Ha! That’s pretty cool.
I take it the Mrs. George Bush on the KC board is Barbara, not Laura?
When we married, we were presented as “Mr. and Mrs. James Doe, Jr.” I get mail all time time addressed to both of us that way or to myself as “Mrs. James Doe.” Doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Since my husband is a Junior, it differentiates me from his widowed mother.
I also dropped my surname entirely and took his: my middle name has remained my middle name. To me, it’s the symbolism of the two becoming one.
Mrs. George Bush and her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Laura Bush, are both listed.
My grandmother (born in South Dakota, 1918), still signs her checks as “Mrs. Richard S. Sanders”, and I believe all her credit cards & other financial documents are also in that styling. That was how they did it Back In The Day, and she never saw any reason to change.
My mother (born in 1952, raised in California) would occasionally in the early 70’s get mail addressed to Mrs. Gordon Ourlastname, and would toss it out as junk mail, unread. However, both times she got married she changed her name, dropping her previous last name entirely. The first time she didn’t want to but didn’t realize that keeping her maiden name was an option; the second time, she did it as a sentimental thing for my stepdad.
For me (born in CA in 1970), I kept my name, and have never been referred to as Mrs. Oni no Husband, and only rarely as Maggie Husbandsname.
Times change, social norms change. It’s all good.
On a related note, all this talk of “Mrs.” has me wondering, is “Ms.” not as mainstream yet as it is in my head?
shrug “Ms.” is my personal default; I’ve never had a woman object to it, except one very old neighbor who insisted on “Miss”.
The thread is all about “Mrs.”, though.
Ms. is for business. Mrs. is for pleasure. 
Oh, I agree it’s not universal, but I thought it interesting that Jamaika a jamaikaiaké specifically said a relative in IN had never heard of it, whereas it seemed to be very common in the experiences of my family in the same area. Datapoint: we are quite a diverse hodge-podge mix of various backgrounds but with one branch that has lots of Scottish, German, and Irish ancestry. Most arrived early-1800s. So it’s interesting that JaJ’s relative hadn’t come across it in IN, when in our experiences it was commonplace for a bunch of generations.
Oh, and at our wedding, we’re planning something along the lines of Disheavel’s introduction because no one is change his/her name.
I lived with my grandparents for a couple of years when I was a teenager. My grandfather thought that I needed to go to charm school, but he was much too cheap for that, and nobody else was going to pony up the tuition, so he got me a current (early to mid 70s) etiquette book instead. Then he required me to read it, and he quizzed me on it.
This backfired on him more than once. Most notably, when we were at the airport and he tipped the skycap a shiny new quarter for about 10 bags of luggage. I tilted my head at Grandpa, gave him my most charming smile, and told him just what that blasted etiquette book had as a rule for tipping skycaps. Ah, sweet revenge!
Wonderful. And I fully support your upholding of said symbolism
Where it gets annoying is for those of us who never believed in this “two become one” thing, as it’s not part of our religion, yet are forced to kowtow to the custom.
Well, “forced” is probably a bit strong. I mean, nobody’s holding a gun to anyone’s head. But there is definitely some degree of social pressure to change your name from people who think the tradition is important or meaningful in some way, even if the importance and meaning is simply that it’s tradition. Most of it is indirect, maybe even unintentional, but that doesn’t make it any less of a pain in the arse.
I only get the whole Dr. and Mrs. DoctorJ thing once in a while, usually from someone who is painfully hidebound, painfully pretentious, or trying to make a statement about me not changing my last name. Though you can get some pretty ridiculously addressed stuff even without using that particular construction. My personal favorite instance was a mailing I got last fall from the state university’s Women’s Club. It was addressed to Ms. DoctorJ Hisname, c/o Dr. DoctorJ Hisname, at our house. Since the organization is basically the Faculty Ladies’ Auxiliary and they do things like have garden teas and bridge tournaments, I’m guessing the form of address was a mixture of the first two factors plus them not actually having my name on his employment file.
I find the use of ‘Ms’ fairly divisive here (UK). I am a definate Ms, because Mrs makes me feel like a grandma and Miss makes me feel like an old maid, besides the fact that I don’t see why women should be an appendage of their husband.
I thought all people under 45 felt like me, but apparently many younger women, who have forgotten what feminists did for them, think Ms sounds dykey. Charming.
My fury at young, stupid women for their dismissive attitudes towards feminism is, by the way, a topic for another thread I plan to start one day.
Really? I always go by Ms; Ms gives me an image of a cosmopolitan, modern woman. It doesn’t scream dyke to me at all.
Miss sounds like it refers to a little girl - like the guy behind the Baskin Robbins counter going “Hey Miss, here is your strawberry ice cream” to the seven-year-old me. “Mrs” just sounds matronly to me - if I ever used it, I would feel like I had 10 years automatically tacked onto my age.