The Surnames Of Married Ladies

[Guest Servant of Divine]

Please discusss

[Resurrexi]

"If James Kaiser and Mary Brown, what wound her new name be?"

There is no verb in the dependent clause.

[Vincent Vega]

All but "Mrs. (Mary Brown) James Kaiser", if she so chose.
That one is just too clumsy.

[Resurrexi]

[quote name='Servant of Divine' date='22 August 2009 - 12:13 AM' timestamp='1250917980' post='1954181']
Please discusss
[/quote]

I am glad that you edited the poll question in order to make it comprehensible.

Edited August 22, 2009 by Resurrexi

[MIKolbe]

the irony is surreal.

[IcePrincessKRS]

[quote name='MIkolbe' date='22 August 2009 - 02:21 AM' timestamp='1250918488' post='1954186']
the irony is surreal.
[/quote]

^^^



As to the poll, speaking as a married woman, I think the last 3 options are moot because none of those would be her [i]legal[/i] name (I've never, in 7 years of marriage, been referred to by any of those options). She may receive mail addressed that way or something, but no one is going to call her Mrs. James Brown to her face. Some folks may call her Mrs. Brown formally, but legally her name would be Mary XYZ Brown (unless she chooses to hyphenate or keep her maiden name).

[Archaeology cat]

Depends on the culture. I dropped my maiden name and took my husband's name. In some Scandanavian countries, the woman doesn't change her name upon marriage. In Iceland, I believe, the surname is based on the parent's name (eg: Haroldsson, Sigurdsdotir, etc).

[IcePrincessKRS]

[quote name='Archaeology cat' date='22 August 2009 - 03:31 AM' timestamp='1250922665' post='1954209']
Depends on the culture. I dropped my maiden name and took my husband's name. In some Scandanavian countries, the woman doesn't change her name upon marriage. In Iceland, I believe, the surname is based on the parent's name (eg: Haroldsson, Sigurdsdotir, etc).
[/quote]

Yeah, in Korea women keep their maiden names, too. I have a Korean friend who married an American and she thought it was weird that we change our last names... I'm not sure if she legally changed hers or not (I thought she had but I've seen her use her maiden name, too), but their son has his father's last name.

[VeniteAdoremus]

In the Netherlands, the default option would be Kaiser-Brown, although that has changed over the last decade (to Brown-Kaiser or just Brown).

And of course, for gender equality, the husband can also take his wife's name I tease one of my friends by calling him Mr. HisWife'sSurname.

[Archaeology cat]

[quote name='VeniteAdoremus' date='22 August 2009 - 11:36 AM' timestamp='1250937391' post='1954227']
And of course, for gender equality, the husband can also take his wife's name I tease one of my friends by calling him Mr. HisWife'sSurname.
[/quote]
That's the custom on Betezed.

[homeschoolmom]

We were digging through some old family papers one time and came across a funeral booklet with the deceased's biographical information. It was titled Mrs. John Brown. Even in death she didn't have her own name (I wonder what they put on her marker....)

We get mail addressed to Mr. and Mrs. HSDad Lastname from time to time. It doesn't bother me. It would bother me to get something for me addressed to Mrs. HSDad Lastname. That's pretty archaic.

No one uses "nee" any more than they would use "b. 1968" as part of their name.

As for what Mary Brown's name is, she has lots of options. I have a friend who changed her middle name to her maiden name and took her husband's last name. I know someone who did not change her name at marriage at all (but later regretted it and ended up changing it after they had kids). I know people who hyphenated their names, but don't really use both (so why bother?) So Mary has lots of options and she can do whatever she wants.

(SO I didn't vote.)

[Archaeology cat]

My mother and her sisters were never given middle names, so they all took their maiden name as their middle name when they got married. My grandmother went by her middle name, and when she got married she legally dropped her first name and used her maiden name as her middle name.

Edited August 22, 2009 by Archaeology cat

[CatherineM]

I prefer Mrs. Catherine M. Glad we didn't get married in Quebec, because there it isn't allowed for a woman to take her husband's name. I would have had to go to court and give a good reason, such as my maiden name being difficult to pronounce, or my name being similar to a serial killer's. I guess I could have used the excuse that I needed to change my name for security reasons. I'm just glad it wasn't an issue.

[Sojourner]

I simply took my husband's last name, and kept my first and middle. But, I find I prefer going by my first, my maiden, and husband's last name. Not hyphenated. I go by that sometimes. In some ways I wish I had kept my maiden name as my middle name, so that I would maintain the connection to my own family.

[Ash Wednesday]

I kept my maiden name for professional reasons -- if you're an artist, writer or actor and have established yourself as a certain name it's not uncommon for a woman to keep it or use a hyphenation. Oddly enough though I prefer my husband's last name to my maiden name. But also moving overseas and having my maiden name on my passport and doing paperwork related to that and being self-employed -- well again it was a lot easier to just stay with one name. One of my American colleagues also moved to Britain and ended up tearing her hair out over things like being interrogated because of discrepancies between the different names she was using.

Edited August 22, 2009 by Ash Wednesday