkblinkblink* Wait, hang on, I’d just adjusted to this whole new idea. Gimme a second here.
So now we’ll each be Firstname Middlename One Two, with Two being the only surname, and we’re now trying to figure out which of our multiple middlenames to drop.
Agree with you both about taking His name as not to feel “left out”. But for really petty purposes I often regret not keeping my name or having him take my name since his is a name that no one can ever pronounce which annoys me more than I like to admit. And it’s kind of a made up name that is somewhat confined to his family going only 2 generations back so it makes me feel very Internet Searchable which I hate. Even the lady at the DVM when I went to change my name on my DL was like, “Honey, don’t! Make him take yours! So much easier!” But then…. I named my daughter my maiden name which I’d always wanted to do so it wouldn’t have worked to have him take my name. Alas, I could still change just mine back… Damn patriarchy.
We go to a Southern Baptist church in Wisconsin and so the Sunday School kids call me “Miss Jennie”, rather than “Mrs. Last Name” (that is my husband’s name and I’m fine with that change.) Even other adults (mostly the other Sunday School teachers) call me Miss Jennie and I call them “Mr. Jim” or “Miss Lori”. Even though I do write it as Mrs. Jennie, even though it’s pronounced Miss Jennie. :P
I only changed my last name because my husband’s last name is Miller and my last name was Ubell and I really didn’t like it.
I am 4’11” and would not have taken the last name of the boyfriend I had before I met my husband. His last name was Tower. That would not have worked for me.
There are some cultures where a woman is referred to as “Mom FirstBornSon’sFirstName” which is even more erasing. As if a woman’s whole identity is to produce a male heir.
I agree that the current system is deeply unsatisfactory. I resent that my two options were my first name fatherslastname or my first name husbands last name. I agree that a new last name when a couple decides to marry/ start a life together would be a love,y way forward, particularly if there was a half- half rule to name tracing back easier :)
Oh, I like that idea. That we could agree on a codification of some kind that would allow for tracing the evolution of the family name, while creating something new instead of just subsuming one person’s identity entirely. Even if a person makes the choice willingly, there is undeniably an element to the current system that seems to require this sacrifice.
This seems more like growing a family, and intertwining their traditions and histories, rather than shoving everyone into the same box in the name of hanging them off a neat tree.
The Spanish have done this! They hyphenate, and then the girls pass down their mother’s side, and the boys pass down their father’s side.
The Spanish do FN HisSurname HerSurname, and then pass on His Surname in the next generation. Although at least in Spain, there’s no fixed rule that it has to be HisSurname… it’s just the first surname that has to be passed on.
My husband recently inverted his surnames legally so we could give the kids his mom’s surname, followed by mine (his first just because it’s more interesting and unusual).
I am very happy I kept my own name, but the kids do have questions about my last name being different from theirs, and what it means. Last year, my then 7 year old made the most perfect ornament that I will keep forever: “The TheirLastname Family, plus one MyLastname.” Hilarious.
I’d actually never heard of this sort of thing before I saw it in a movie – I think maybe it was Something To Talk About – where they are discussing changing the church recipe book to list recipes as from “Mrs. Jane Smith” instead of “Mrs. John Smith” and a lot of the old ladies have a little fit. I guess it just isn’t a very Canadian thing. Up here, keeping your own last name after marriage is becoming the standard – it’s been the official law in Quebec for years and now here in Ontario I would say at least half of all women chose that option. Time are changing!
I thought the same as you, that it was becoming less common to change your last name here in Canada, but a ton of my friends have changed theirs. Way more than I thought. Though I’m not in Ontario or Quebec.
More of my Canadian friends than I expected have changed their surnames, but many have not. Canada does allow you to unofficially take your husband’s name, meaning you can use it for a lot of convenience-factor things without renouncing your identity.
Now I just need to see Canadian women giving their kids their surnames and I’ll be happy.
Didn’t it use to be the case that if someone were addressed as Mrs. HerFirstName HisLastName, rather than Mrs. HisFirstName HisLasName, that it meant that she was divorced from him? Like Mrs. Wallis Simpson, for example. So that for people of a certain age or tradition, for whom being divorced might have been somewhat shameful in a way (thank goodness those days are over!), being called Mrs. Jane Smith “incorrectly” would have been a big deal.
I kept my name and NO ONE CARES. My husband was shocked when I told him I wasn’t changing my name, but I invited him to change his, and strangely he wanted to keep his own name. We briefly discussed becoming the Thigburgers or the Feltenpens, but neither appealed. My son and I do not share a last name and NO ONE CARES. I do get Christmas cards addressed to “the thigpins” but it doesn’t bug, it’s just a thing. Most nuclear families share a name and I’m actually fine if people assume we do as well.
My husband was willing to change his surname to mine, but I didn’t WANT him to, because then people would just ASSUME that it was HIS name to start with, and for some reason that really bothered me. No, that is MY name.
So I took his last name, and kept mine as a second middle, and he took mine as a second middle.
Now here is an interesting thing: I changed my name legally and then took those documents to the DMV and got a new drivers license with all four of my names. Quentin did the same, and the DMV lady (the SAME LADY THAT DID MINE) told him that all four wouldn’t fit, and did not change his name on his ID.
But his name is SHORTER than mine. His first and middle are FEWER LETTERS, and our second middles and lasts are THE SAME.
WHAT. WHAT. I AM RAGEY.
YES YES YES! I think this is particularly “a thing” in the South where I live. It drives me BONKERS. My husband, on the other hand, just thinks it is hilarious. I received a piece of mail from my high school (a small, private Christian school) asking for money…addressed to Mrs. HusbandFirstName HusbandLastName. Seriously, he has ZERO connection to the school and I am the graduate…BAD fundraising tactic!! My husband hooted over that one. One particular place you see this happen here in the south is in church cookbooks…while I love some church cookbooks, I do cast a side eye when Mrs. HusbandFirstName HusbandLastName is listed as a recipe author…because I am guessing the husband had ZERO to do with the recipe other than eating it and leaving his dirty dishes at the table!!!
Oooooh, the rage!! I hate this kind of stuff. Let women be FULLY RECOGNIZED HUMANS, omg.
xox
This kind of thing makes me very irritated. It is generational and here’s an interesting wrinkle. I work in the nonprofit world which means I work with donors, many older women. And some feel VERY STRONGLY that they should be referred to as Mrs. Husband’s Name. Others feel VERY STRONGLY that they should not. And there is no way to tell which each woman prefers, so you just kind of have to guess based on the kind of overall person she is. And when you are generally contacting these women because you would like them to give you money, it’s a nerve-wracking game to play. Thankfully, we are gradually aging out of this issue but man. Dicey.
When I got married, I took my husband’s last name, and kept my maiden name as a second middle. Professionally (I work in a family business), I go by FirstName MaidenName Married Name, simply for recognition purposes. In terms of whether anyone keeps their own name, or takes someone else’s, or hyphenates, or creates a whole new name – I am very “to each their own”. Do what makes you feel good! And I will do what makes me feel good! And we can all (theoretically) be happy with our choices and not give a crap about what someone else decided to do! (I’d also hate for anyone to assume that I took his name because I felt like I HAD to or whatever – I took it because I wanted to. He could not have cared less!)
Several years ago, before we were both married, I met a (now very dear) friend via the interwebs – she is from the south, and I am from the midwest. I got married a year before her, and when she was preparing to send out invitations for her OWN wedding, I remember her asking me what my husband’s middle name was – and I told her, thinking she was just curious. And then some correspondence from her (not the invitation, something addressed to just me) showed up at my house, addressed to Mrs. HisName HisMiddleName HisLastName – and I was so TOTALLY confused by it, that I thought she had sent something to my husband (I didn’t even notice the “Mrs”)! So I had my husband open the envelope, and he was ALSO confused, because whatever it was, was for me! Needless to say, she and I had a very enlightening conversation about how that is how a lot of Southern people (yound and old alike) address women – I had never, ever in my life heard of that. And I still it’s just bizarre as hell – that one day, you’re your own person, and the second you say “I do” you are now a possession/piece of someone else? Eh. No thanks.
Anyhow, over the years, it’s become one of the things we laugh about as a prime example of how the south really and truly is a whole other world. And she still addresses most anything she sends me (there is a lot of paper correspondence, seeing as she’s a proper southern lady) to Mrs. HisName HisMiddleName HisLastName.
I kept my own last name and have gone by Ms. since my late teens, so nothing changed when I got married. We get mail addressed to “the [hislastname]s”, but also to the “mylastname-hislastname family”, the “hislastname-mylastname family”, and sometimes “the [mylastname]s”.
We also gave our daughter my last name, while our son got my husband’s last name, so there’s confusion on that front as well when someone sends mail directly to the kids. We figure our naming choices are a little untraditional, so we aren’t fazed by the various modes of address.
The only thing that gets to me is the odd wedding invitation addressed to “Mr. and Mrs. hisfirstname hislastname”. I am not even a Mrs., much less hisfirstname hislastname, so there is literally nothing that addresses that invitation to me.
Eh, I see this as looking at the past with modern eyes. There are many good reasons why things have changed/ are changing, but we may be reading a bit more into How Things Were Done Then. For the record, despite being fairly progressive, I took my husband’s name. I don’t have strong feelings about it. I have friends who kept their own names or created a new last name. None of it warranted much conversation. Just different people doing different things, as they do.
As for the plaque, it is frustrating to have these women recognized with their husband’s names and yet I imagine that’s how they were known and referred to then, so it makes the most sense. Imagine in the future, people choose their own name rather than use the name given by their parents at birth and these future people being equally baffled by our current use of birth names for life.
My sister changed her name – her whole name – when she divorced her first husband. She dropped her middle name, kept her original first name as a middle name, made up an entirely new first name, and switched her last name from her former husband’s last name to a variation of her original last name (she added a new syllable onto the front of it because she felt it “flowed better”. She insisted it was “the perfect name” for her. The family was a little boggled, and it took a long time to get used to calling her by a new first name (actually, she prefers a nickname based on her new first name).
After all that, she took her second husband’s last name when she remarried.
It was codified law, though, that you had to change your name when you married to your husband’s name, for a long log time! and that codified law was accompanied by many other laws that disenfranchised women economically – women couldn’t have personal credit cards after they married, for example. A lot of brave women had to sue in the 60s in order to win these rights from the courts. So it wasn’t really about free choice back in the day, it was a form of social control.
Hunh. So, on the one hand, yes, obviously you (Swistle) are right in an I-blame-the-patriarchy sense, and what a nutty and imbalanced system and, you know, what the heck!?
Also, rule one in my understanding of name etiquette is this: address a person as they would like to be addressed. So, up until the point where an artist formerly known as Prince wishes to be addressed using a symbol that I do not know how to pronounce, I will address people however they want to be addressed assuming I know (and if I don’t or get it wrong, they should let me know), and I will of course address said artist in writing — if at all– using the symbol provided, since I can certainly write the symbol chosen, just not pronounce it.
But as regards the Mrs. title, my understanding is that it literally means, “wife of,” and thus, cannot (correctly) be used except as “Mrs. John Doe.” That being said, don’t get me wrong, if you would prefer to be addressed as “Mrs. Jane Doe” I will absolutely address you that way, see rule 1. But I myself have opted to stick with the historical/etymological application and, assuming for the sake of commenting that I did marry John Doe, consider myself to be “Mrs. John Doe” or just “Mrs. Doe” as well as being “Ms. Alexi Cographer” (not my real name). Moreover, my understanding is it would be etymologically incorrect to refer to me as Mrs. Alexi Doe even though I might want to be addressed that way (and if I did, my preferences should trump etymology), and moreover, that whether or not I took Mr. Doe’s last name when we wed, it is etymologically correct to refer to me as “Mrs. Doe” since, as noted, all that means is “wife of.” Which, as you note, is an odd way to give credit for one’s efforts and thank goodness that we now have the alternative of being Ms. Firstname Lastname so that women can receive credit for what they — we — do.
I mean no disrespect Mrs. Doe/Ms. Cographer, but I was intrigued by your assertion that Mrs. meant “wife of”. I hadn’t heard this before so went looking for more information out of curiosity. According to Wikipedia:
Mrs originated as a contraction of the honorific Mistress, the feminine of Mister, or Master, which was originally applied to both married and unmarried women. The split into Mrs for married women and Miss for unmarried began during the 17th century;[1][2] the 20th century saw the coinage of a new unmarked option Ms.
WordOrigins.com goes into much greater detail about the origins of all the honorifics (http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/more/667/) but the gist is the same and there too there is no suggestion that Mrs. means “wife of”.
So I didn’t set out to naysay, but I hope you won’t mind me sharing the additional, interesting information I found, even though it does contradict your comment. If you have a source that says that Mrs. does indeed mean “wife of”, I’d be keen to read that as well.
Oooh, another interesting article!
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/mistress-miss-mrs-or-ms-untangling-the-shifting-history-of-titles
Really interesting reading all the comments. I remember very clearly when I was a child my mother won some money or something in a radio contest, and when they announced her as “Mrs. Ian McDonald” I burst into giggles because I thought they’d gotten her name mixed up with my father’s. I didn’t change my name when I got married, and it hasn’t been an issue – the kids never blinked an eye about us having different last names – but among my group of friends it’s split about evenly between people who didn’t and people who did. That said, I should confess that I throw my husband’s name around profligately when making reservations or signing up for store discount cards because it’s so much shorter and easier to spell and pronounce than my own.
I never even thought about it. I took husband’s last name as mine, but used my maiden at work until I left that field. After that I taught day care and later was a Sunday school teacher and am now a school bus driver, so I go by Ms. Monique. Soon we shall divorce and I will keep his last name as it is the same as our children’s.
Now, my question is – if I choose to remarry in the future, would it be too weird to hyphenate exhusbandlastname-newhusbandlastname? I think too weird, but like the idea of maintaining the name connection to my children.
My MIL divorced after her children were grown, but often said that the reason she was keeping her ex-husband’s last name was to stay the same as her sons. And because that was who she had been for 20 odd years. A few years later she remarried a man with a teenage daughter, and she did change her name to theirs.
To be honest, I think it makes my husband feel a little odd sometimes that she changed her name away from his. (Although, I never changed mine to my husband’s, so, I’m not really sure where I’m going with this. Maybe it was mostly weird because she spent so much time talking about why she didn’t go back to her maiden name at her divorce.)
I’ve thought about this a lot in recent years. I took my husband’s surname because I was eager to not have mine anymore (I wanted to start afresh in a new, slightly less dysfunctional family), but I regret that decision now. I wish we’d chosen a new name – a mix of our surnames, as others have suggested above, or something completely different that we both liked – and made the change together. This way we’d both be giving up our name to start our new family, AND it would mean that the baby names I’d loved since I was younger that didn’t work with my husband’s surname would still have been options for us.
Even though the kids are here now, I still daydream about changing all of our surnames one day. But then I think of how much paperwork would be involved – it’s enough work keeping track of the documents to prove MY name change – and figure I’ll just encourage others to consider the whole-new-surname idea while it’s far less of a hassle.
I find I’m often surprised by the name choices people make. The people I most thought would change their name, haven’t, and those I thought wouldn’t change their name, did.
Interestingly the tax forms came out at daycare today and they were all hanging on the kids’ bins with the parents names on the outside. I was pleased to see that most families (small sample size) had two different last names, since that’s our situation as well. Although some of those women may have assumed their husband’s last names in everyday life, and just legally go by their original name. I try not to care about other people’s choices, but I do. I want people to assume we’re all one family, even with different last names.
I read this the other day and I’ve been STEWING ever since. I mean, I’m already angry enough about the patriarchal system that forces me to take my husband’s name, or else I’m Making A Statement and/or agreeing to have a different name than my children. And the “Mrs. HusbandFirstName HusbandLastName” thing is enough to set me over the edge. But it hadn’t even OCCURRED TO ME that there are so many problems with the Ms. / Mrs. / Miss thing! And it’s so true! Why do people need to understand my marital status from my honorific? Especially when my husband’s marital status is irrelevant!? I AM SO VERY RAGEY NOW.
I bought my home all by myself- no man’s name anywhere in sight. After all the papers were signed, the HOA sent me a welcome letter addressed to ‘Mr and Mrs Jones’. I gritted my teeth and threw it away. THEN they sent the payment book to ‘Mr and Mrs Jones’. I was livid. I guess they could not believe a woman could buy a house without a man’s supervision- even now in the 21st century.
Okay, coming to this party late and from an entirely different generation so can look back on this with a bit of perspective. I took my husband’s name when I got married, although I kept my maiden name as my middle name (MomQueenBee Maidenname Husbandname) and that’s on my business cards. I thought long and hard about this issue because I was just in the cusp of the years where women were starting to keep their names, and because I married old, I had a lot of investment in my maiden name. That said, the logistics of having the same name as my husband have made my life and my children’s lives infinitely less complicated. The big issue is not the name, it’s whether you’re treated as an independent person with an identity separate from your spouse and that begins with how your spouse (and in-laws) treat you. It’s a merger, not an acquisition. I expect my daughters-in-law to keep their own names because it’s what is done now. I added my husband’s name because it was what was done then.
Love this discussion, but wanted to acknowledge “…hear it from the secretary’s eyebrows.” Awesome!
My mom didn’t change her name, although she did bow to my dad’s “hyphenation-is-for-posh-people” philosophy so we just have his surname.
I disagree that it creates logistical difficulties or family disconnect. It’s actually very useful for distinguishing telemarketers when they ask for “Mrs. Smith”, as it isn’t my mother’s name. Sometimes they ask for “Mr. Jones” — also a tip-off. The biggest logistical challenge is reservations or picking up tickets or similar things, but it’s really not a big deal (“Oh, there’s no Smith? Try Jones”).
And whether or not we have the same surname, my mother is my mother. I don’t think she feels any less my mother for it, and I definitely don’t feel less her child. I consider her surname to be one of my names and part of my identity, although it isn’t on any official papers. After all, half of my family has that surname!
I would like my kids to have both my husband’s an my surnames in some form though. Partly because we’re from different countries, cultures and linguistic background, and I would like the kids’ name to reflect that. We’ll see what we come up with.
My mother-in-law was quite miffed when mailed her something addressed to “Mrs. Mary Lastname” instead of “Mrs. John Lastname” a couple of years after she was widowed. I think her identity was so dependent on her role as his wife/widow that she felt diminished rather than recognized as an separate person.
A few years ago my son’s friend got married and legally changed his last name to her family name. Rather unusual, but it works for them.
I know I’m late to the party, but this makes me crazy too. My husband and I both have PhDs, but frequently get invitations to Dr. and Mrs. I did NOT take his last name, and my kids actually have my last name. But still, most recent wedding invitation, from MY side of the family, was to Dr. and Mrs. HUSBANDFIRSTNAME HUSBANDLASTNAME. So no representation of me — I’m not a Mrs., and I’m neither my husband’s first nor last name. Just as I wouldn’t call the relative by her pre- marriage last name, because that wasn’t her choice, I’d like to be respected for my choice as well.
And the school usually has my last name correct, because it is the kids’ last name, but I always get Mrs. MYLASTNAME which is incorrect, because I’m not married to myself, and therefore I should be Dr. or Ms. Or in fact, my large preference would just be FIRSTNAME but I can never get any teachers to call me that.
End belated rant.