# Married women and last names

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/married-women-and-last-names/744188>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [January 25, 2016, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/married-women-and-last-names/744188 "2016-01-25T17:11:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 6

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**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/married-women-and-last-names/744188/102 "2016-02-04T00:10:57Z")

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> [@eclectic\_wench](#):
>
> The logic to ‘Mrs John Smith’ is that ‘Mrs’ means ‘the wife of’. So if Mary Brown marries John Smith and takes his surname, she’s Mary Smith or Mrs John Smith. She’s not Mrs Mary Smith because that would mean she’s the wife of Mary Smith.

It’s still demeaning (by our standards) because it’s defining a woman by her relationship to a man rather than as herself.

If it was truly innocuous there would be a male equivalent, where he would be referred to as Mr [HerFirstName] [HerSurname] but there isn’t. Why? Because the men are more important than the women. Men were never defined by their relationship to a woman.

Which is another reason to completely abolish that outmoded practice.

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