It's a Lot of Work for Men to Take Their Wife's Name

I've found a number of articles and studies lately that mention how difficult it is for men to take their wife's name upon marriage. As the paper below notes, while this initially looks like a form of discrimination against men, it really is a form of procedurally imposed discrimination against women; in most states, women are not entitled to have a husband take their name with the same relative ease that they are allowed to take their husband's. By making it so difficult and expensive for men to take their wife's names, even the most liberal men are discouraged from considering such a thing. Thus, the tradition of women only taking their husband's name continues on and on.  [I'm now imagining my Civil Procedure professor shouting out "TRADITION" and dancing in a parody of Fiddler on the Roof he did in class several times]

Some snippets on the subject:

"When I decided to take my wife's last name, I was shocked by how different the process is for men." By James Kosur, Business Insider (Dec. 19, 2015).

"Little did I know, the name change process would not be simple because of my gender.  .... If I was a woman who had been recently married, I would have presented my marriage license to the court, paid a name-change fee, and moved on with my life. A close friend tells me she remembers paying around $60 and submitting a simple form alongside her marriage certificate to change her name. Within weeks her name change was official. I paid $300 for a newspaper ad and spent hours in court and visiting with a newspaper ad sales representative in order to change my name. The change took more than a month to complete."  (Kosur describes the process as it currently exists in Illinois

Vintage Bride/Groom. By Jean L. Used under a Creative Commons License. Available at https://www.flickr.com/photos/yourcastlesdecor/14150266866/.

Deborah J. Anthony, A Spouse by Any Other Name, 17 Wm. & Mary J. Women & L. 187 (2010).

"Currently only nine state statutes explicitly allow a man to change his name through marriage with the same procedures as a woman. Interestingly, it has been allowed in Maine since 1980 by Attorney General opinion rather than statute. California was the most recent to join that group in 2007, as a result of a lawsuit filed by a man named Mike Buday, who desired to change his name to that of his wife but was prohibited from doing so outside of the court process. Rather than fight the lawsuit, California amended its law with the Name Equality Act of 2007, which became effective in 2009. The legislature noted the importance of names in Sec. 2 of the Act: “[T]he choice to adopt or not adopt a new name upon marriage or registration of domestic partnership is a profoundly personal reflection of one’s individuality, equality, family, community, and beliefs.”

It should be noted that some states’ laws are not explicit, but may be interpreted to apply to both women and men, and that male name change at marriage may be allowed at the county level. This results in what Emens identifies as “desk-clerk law,” where the law essentially consists of whatever the person at the desk says it is. This results in interpretations that are incorrect and/or discouraging of unconventional choices, with results being highly inconsistent from one employee, and one county, to the next. 

.... What at first appears to be discrimination against men is in reality discrimination against women: the status quo represents a legal sanctioning of the social norms that subsumed a woman within the husband’s identity. Because taking their husbands’ names at marriage was never really a “right” of women, but rather a requirement, the “right” actually inheres in the man. In essence, women are still denied what men have always enjoyed: the right to have a spouse adopt their name at marriage. This is why, in a society that has almost never legally favored the female over the male, and where men have always had the common law right to change their name whenever they chose, they are nevertheless not permitted to do so at marriage."

Michael Rosensaft, The Right of Men to Change their Names Upon Marriage, 5 J. of Const. Law 186 (2002).

"[C]ourts have gone beyond the restrictions listed in the statutes and rejected name change applications due to public policy or just their own whim. For example, the Minnesota Supreme Court denied the petition of a man who wished to change his name to '1069' for no other reason than the court did not think such a name conformed with their ideal of social norms. With so much discretion given to, and sometimes taken by, the courts, there is no assurance that any application will necessarily be approved. It might be argued that many judges would automatically allow name changes for marital purposes. However, a groom taking his wife's name is not a widely accepted practice, and judges have denied applications where they did not think it fit certain social structures. For instance, some courts have denied gay couples' petitions to have the same last name. This example is not so important because it directly applies to marital name change statutes, but because it shows that giving discretion to courts means that they are free to apply the social norms that they find acceptable. ...And lest one think a judge would always approve a man's wish to adopt his wife's surname, at least one Florida judge was resistant to this idea when he told Dan Cipoletti that he 'needed a better reason than getting married to change his name...'

Other evidence tends to show that Congress supports the right to control one's name upon marriage. In 1964, Congress passed Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which holds that it is unlawful for an employer to discriminate against any individual with respect to their sex. The Sixth Circuit has applied this statute to marital name change. In Allen v. Lovejoy, the court invoked Title VII when a woman was fired from her job because she refused to go by her husband's surname after marriage and wanted to sign her own maiden name to company forms.  The Sixth Circuit stated that a 'rule which applies only to women, with no counterpart applicable to men, may not be the basis for depriving a female employee who is otherwise qualified of her right to continued employment.' In addition to Title VII, Congress has added a section to the Equal Credit Opportunity Act that is specifically gender neutral and states:'A creditor shall not refuse to allow an applicant to open or maintain an account in a birthgiven first name and a surname that is the applicant's birth-given surname, the spouse's surname, or a combined surname.' Clearly, considering the Sixth Circuit's construction of Congress' intent in enacting Title VII and the additions Congress has made in the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, Congress feels it important that a spouse who wishes to either change their name upon marriage or keep it the same not be discriminated against. While Congress has not specifically addressed the issue of a man changing his name upon marriage, it is more likely that this is due to the practice being relatively infrequent rather than it not falling in line with their aforementioned policies."

This article also has a fascinating Equal Protection analysis of the issue. I highly suggest you read it!

The Right of Married American Women to be More than "And Wife" on a Passport

Let's never forget how far women actually have come. Less than 100 years ago, women didn't even have the right to see their first name with their husband's last name on a passport, much less their birth name. It's a little depressing that such advances are so recent.

Us modern women are incredibly lucky to live when we do- we have more freedom and more rights than almost any women have throughout history. That doesn't mean we should stop addressing sexism wherever we see it, but it is something to think about. 

"U.S. passports predate the Declaration of Independence, but the documents were issued on an ad hoc basis until the late 1800s, when the process began to standardize. By then, a single woman was issued a passport in her own name, but a married woman was only listed as an anonymous add-on to her husband’s document: 'Mr. John Doe and wife.'

'Restrictions on travel rarely took the form of government policy or officials actively preventing women traveling abroad. Rather, restrictions came in the form of accepted social ideas,' says Craig Robertson, author of Passport in America: History of a Document. 'Put simply, it was not acceptable for a married woman to travel outside of the country without her husband; he, of course, could travel without her. More generally, a married woman’s public identity was tied to her husband, and passports reflected that in being issued to the husband, with his wife being a literal notation.'..

[Doris E.] Fleischman’s passport was the first legal document issued by a federal agency to a woman under the name she preferred and the first U.S. passport issued to a married woman that didn’t designate her as the “wife of” her husband. However, though other women could request passports with similar wording as Fleischman’s, the State Department continued to issue passports referring to most women as 'the wife of Mr. John Doe' until the late 1930s."

The 1920s Women Who Fought for the Right to Travel Under Their Own Names - By Sandra Knisely, March 27, 2017  http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/us-passport-history-women?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=atlas-page

Picture credit: Doris E. Fleischman's passport application (National Archives and Records Administration - public domain)

What Do the Majority of Hetero Married Women in Your Country or Culture Do?

I keep finding interesting articles and mentions here and there about how other countries and cultures handle surnames post marriage. The New York Times survey article sum-up quoted one woman as stating that most women in China don't change their names upon marriage. The NYT dedicated an entire article to that subject here: For Chinese Women, a Surname is Her Name. The article states:

But in China, as in other Asian societies shaped by Confucian values, including Korea and Vietnam, women traditionally retain their surname at marriage. This is an expression not of marital equality, Chinese feminists are quick to note, but of powerful patriarchal values. A married woman continues to be identified by her father’s lineage.

Chinese folk art painting of a wedding

The article noted that as a result, women were often left out of genealogical records. But in 1930, China gave women the legal right to take her husband's name at marriage in the new Civil Code.

In contrast, in Japan, all married couples are legally required to use one surname. 96 percent of women assume their husbands' name. Another NYT article (really, New York Times, way to go on the top notch name change coverage lately!)--In Japan, More Women Fight to Use Their Own Surnames--discusses the December 2015 decision by the Japanese Supreme Court that held that the law did not violate the Constitution or place an undue burden on women. 

I'm working to create a Google Sheets file tracking all the laws and traditions of various countries and cultures just so I can start to get a handle on it all. It's accessible here if you'd like to look at it or contribute!

Kitsune no Yomeiri – The Fox Wedding (Learn more about the story behind this painting here - https://hyakumonogatari.com/2013/07/19/kitsune-no-yomeiri-the-fox-wedding/)

Why are So Many Media Outlets and Journalists Reporting this Out of Date Stat?

Okay I can’t believe I have to say this again (I’ve talked about it on my Facebook page several times now), but there are at least 3 or 4 media outlets who are now reporting the “70% of Americans think women should be required to take their husband’s names” thing as if it’s current.

These reports are all based on a 2017 article which includes a tiny reference to this "required by law" statistic, which is from a 2011 study that is /based on/ data from 2006. And that statistic based on 2006 data is what is getting blown up into a big issue and pissing everybody off, but really, it's seriously outdated, and I sincerely doubt it is true anymore?

I know this because I literally emailed the author of the 2017 article and she very kindly gave me a copy to read. And then I read the 2011 study (which I found online).

Check your sources, y'all; conclusions based on data gathered in Bush's second term as president are PROBABLY not accurate anymore.

I utterly refuse to post any of these totally inaccurate articles and give them any click throughs. I tried to post a picture of my cat instead but the blog isn’t letting me now so you’ll just have to make do with text-only instead.

You Can't Take Your Spouse's Name in Quebec

"In marriage, both spouses retain their respective names, and exercise their respective civil rights under those names." Article 393 of the Civil Code of Quebec

Since 1981, women in Quebec have been banned from legally taking their husband's  name. According to Marie-Hélène Dubé, a Montreal lawyer who specializes in family law, in an article published in the Global News, “The reason this law was adopted was to put an end to huge social pressure on women upon marrying to take the husband’s name." Dubé justified the harshness of the law by stating, "The reality is if the rule is too flexible, women can be subject to pressures … where they can be forced to do something that they don’t really want to do."

According to the Directeur de l'etat civil Quebec's website, "The law permits a person to apply for a change of given name or surname under certain conditions. Such a change is granted only if a serious reason, within the meaning of the Ci'vil Code of Québec, has been shown. Important: Under the Civil Code of Québec, both spouses retain their respective names in marriage and exercise civil rights under those names. Consequently, if a married woman wants to adopt her spouse's surname, the Directeur de l'état civil will authorize that change of name only in an exceptional situation."'

Names can be changed in Quebec in two ways:

1. A child's name change can be authorized by the court in the case of abandonment by a parent, in the case of deprivation of parental authority, or in the case of a change of filiation, such as through an adoption.

2. A person can also apply to the Directeur de l'état civil for a name change. The website gives a few examples of reasons to apply for a change of name, including: "The use, for five years or more, of a surname or given name not entered on the act of birth; A name of foreign origin, too difficult to pronounce or write in its original form; Serious prejudice or psychological suffering caused by the use of the name; A name that invites ridicule or that is infamous (marked by disgrace, shame or humiliation); or the intention to add to the surname of a child under 18 the surname of the father or mother, or a part of it if it is a compound surname."

This is a difficult process, as illustrated by Saleema Webster in an article in Chatelaine: "There are circumstances in which a name change is allowed: parental abandonment, other reasons of inconvenience. I checked every box, adding that it would be a hardship not to have the same name as the rest of my new family. ...Eventually, I had to provide a letter from a psychologist supporting my claim of emotional hardship, and in a process that took over a year and hundreds of dollars, I was granted a legal name change, from Saleema Nawaz to Saleema Webster." (This article also includes a humorous story with a slight twist on the standard "people assume you have your husband's name" story you hear so often in America, in which a doctor in Quebec was incredibly confused by the author and her husband sharing a last name).

I have so many thoughts on this. I kind of get the idea of cutting down on social pressure, because seriously y'all, there is a ridiculous amount of social pressure for women to change their name, but at the same time, this law seems like it goes way too far in terms of taking away people's choice. So though I can understand how they got to this point, I highly disagree with it. Plenty of people seem to agree with me on this, including the Prime Minister of Canada and his wife. A National Post article noted that a directive that stated the Prime Minister's wife be known as "Sophie Grégoire Trudeau" was effectively giving a middle finger to Quebec's law, as "Since Trudeau and Grégoire married in 2005 in Montreal, she has had no right to share names with her husband — or their children, for that matter." (although I should note that I'm pretty sure there's no law in Canada that requires children to have their father's name).

The wording of the law is also very broad, "spouse" rather than husband or wife. I'd normally applaud the gender-neutral wording, but in this case, I think it means that homosexual couples are banned from taking each other's surnames upon marriage as well. And the same justifications for avoiding social pressure seem to not hold up in that situation. If you have two men marrying each other, there's theoretically no social pressure. If you have two women marrying each other, is there twice the pressure? And what sort of social pressure exists for genderqueer folks who don't identify as either male or female? I'm just so curious.

In any case, the justifications fall apart pretty quickly and you just have a situation where people are banned from making their own choices about their names post-marriage. And that's never cool. 

Book Review: Mrs. Man

What is this book about? 

This is an incredibly comprehensive look at the history of married women's names in America. It addresses titles such as Ms. vs. Mrs., the rise in the 1800s of married women being called Mrs. Husband'sFirstName Husband'sLastName, and the fight for women to first use their own first names and then their birth names. It's very very well referenced and looks at societal trends, court cases, and newspaper articles. To be honest, I've been reading this since June sometime and am only now getting to the end (even though I'm a very fast reader generally) just because every few seconds I'd read something interesting and would put down the book to go look it up and freak out over it (people have done REALLY horrible things in the past to keep women from using the names they wish). Every time I read a book for this blog, I fold the corners of pages I want to go look back later (my mother would be so appalled at me). Basically every other page of this book is folded over, lol. 

Who would love this book?

Someone who loves a little too much information about everything and enjoys reading about history and women's rights. It is in-depth and quite detailed. It also was written in the 70s and reflects that. Most of it is non-biased and academic in nature, but it does occasionally show its age. It'll go along quite nicely for several chapters and then out of nowhere you'll get an out of nowhere statement about how awful gay marriage is (something I fully and totally disagree with , fyi) or a weird musing on the Oedipal implications of Lucy Stone keeping her father's last name after marriage but still using "Mrs.", which literally means "wife of."  

My Favorite Parts

I'm very fond of the part where they describe Ruth Hale's responses to people who tried to call her by her husband's last name. She referred anyone who asked for Mrs. Broun to her mother in law and if she received an invitation to Mr. and Mrs. Heywood Broun, she took the position that she wasn't invited. In a book full of sometimes depressing things people have done throughout history to try to keep married women from using their birth name, it was a nice spot of hilarity and light. 

Does it talk about marital surname changes at all? 

It's literally the entire point of the book! It's brilliant! 

Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Mrs-Man-Una-Stannard/dp/091414202X

Changing Your Name Can Get Expensive and Time-Consuming

Refinery 29 published an article on this subject, looking specifically at the requirements for a woman changing her name in New York. 

"Capalad is hoping to use her maiden name as a middle name — a trend that's been steadily on the rise in the last decade. However, New York state recognizes a name change by marriage only if she tacks on her married name as a hyphenated double-barrel, or if she drops her maiden name altogether. Since Capalad is hoping to essentially change her middle name and last name, she is required to appear in civil court and petition in front of a judge. The court fees vary by location — with some courts upstate charging up to $300 for an appearance — so Capalad opted for the relatively cheaper Kings Civil Court in Brooklyn. This will still cost her $65 to go in front of the judge, not to mention the weeks spent to schedule a court date."

Table Decoration by SunFla, available on Etsy at https://www.etsy.com/listing/198605520/mr-mrs-purple-glitter-letters-wedding.

It also takes a good look at some of the costs you might not initially think about:

"I feel like the real money loss is having to take time off work to do all of this," Capalad said. There are so many variables that affect how much time you need to get your name change request approved, so taking half-days or full days off work seems necessary. Since Capalad is self-employed, she has no annual leave to use for such trips. She estimates that she lost a total of 1.5 to two days of income between the civil court petition and the DMV visit.

What about those Name Change services popping up everywhere? 

"With services like Hitchswitch and MissNowMrs claiming to help with changing your name starting at $29, it's tempting to go with the seemingly most hassle-free option. However, these sites don't file the forms for you; rather, they send you a completed version of everything — which you could just download from the state agencies anyway — and supply the envelopes for you to mail. If you hate filling out paperwork, this is a great tool to use, but we suggest considering your situation and making the judgment call to deliver your application by post or in person."

It looks like these websites generally provide filled out paperwork for Social Security, IRS, Passports, Postal Services, Driver's License, and Voter Registration and customized notification letters for non-governmental agencies at the lowest cost option. 

Banner by BannerCellar, available on Etsy at https://www.etsy.com/listing/519915243/future-mrs-banner-bridal-shower-banner

As I've already written about before, this is generally significantly easier and cheaper for women than it is for men, but it still can really add up! However, everyone has different experiences, and several of my friends on Facebook said that it wasn't an issue for them at all. 

"I only remember that in Kansas, one of the state offices had to snail-mail me something and the post office wouldn't deliver it because my name wasn't registered at that address so I had to deal with the post office on that. Otherwise I don't think it was that big of a pain, but also I was so stupid in love at the time that I would have walked to the ends of the earth for him." - Beth Lawton (former boss extraordinaire!)

"M[y name change] was super easy, too. I didn't do a traditional change (added another middle), so I read up on that beforehand and the recommendation was to do social security first. Reason being I read about people who did their license first and the license people argued and/or didn't format it as requested. When you do SS first, they can't argue. So I did that and it was a breeze. Bank and everything else was even easier. Facebook let me change my name, but I had to submit proof to add my maiden name, because they flagged it as inappropriate." - Elizabeth Miller

Book Review: Lucy Stone - An Unapologetic Life

What is this book about? 

This fantastically well researched and written book is a biography of Lucy Stone, a badass woman who graduated from college at a time when the vast majority did not accept women and made her living as a public speaker on the topics of abolitionism and women's rights when women generally weren't allowed to speak in public and both topics were incredibly controversial. She's mostly known today for being the first married American woman that anyone knows of that deliberately kept her own last name. This is due in part to her own stubbornness in refusing to give interviews to journalists and in part to a feud with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton; she's barely mentioned in a lot of important works on women's rights activists/suffragettes and has alas, become much less known these days than Anthony and Stanton, even though they were all rather famous during her lifetime.

Who would love this book?

Anyone who stands for women's rights or is interested in learning about the history of that movement or abolitionism. Lucy was heavily involved with both, and this follows a lot of the conversations and divisions in each movement during her lifetime. It's also just really well written and interesting, with just enough spice to keep things moving along. I read a lot of it while spending almost an entire day in various lines relating to the Yayoi Kusai: Infinity Mirrors art exhibit in DC, and I was able to speed through it and stay very absorbed in it despite all the crowds, noise, and screaming children around me.

My Favorite Parts

Lucy Stone was so incredibly fierce. I love reading all the different sources' descriptions of her lectures, and how her tiny, feminine presence and high, gentle voice contrasted with her powerful words. I also admire how the author doesn't hold back from illustrating Lucy's faults as well - her general lack of humor and her stubbornness to a fault on some issues, among them.

On a more humorous note - her husband Henry Browne Blackwell is described throughout as a bit of a spacey dreamer, jumping from job to job. It made me crack up to read of the many many times throughout his life he ran off and tried to start a sugar beet refinery. It seemed like every 10 pages, old Blackwell was off messing about with sugar beets again. It really was admirable of him, as it was all part of an industry trying to move people away from slave farmed sugar cane,  but it still was pretty hilarious.

Does it talk about marital surname changes at all?

Yes! The story of her husband's pursuit of her (which led to her decision to keep her name) is really quite adorable. She basically refused Henry Brown Blackwell (the brother of the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States, Elizabeth Blackwell) constantly for two years until she finally gave in. They wrote a delightful public letter called their "Protest" of Marriage protesting the massively sexist marriage laws of the time, read it at their wedding ceremony, and published it afterward. Lucy kept separate bank accounts and property from her husband for her entire life. She briefly changed her name to his for about a year, then after consulting with lots of lawyers and judges, changed it back to Stone after realizing it didn't break any laws for her to keep her own name. 

Her dedication to keeping her own name was so intense that the ONLY time she had the opportunity to vote in her life in a minor local election, she walked away from voting after the administrators refused to let her vote under Lucy Stone, saying she could only vote under Lucy Blackwell.

The Lucy Stone League, a women's rights organization dedicated to name rights formed in 1921, took its name from Lucy. "Lucy Stoner" even became a descriptor for anyone who advocates that a married woman should be allowed to keep and use her own name. The group is not super active right now, but it sounds like there are chapters of larger Women's groups that operate under the name Lucy Stone. I myself belong to an awesome private Facebook group called the Lucy Stone League. The members often commiserate on the still often archaic views on women's last names in the world today. 

Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Lucy-Stone-Unapologetic-Sally-McMillen/dp/0199778396/

To Change Your Name (A Poem)

A very wise person once wrote that it’s
The choices we make that define the person we are.
The decision you’ve made to change your name
Is one of the most important choices you’ll ever make —
Something no one else can do for you.

Photo by Mike Timberlake (metimbers2000). Used under a Creative Commons License. Available at www.flickr.com/photos/metimbers2000/1409236433/

Just like the butterfly that emerges from the chrysalis, 
Changing your name heralds a new stage in your life.
Like the butterfly, may you go out into this world
With pride, with courage, and with the certain knowledge that
Your new name has added meaning and purpose to your life. 

Sharon L Norris

Source: https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-change-your-name/

About that Mrs. Thing

I've never particularly liked or understood the reason for using different lead-ins for women based on their marital status. It seemed to be very old fashioned to me, even when I was fairly young. In my previous life as a journalist, I interned a semester at a newspaper in London. Their practice there was to use honorifics on the second reference to a person in a news article; so if John Doe is mentioned once, on the second time, he'd be Mr. Doe. I always hated having to ask women interviewees whether they were married or not just to figure out what honorific they'd use, so I ended up defaulting to using Ms. a lot of the time. In retrospect, I could probably have just asked "What's your preferred title, Miss, Mrs, or Ms?" but I was 21 and awkward and sometimes the simplest solutions don't occur to you until 8 years later when you're in a completely different career.

Made by DefineDesignEtc on Etsy. Available at https://www.etsy.com/listing/491089913/miss-to-mrs-canvas-makeup-bag-bride-gift

So honestly, because of my own personal dislike for the practice, I'm unlikely to start using Mrs after getting married. However, it's almost certain that at least some people will call me that anyway, whether or not I change my name. People have a nasty habit of assuming such things. I've gotten called "Mrs" on several occasions just in my regular life; once even when a boyfriend and I went to a very fancy restaurant when I was only 18! I got it most recently at a doctor's office. This makes me believe that a considerable number of people don't actually know the difference between the different titles and particularly don't understand its historical context.

"In the middle of the eighteenth century, 'Mrs' did not describe a married woman: it described a woman who governed subjects (i.e., employees or servants or apprentices) or a woman who was skilled or who taught. It described a social, rather than a marital status. 

Mistress is also the basis of another 'title of politeness' (as the OED terms it): 'Miss', which we use to designate an unmarried woman. Miss is almost as old as Mrs as an abbreviation of mistress and, like Mrs, it was applied only to those of higher social status. Unlike Mrs, which has changed from a social to a marital meaning over time, Miss always designated the marital status of being unmarried. But until the eighteenth century it was only applied to girls, never to adult women." - Mistresses and marriage: or, a short history of the Mrs, by Cambridge University historian Dr Amy Erickson. (This paper is really fascinating - Dr Erickson looked at a ton of old records to see what titles were being used over time)

The use of Mrs for women in authority can also be seen in the use of Mrs for "Mrs Hughes," the housekeeper in charge of all the servants on Downton Abbey, taking place around the time of the first World War. Dr Erickson also notes that the appropriate title for single business women in the 19th century was also Mrs.

Quick sidenote: I've been reading some Jane Austen lately, and this paper also describes the naming conventions used there. 

"Where Miss was used, it followed the conventions of Mr for sons. Where the father was 'Mr Cibber', his sons were 'young Mr Cibber' or 'Mr Theophilus'. With daughters, the eldest unmarried daughter was 'Miss Cibber' with no first name, the younger daughter was 'Miss Charlotte Cibber', or just 'Miss Charlotte'. When she married she became Mrs Charke, or Mrs Charlotte Charke to distinguish her from any other contemporaries who were also Mrs Charkes, notably her mother-in-law"

Surprisingly, the "tradition" of calling a wife Mrs. "Husband's First Name Husband's Last Name" is actually fairly new. Dr Erickson's paper continues snarkily, "Through the early modern period, where Mrs was used and the woman was married, the title was followed by her own first name and her husband's last name. The total annihilation of wifely identity which assigned a woman not only her husband's last name but also his first name only appeared around 1800." 

Awesome Dr. Shirt available over at https://www.amazon.com/Miss-Mrs-Shirt-Funny-PhD/dp/B01FRGK47U

Here's the thing: Is it actually appropriate for someone to call a married woman who hasn't changed her last name Mrs? According to several sources, such as Miss Manners and Offbeat Bride, no, as Mrs in this instance literally means "wife of" and actually only makes total sense when used with the husband's complete name.

So since I don't plan to legally change, it sounds like I will not be partaking of any of the fabulous and often glittery "Mrs." themed garb out there. Oh well. There's still plenty of other ways for me to engage in blatant wedding themed consumerism.

Sidenote: I really wish I could find some fabulous MS. NOT MRS. merchandise out there. When I searched for "Ms. T-shirt" I just found a ton of stuff for Multiple Sclerosis.

Anyway, I'll leave you on this note: