Morning Thoughts
Something that really bothers me is women who accept being called Mrs. Man’sFirstname Man’sLastName. {For example Mrs. Robert Smith –and if you ARE married to a person of this name, I don’t mean you ! 
} I remember when I worked at Waldenbooks many many years ago, we would often get checks from older women who signed their names this way but, as time went on, this seemed to disappear. However, this morning I was out walking and passed a house where the cute little sign out front said "Mr. and Mrs FirstnameofMan LastNameofMan." And I was reading a diary this morning that was called "Soon to be Mrs. Boyfriend’sFirst&LastName." Don’t get me wrong, I have got nothing against women taking the last name of their husbands, if that is what they want to do. What really creeps me out is women who identify themselves by their husband’s first and last names as if they have no identity except as the wife of their husband. It is very common here in Vermont for a woman to add her husband’s last name to hers. My boss at the library did this when she got married and that is how she writes her name now. She writes a column of library news for the little local monthly paper and that is how she is identified. Mind you, I don’t see men here doing that!
When I got a divorce, I decided to keep my ex-husband’s name for two reasons. First, I have never liked my family birth name. It is not that it is a weird or strange name that I was constantly having to spell for people. It is a name that commemorates the workers of England. I was a Fletcher and fletchers were the skilled craftsmen who put the feathers on arrows. It was an important craft during the time when the English bowman was feared all over the then-known world. But I just don’t like the word! Weird, I know. The other reason was because I had a small child with his father’s last name and from experience I found that it caused far fewer problems in school when the child and the mother have the same last name. And although I am not particularly fond of my ex, I do like his last name.
And, of course, I have now been this name longer than I was ever a Fletcher!
Ok, it is now almost 11 am and there has been no phonecall from the car repair people to tell Fred to come and get his car…
Until later…
hope fred gets his car soon. i went back to my maiden name when i divorced. when i was into archery, i used to fletch my own arrows. merlyn and i took our walk and he was walking behind me when we finally got home! poor baby! it was getting pretty warm out there by that time and he was dragging. take care,
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That bothers me a lot, too. I can’t imagine being so not independant … losing my first name and identifying only as being someone’s wife would be the ultimate in sad for me.
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Found you randomly on the front page……. I couldn’t agree more- I can’t imagine not using my own first name….as common as it is- it’s still mine! I re-married 2 years ago & actually kept my Ex husbands last name as my middle- for my kid’s sake….how weird is THAT?!
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I agree. I also go against convention by addressing cards to ‘Jane and John Last Name’ instead of ‘Mr. and Mrs. His Last Name’. Here is something funny (or not considering what it says about Gunther). We had been married about 30 years when he saw me sign something and he said, you mean you use MY name? Duh. He hadn’t realized that when we married I took his name on.
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I don’t mind being called that depending on the person/reason. I do however identify myself with my own name. I knew a girl that had the name of her first husband. She was Sherry Cruz. Then she got married to someone with the last name Berry. She kept her first husbands name too, otherwise she would’ve been Sherry Berry. 🙂
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When I got married this time I kept my family name which I had changed back to after my divorce from my lunatic ex-husband. My current husband asked why and I asked if he would be willing to change his last name. Of course, not so neither am I any longer. I saw a lot of the Mrs his first name, his lastname thing when I was in policyholder services at the insurance company. lack of identity?
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Names are funny things and wrapped up in a lot of tradition and sometimes law. Though I can’t think of a law here that says you have to. Hope Fred gets his car back.
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I agree. I address invitations, etc., as pb says–if the woman has taken her husband’s last name, then i address it as : Jane and John X. More and more people are not changing their names so I just put their full names: Jane Y and John X. My daughter decided to change her last name when she married–I think because having a different last name from mine always bothered her (and me).
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I took my husband’s last name because I liked it better, too. But I don’t take kindly to being referred to in public as Mrs. Marvin Lightbulb. My name is Donna, thankyouverymuchhh.
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I liked my maiden name and I was seriously considering just adding my husband’s last name on to it, but he had filled out insurance paperwork with just his last name as my last name, and it seemed such a hassle at the time to have to change it. Plus, the two together just didn’t flow so well.
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I didn’t change my last name back to my maiden name until my kids were adults. That was last year and I’ve been divorced for 15 years.
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I recently bought an old cookbook and all the recipes were from women, but the names were “Mrs Robert Johnson,” and “Mrs Daniel Smith,” etc. I wondered if it bothered THEM that they had no identity in the book? Maybe that’s just how we accepted things. I do remember my mother writing her name that way, too, but that was in the 50s.
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PS: I kept my ex’s last name, too, because unlike my birth name, nobody ever asks how to spell it! Your friend, The Former Mrs. Charles R. *s*
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I hope that car gets back home soon! That must be so annoying. Yeah, I still use the ex’s last name, which is tiresome, but hang it all, all of my career moves, credit and everything else is in that combination. So. But I find it very odd that young women are still so willing to drown their identity to just being “Mrs. Male Name Surname”.
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ryn: The fish will be “raffled” off. I have 4 letters from Mom’s saying that it’s okay for their kid to take it. I didn’t think “Fireball” was that popular, but apparantly he is…
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I kept my Ex’s last name for just the reason you did…I had two kids who were in school, and lived in a city where most of the other kids had other siblings with different last names… But I have always been Mrs. Mezzo.. And even THAT annoyed him. What’s even funnier, is that soon there will be a THIRD wife…
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I kept my married name for the same child reason…but now that she is grown, I find that I would like to go back to my maiden name. I like it a whole lot better. On my list of things to look into….someday.
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I sure wouldn’t have any truck with people who are unable to spell “F L E T C H E R,” (unless they owed me money, but not afterward though)!!!
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I’d forgotten this until a moment ago, my former wife went back to her maiden name after the divorce which pleased me immeasuralby. I used to have a way of needling of (suspected misogamist)husbands when introducing a couple to a friend of mine by saying: “This is Margaret and this is MISTER Margaret.” How to lose friends but become closer buddies with the wives…. ;-> yuk, yuk
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I remember my mom signing checks like that. That is not for me and I am not Mrs. Estrada, I am Ms. Estrada. How hoity toity is that??? *huggs*
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My mother used to do that – maybe it’s an old-fashioned thing? I also thought it was disturbing – like she was quite happy to lose her whole identity to him? Luckily he wasn’t that kind of man but I remember a lot of mail used to come addressed to her like that which would have infuriated me!
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