I’ve started doing this, too, after many years. But I use both names; “I’m J 666; Mrs. His Name”. I find it charmingly old-fashioned to use the construction, in parentheses, as it were.
When people in a legal situation (applying for a mortgage) as if I am Mrs. His Name, I say “Yes, my name is J 666”. When people ask my spouse if he is Mr. 666, he just says yes.
People never call me Mrs. Name; they do, occasionally, call me Mrs. 666. That kind of bothers me; I am Ms. 666 (an older construction).
Quebec has done this: Page introuvable ou inexistante - Ministère de la Justice
I don’t think that English common law really addresses the notion of a “legal name”. You can go by any name or names you like, as long as you don’t use it to disguise your true identity (for practical reasons, people who wish to go by a different name often formally declare it by means of a legal document such as a deed poll). So the custom of taking the husband’s surname is just that, a custom, not a law.
No, there is no law saying the woman has to change their given last name upon marriage… But they DO have the option to sign a legal document saying that their given birth name is no longer valid and they’re legally using someone else. The change name is not a social construct anymore, it is a legal change. You’ve said so yourself.
In the other way there is no legal document to sign… When the person is applying for credit cards, opening accounts, getting their professional licenses, getting a voter registration card, driving license, etc. The name that is used is the given name, that is the valid name that has to be put in the documents. It is truly a custom name, not a legal name change like in the other parts.
I have? Where? What document do women sign that says that their birth name is not legally valid? Perhaps somebody should have pointed that out to Cherie Booth QC, the prominent British lawyer also known non-professionally as Cherie Blair, through her marriage to Tony Blair.
My bad, then, since I thought your location was US, not UK. I suspected as much with the English common law phrase, but wasn’t sure. 
But in the US, as I’ve been told by other married women in this board, when they change their name they sign off some sort of legal document, and then they go around changing the names in all their official IDs (driver’s, registration, credit cards, I’m not even sure if SSN?, etc.). From what I understood, it is a complete change of name, as in their birth name is no more their name and from then on they’ll be recognized, legally, only by their new name.
Of course, most, if not all, women who do this only change the surname, not the complete name (which is Broomstick’s major objection to these addresses).
In Spanish, in contrast, the whole deal is purely social and the birth name is kept intact. It seems, by your post, that this is the case in England, too.
What else would you call it when you obliterate someone’s individual identity and make them a mere appendage to another human being, like a foot or thumb?
Well, in my wife’s case, in California, it wasn’t so simple. There was no legal document specific to changing one’s name after becoming married, and no space on the marriage license for indicating a changed name.
The procedure was to apply for a name change with the Social Security office, offering the marriage certificate as evidence of the new name. Once she had the new Social Security card, the next step was to get a new Drivers License (they wouldn’t give her one in her new name unless it matched her SSN.) With those two critical IDs in her new name the rest were straightforward.
Ed
Yes and no, sort of. In some places in the US, the marriage certificate has a space for “new surname”, at least sometimes for both the husband and wife. And banks and SS offices will pretty much accept a marriage certificate for a change of name. But generally speaking, in the US I can use any name I want to as long as I am not trying to commit fraud. Doesn’t need to be the one on my birth or marriage certificate, so there really is no such thing as a “legal name”.
There is not now nor has there even been a law that a woman has to change her name just because she got married. All these centuries it has merely been a custom. The chances of such a law passing today are no fucking way.
You can call yoiurself whatever you damn well please, as long as it’s not to defraud. I cannot call myself Madonna in hopes of getting some of her checks.
Manners says you should call a person by the name they want to be called. If a woman doesn’t want to be address as “Mrs. John Smith,” don’t call her that.
I always thought that Mr & Mrs John Smith was a stupid way to address a couple. What’s wrong with John & Mary Smith? Or John Smith & Mary Jones. They are two separate people.
That is a correct description of the law in Ontario. The “legal document” to which you refer is a new birth certificate subsequent to a change of name application under the Change of Name Act: Official government ID and certificates | ontario.ca .
In Ontario, your “legal” name is your birth certificate name, and if you wish, you can change you birth certificate name through the regisrar of births, marriages and deaths. As long as you do not try to mislead anyone, you can also use aliases. When a woman uses her husband’s name, she is using an alias, but there is nothing wrong with her doing this. She can use her alias on any number of official documents, such as a driver’s licence. Sometimes a person must use his or her “legal” birth certificate name, such as on his or her death certificate. Sometimes a person does not have to use his or her “legal” birth certificate name, but should do so to avoid complications, such as on a marriage certificate (so as to avoid complicating a later divorce or complicating the transfer of assets subsequent to a divorce). Note that this is for Ontario. YMMV.
Honoring her wishes?
With all due respect for your (and other posters’) passionate intensity on this subject, the goal of feminism was to give women choices, not to force them to march to a different drummer. If a woman, any woman, chooses to use “Mrs. John Doe,” that is every bit as much her choice and none of your business as it is if she chooses to have an abortion or work outside the home.
I agree that anyone and everyone, men and women alike should have the right to change their name whenever they want. I certainly do not oppose that. And women should have the freedom of choice to wear a headscarf or a burkha or to freely choose to wear piercings or mutilate themselves in any manner they wish so long as it is voluntary. I will always defend freedom above all.
BUT, having said this, I think it is a fact that many people choose options due to cultural and societal pressure which I think would be better if it did not exist. A woman can tell me she voluntarily accepts to be genitally mutilated and I have no choice but to respect her choice but I still think the culture which brought her up sucks. If it is one woman in a million then I think it may be only her family and the culture is not so bad but if large numbers of woman choose voluntarily to be mutilated I can only conclude their culture is not teaching them the values I would consider better.
I believe that men and women are better off keeping their names throught their lives because it becomes their own name. The fact that in American culture many women choose to take their husbands’ names, even if voluntarily, tells me they somehow abandon their own personhood and become, even if to a small degree, the wife of someone else.
That might have a reason centuries ago in other times and cultures but today it makes no sense.
I am not saying it should not be allowed. I am saying I would prefer it if everybody kept their names and did not define themsleves as someone else’s spouse. Just like I would prefer it if women in certain countries did not take such a submissive role but I certainly would not prohibit it. Whatever floats their boat.
I am sorry but I find your post funny. Maybe it was the way I was brought up but to this day, it would never occur to me to send a Christmas Card to a couple using anything BUT Mr and Mrs John Smith. In addition, if I receive a card solo that is addressed Mrs JANE Smith, I automatically feel bad that the sender has no manners or never learned the social graces.
I am wondering how old you are? I am not that old but it just seems so common in my world that I didn’t even know there was anyone out there that would freak out about it.
The social graces in your world differ from the social graces in my world.
The nonsense will stop when women, in overwhelming numbers, want it to stop. But that, so far, is not the case. As Elendil’s Heir points out above, this custom is still very much alive in certain circles. Mostly among women who sit on the boards of charitable and cultural organizations, and whose board seats were paid for by their rich husbands (here in New York, we’ve got lots of them, and they’re known as “the ladies who lunch”). Many, perhaps most, of these women, married their husbands precisely because of the man’s wealth, and they regard getting legally bound to a big pile of money as a significant achievement, and they want everyone to know it. To be addressed or referred to by their husbands’ names acknowledges their high social status, which derives entirely from their husbands’ wealth.
Being referred to by your husband’s name may be offensive to you, but it’s a source of pride for these women.
If she CHOOSES to be called that fine - but the custom we’re talking has nothing to do with choice. I have NEVER chosen to be called “Mrs. John Doe”, as you no doubt have noticed I have vehemently against it, yet I still get addressed in that manner. Then told to “accept it” because it’s “traditional”.
On one occasion my husband was asked my name so I could be invited along with him to a formal function. He gave them my correct name. The invitation arrived addressed to “Mr and Mrs. John Doe”. THAT’s the horseshit I’m talking about. The organizers even asked for my name, then didn’t use it? HOW is that polite or mannered? It’s insulting and demeaning. Granted, that was a couple decades ago and I hope society has matured and some of the idiots have died off in the meanwhile.
Unless a women specifically says “Address me as Mrs. John Doe” it should NEVER be the default. Never.
If you did that to me I’d seriously consider ending our correspondence permanently. No one who knows me as a human being would do that, because they know I would find it horribly offensive.
Whereas I would applaud their manners.
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There are a LOT of women who feel as I do. It’s even come up before on the Dope.
I will, however, point out that you are from the deeper south end of the country and I am a northern yankee - I have long suspected this deplorable and dehumanizing custom has stronger roots south of the Mason-Dixon line.
/points to Saintly Loser’s reference to New York matriarchs
My elderly female and very Midwestern relatives adhere to much of this custom as well.
Broomstick, I have not noted that as a regionalism in my family. My Southern old lady relatives either have no preference or don’t mind Mrs. Firstname. My grandmother who threw a shit fit is a Yankee.
Of course, we’re not from the nice part of the South, not since the war anyway. I’m afraid my father is, and please try to hide your shock, new money.