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Speaker 1: Hi, this is Annie and this is Bridget and you're

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Speaker 1: listening to stuff Mom never told you. For today's Classics

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Speaker 1: Minty Classic, we're bringing back an older episode. I think

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Speaker 1: this is back when Christen and Molly we're hosting, and

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Speaker 1: Molly was like one of the first host UM where

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Speaker 1: they discuss the differences between mrs ms and mr also

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Speaker 1: But like most of us probably know that one, UM.

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Speaker 1: And it's something that a lot of you wrote in

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Speaker 1: about after we did our episode on changing last names,

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Speaker 1: and it's something that confuses both virgin I still I

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Speaker 1: know off my we were just having this conversation. UM,

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Speaker 1: I would say Annie and I were like reasonably smart people.

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Speaker 1: Let me break it down for you. We do not

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Speaker 1: know the difference between miss and missus. I thought I did,

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Speaker 1: and I did do. I really offended someone um in

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Speaker 1: high school and it kind of like scarred me for life.

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Speaker 1: And now I just feel this this nervousness of that

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Speaker 1: moment of what do I do? Here we go. I

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Speaker 1: try to avoid it. Yeah. I call a lot of

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Speaker 1: women by their last names for this specific reason, to

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Speaker 1: just avoid the issue. Yeah. And UM, it's not an

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Speaker 1: issue only in the United States. I know in France,

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Speaker 1: there's Madame and Mademoiselle. It's just this strange. It's it's

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Speaker 1: sort of another thing that comes with being a woman

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Speaker 1: that men don't have to really deal with. I mean,

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Speaker 1: we even have to check it on forms like I

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Speaker 1: don't even know what I I free time I check it.

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Speaker 1: I think. I hope, I hope that the government isn't

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Speaker 1: gonna be at my door for me getting this wrong

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Speaker 1: and you know, investigating me for fraud because I said

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Speaker 1: I was a miss and not missus right, because it's

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Speaker 1: I mean, they're going to talk about all of this

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Speaker 1: in the episode, but there there seems to be a

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Speaker 1: second level to it that I wasn't aware of, of

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Speaker 1: age based or something. I don't know. So hopefully we'll

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Speaker 1: we'll we'll listen to this episode and we'll get a

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Speaker 1: crash course in it, and hopefully it'll it'll it'll teach

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Speaker 1: us a thing or two Annie, and we'll never have

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Speaker 1: to be anxious about it again. Welcome to Stuff Mom

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Speaker 1: Never told You from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey Baron,

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast. This is Kristen and this is Molly.

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Speaker 1: So Molly. We got a lot of response from our

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Speaker 1: wonderful mom Stuff listeners about our podcast on why women

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Speaker 1: or give up their maiden names. Yes, everyone's story is fascinating. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we got great stories from guys and girls who kept

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Speaker 1: their maiden name, guys who took their wife's names, all

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Speaker 1: sorts of versions of of what they did with their

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Speaker 1: last names when they got married. But one question that

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Speaker 1: came up a lot in these listener emails was about

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Speaker 1: what to do if you are a woman who keeps

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Speaker 1: her maiden name and you want to signify that you

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Speaker 1: were married, but you still have your maiden name, you

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Speaker 1: don't have the same last name as your husband, what

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Speaker 1: do you do? For instance, I will refer to this

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Speaker 1: email from a listener named Lucy, and Lucy kept her

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Speaker 1: maiden name when she got married and she says um.

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Speaker 1: Among all the questions I received is one, how will

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Speaker 1: people know if you're married if you don't have the

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Speaker 1: same name as your husband? And I was interested to

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Speaker 1: see if you have any data or thoughts with regard

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Speaker 1: to what title women who keep their maiden name prefer

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Speaker 1: to adopt. I don't feel like a MISSS because I'm

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Speaker 1: not game my husband's name and MS seems to suggest

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Speaker 1: that I'm divorced that I've divorced a lot of people,

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Speaker 1: so I've stuck with miss for now. But even this

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Speaker 1: has created problems recently when I was applying for car

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Speaker 1: insurance and the website wouldn't permit me to state that

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Speaker 1: I was a miss and married. YEA, so sticky situation.

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Speaker 1: It is very sticky because you know, we got email

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Speaker 1: from listeners who are like Mrs So and so is

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Speaker 1: my husband's mother if I haven't taken that last name so,

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Speaker 1: and you know, if you're addressing wedding invitations to people,

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Speaker 1: what do you put? Yeah, what's the etiquette for it?

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Speaker 1: And then some people have hang ups with the title

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Speaker 1: miss because it seems to have, um, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: political connotations these days that they might not like. So

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Speaker 1: we decided where the connotations. Let's take let's take this

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Speaker 1: maiden names part two and look at the difference between

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Speaker 1: Ms Mrs Miss and try to figure this out and

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Speaker 1: answer somebody else questions. So let's start with, um, just

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Speaker 1: the basic etymology of mrs okay, because back in the day,

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Speaker 1: you know, your mom was probably Mrs Edmonds. My mom

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Speaker 1: was a yeah, you know what I mean? Um, that

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Speaker 1: was you know, the general title the American wives gave themselves.

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Speaker 1: So according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, UM, mrs was

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Speaker 1: an abbreviation of mistress and um. It was the plural

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Speaker 1: from the French madame, and the pronunciation mrs. Was considered

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Speaker 1: vulgar until at least the eighteenth century, and it was

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Speaker 1: considered one's wife from around nineteen twenties, so it actually

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Speaker 1: hasn't been around as long as I thought it had been.

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Speaker 1: So it was vulgar because people from very early on

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Speaker 1: got this connotation with um. The French brothels, if you will,

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Speaker 1: there were madame's operating these nightclubs where shady dealings were done.

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Speaker 1: But originally just mistress was meant to show that you've

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Speaker 1: had power over underlings. Basically it was running out of state.

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Speaker 1: Then that meant that you had uh, you know, maybe

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Speaker 1: servants that you were taking care of. It was just

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Speaker 1: uh position of power. And you often here in older literature,

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Speaker 1: the the term mistress of the house. She's the one

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Speaker 1: who takes care of all the house affairs. She's not

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Speaker 1: necessarily someone's wife, and she wasn't necessarily the woman that

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Speaker 1: your husband is having affair with. Right like, that connotation

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Speaker 1: came along much later as well. And then on the

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Speaker 1: flip side you have miss, which was usually used just

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Speaker 1: to denote a younger girl. Right, so to abbreviate mistress,

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Speaker 1: they got mrs. Right, And so then to say, okay,

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Speaker 1: mrs is sort of an older lady with this power.

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Speaker 1: The young miss of the house has no power yet

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Speaker 1: she's going to school. I don't know why that required

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Speaker 1: accents um. But then in the nineteenth century, what we've

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Speaker 1: got is the industrial Revolution, and so more women head

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Speaker 1: off to the workplace. They're not just stuck in these

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Speaker 1: big old estates anymore. And for one reason or another,

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Speaker 1: the other people that they're working with one don't know

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Speaker 1: if they're married or not. Social availability, yeah, who who

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Speaker 1: is available in this sweatshop? Yeah? So the use of

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Speaker 1: ms versus mss to define whether or not you were married, um,

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Speaker 1: came out as a result of women in the workplace,

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Speaker 1: and I guess men wanting to know whether or not

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Speaker 1: they could course them. So then another common thing for

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Speaker 1: women in the workplace was to be a secretary. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and the secretaries would type up all the correspondence for

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Speaker 1: their boss. And there's the question of if you're sending

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Speaker 1: a letter to a lady and you don't know if

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Speaker 1: she's a miss or mrs. What do you do? You

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Speaker 1: don't want to offender? That was sort of the first

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Speaker 1: real instance of miss as this um generic term for

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Speaker 1: a woman. Yeah, this is something that these secretaries came

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Speaker 1: up with, and the first use of miss. Well. The

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Speaker 1: Oxford English Dictionary attributes the first formal use of miss

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Speaker 1: to a book called the Simplified Letter, which was published

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Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty two for the National Office of Management Association. Right,

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Speaker 1: so if you're a secretary, this is the book you

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Speaker 1: get and it says mean you don't know how to

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Speaker 1: address well and just put miss in there. Yeah, makes sense, Um,

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Speaker 1: but some people do um date the first use of

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Speaker 1: miss all the way back to seventeen sixties seven when

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Speaker 1: they said that it appeared on the tombstone of a

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Speaker 1: woman named Sarah Spooner. And it was again it was

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Speaker 1: just another abbreviation, abbreviation for mistress, like Mrs. M R

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Speaker 1: S was so Oventually, it's just this abbreviation. It's this

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Speaker 1: way to um, you know, avoid confusion and letter writing.

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Speaker 1: And then the feminists got ahold of it, and they

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Speaker 1: got ahold of it through these secretarial handbooks. Right, we

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Speaker 1: have second wave feminism, which comes up in the nineteen sixties,

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventies and their tagline, one of the taglines

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Speaker 1: at least of the movement was uh personal is Political

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Speaker 1: And it's really this idea of women changing how they

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Speaker 1: are perceived UM in their daily lives through UM political actions.

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Speaker 1: And in nineteen seventy, the National Organization for Women UM

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Speaker 1: made a formal request for or past the formal a

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Speaker 1: solution calling for the use of MSS to denote other, single, married, whatever,

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Speaker 1: so that women would no longer have to be defined

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Speaker 1: in terms of whether or not they were connected to

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Speaker 1: another man. Because as a mister, anybody who is a MR, single, married, divorced, widowed, whatever,

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Speaker 1: he's going to be MR his whole life. Everyone's a MR.

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Speaker 1: So they were thinking, by definition, there should be a

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Speaker 1: term that all women can be as well. And if

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Speaker 1: you've listened to the Maiden Name podcast along with this

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Speaker 1: is sort of the same movement. Hey, don't change your name.

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Speaker 1: When you're introduced to someone as MRS. You know, John Wayne,

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Speaker 1: you are putting yourself out in the world as this

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Speaker 1: person's wife. And by being MSS Molly Edmonds, I guess

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Speaker 1: if I'm married John Wayne, then I'm presenting the world.

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Speaker 1: I'm presenting myself to the world as me as opposed

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Speaker 1: to this person's property. I don't know why I thought

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Speaker 1: of John Wayne. I don't know, but I'm picturing your

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Speaker 1: wedding photos right now and it's kind of awesome wild

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Speaker 1: West wedding. The interesting thing about this push for MISS

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Speaker 1: to become adopted by a lot of women is the

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Speaker 1: number one force holding out against MISS, the anti MISS faction,

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Speaker 1: led by The New York Times. Yeah, this was amazing

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Speaker 1: to me. In the research, you know, there there was

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Speaker 1: some quote I read that at one point when The

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Speaker 1: New York Times was describing a party that um Gloria

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Speaker 1: Steinham hosted, they had to say, you know, miss Steinham,

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Speaker 1: who works at MSS magazine. So the only way they

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Speaker 1: had referred to MISS was in relation to the magazine.

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Speaker 1: So the New York Times basically holds this editorial standard

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Speaker 1: like we're not going to change to MISS, even though

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Speaker 1: every other newspaper is doing it. It's just it's we

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Speaker 1: don't need it. Yeah, and they got flak from other

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Speaker 1: publications as well. I think Time published a piece in

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Speaker 1: the maybe late seventies early eighties, lambasting The New York

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Speaker 1: Times for not switching over to miss because a lot

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Speaker 1: of other major news out it's had adopted MS as

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Speaker 1: the honorific title for women. And it wasn't until ninety four,

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Speaker 1: when Geraldine Ferraro is running on the Democratic ticket for

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Speaker 1: vice president, that the New York Times finally caves. Gerlen

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Speaker 1: Ferraro was married to a man named John Zacharo. I

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Speaker 1: may not be pronouncing that right, but she kept her

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Speaker 1: main names, So she was Geraldi and Ferraro married to

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Speaker 1: John Zacharro, so she should have been Mrs Zacharo, but

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Speaker 1: she kept her maiden name. Now, what she wanted to

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Speaker 1: be called was either Ms. Ferraro because she liked that

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Speaker 1: sort of terminology that these people had adopted, or Congresswoman Ferraro. Um.

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Speaker 1: But you know, there was this debate with George H. W. Bush,

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Speaker 1: and he made this big deal of calling her Mrs Ferraro. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: she would refer to she referenced him as Vice President Bush,

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Speaker 1: and he would come back at her with will Mrs

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Speaker 1: Ferraro right? And you know it was seen as this

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Speaker 1: move to put her like distinctly in a domestic sphere

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Speaker 1: as a post woman who could hold a leadership role.

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Speaker 1: And I do remember reading that when Biden debated Palent

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Speaker 1: that one of the biggest mistakes he could have aid

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Speaker 1: was to have said Mrs Palin as opposed to Governor Palin.

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Speaker 1: So there's this big um sticky situation spearheaded by Jailing

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Speaker 1: and Ferraro. And this is only when The New York

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Speaker 1: Times says, Okay, to denote the fact that she's this

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Speaker 1: woman in a certain situation, we're going to call her

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Speaker 1: ms Ferraro to take out sort of these politics of

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Speaker 1: being married or not right. And I think that I

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Speaker 1: think The New York Times still does use MSS on

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Speaker 1: occasion because one article that I read recently, I was

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Speaker 1: talking about the number of UH congresswomen who go by

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Speaker 1: MSS and some who prefer mrs. Like I want to

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Speaker 1: say that um Olympius Snow, for instance, is a miss

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Speaker 1: whereas Hillary Clinton, I think is actually Mrs Clinton. And see,

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Speaker 1: that's the thing is at this point, because it doesn't

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Speaker 1: really catch on the way the feminists designed it. To

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Speaker 1: the fact that The New York Times is holding out

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Speaker 1: shows that not every woman immediately was like, yeah, let's

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Speaker 1: all be missed. Yeah. One thing. That one kind of

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Speaker 1: strange childhood memory. I don't know why it's stuck in

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Speaker 1: my head so much, Molly, but I remember um being

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Speaker 1: pretty young and my mom was a teacher, and this

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Speaker 1: was probably in you know, late eighties, early nineties, and

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Speaker 1: I remember her complaining about her the school where she taught,

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Speaker 1: forcing the well, not forcing, but I wanted to institute

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Speaker 1: women just going by miss all the female teachers no

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Speaker 1: longer being miss or mrs just doing miss across the board,

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Speaker 1: probably to simplify things, Um. And I remember her complaining

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Speaker 1: and saying, you know what, this is not right that

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Speaker 1: my school is trying to turn me into Miss Conger

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Speaker 1: because I am Mrs Conger. Yeah, I've been Mrs Conger

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Speaker 1: for years and years and years, and I don't like

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Speaker 1: the sound of miss to be to be honest, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's sort of the same thing. We're just trying to

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Speaker 1: change your maiden name. If you've already been Mrs So

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Speaker 1: and so for however many years, it's not natural necessarily

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Speaker 1: to just all of a sudden become Ms so and so. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And on the flip side of it, I'm sure there

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Speaker 1: are plenty of women out there who would consider miss

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Speaker 1: to feel far more empowering than MRS. Or for people

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Speaker 1: like oh smally who are unmarried women. I wouldn't necessarily

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Speaker 1: like to call myself Miss Conger. It does seem a

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Speaker 1: little demeaning when a guy calls me miss Conger, like

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Speaker 1: you could have pat me on the head, and you know,

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Speaker 1: it makes you sound very small, Like I think those

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Speaker 1: age connotations are still there, but you know this connotation

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Speaker 1: to miss. Now, people see miss you know, attached to

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Speaker 1: Edmunds or Conger, and they probably just assume, well, that's

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Speaker 1: because she's of a certain age and still unmarried. They

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Speaker 1: might see it on other women as a sign of

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Speaker 1: being divorced, like I think now there's this connotation because uh,

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Speaker 1: the merried women don't necessarily want to backtrack and become

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Speaker 1: Miss so and so. That if you're Miss so and so,

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Speaker 1: that you're trying to hide something, either the fact that

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Speaker 1: you're unmarried, divorced, or a raging feminist. And a lot

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Speaker 1: of the studies that I've found about the use of MS,

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Speaker 1: it kind of echoes all of this saying that MS

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Speaker 1: hasn't replaced, really hasn't replaced mrs. On a wide scale.

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Speaker 1: Women are still choosing. I'd say it's probably fifty um,

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Speaker 1: but it's more of a replacement for miss. Yes, I

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Speaker 1: think we are getting rid of the MISS except for

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Speaker 1: young girls, but it's still this choice about whether you

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Speaker 1: want to adopt all this, you know, for for lack

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Speaker 1: of a better term, feminist baggage. If it was the

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Speaker 1: it's the same thing we discussed in our feminism podcast

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Speaker 1: where people don't really like this label of feminists and

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Speaker 1: so as a result, they may not like this label

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Speaker 1: of title that the feminist came up with and pushed for.

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Speaker 1: But one thing only that that surprised me when I

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Speaker 1: was researching all of this, because you're when you're referring

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Speaker 1: to feminist baggage. I found, um, a couple of studies

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Speaker 1: UH on people's perceptions towards women who labeled themselves as

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Speaker 1: MISS as opposed to MISS or mrs. And I was

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Speaker 1: kind of expecting the results to say that, you know,

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Speaker 1: people perceive women who call themselves MISS as being more

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Speaker 1: you know, uptight and rigid and whatever go down the list, um,

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Speaker 1: But it was actually quite the opposite. People who are

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Speaker 1: labeled labeled themselves as MISS are perceived simply as more

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Speaker 1: having more control over their lives, maybe being better achievers

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Speaker 1: UM and better educated and having more UM. I think

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Speaker 1: the term they used was agency over their world. UM.

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Speaker 1: At the same time, they were perceived as less communal,

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Speaker 1: but nevertheless still very powerful as individuals, which is why

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Speaker 1: I think you see miss used a lot in the workplace.

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Speaker 1: We're reading this article that said a lot of women

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Speaker 1: are miss so and so in the workplace, and then

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Speaker 1: when they go home their misses so and so, And

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Speaker 1: it may just be for ease. You know, you're taking

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Speaker 1: your kid to school, and it's easier to say, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm Mrs x X, being the same last name as

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Speaker 1: your child's last name. So um. They were talking sort

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Speaker 1: about this, these dual lives that women lead, where in

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Speaker 1: their workplace there this very strong, independent woman as defined

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Speaker 1: by their miss whereas when they go home they'll still

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Speaker 1: take on these traditional rules almost you know. The writer

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Speaker 1: positive that maybe it was to prove that their success

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Speaker 1: and their job hadn't defeminized them in some way. So

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Speaker 1: if we do have these women who plenty of women

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Speaker 1: who are miss sometimes and there mrs other times, or

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Speaker 1: for women like us who are unmarried, and we could

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Speaker 1: be mss or we could be miss. What is what

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Speaker 1: is the etiquette? Let's answer our let's answer our listeners questions. Okay,

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Speaker 1: let's turn to Emily Post. Yes, Emily Post the maven

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Speaker 1: of social etiquette. Yeah, basically, um, as far as business terms,

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Speaker 1: it is true, MS is the way to go. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean if it would, in doubt, I would go

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Speaker 1: miss because if you assume that it's Mr and Mrs

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Speaker 1: so and so, that can be just as offensive. I

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Speaker 1: think is doing it the other way. Now, according to

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Speaker 1: Emily Post, now, her example is someone named Jane Johnson. Yes,

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Speaker 1: this is the maiden named Jane Johnson. Emily Post says

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Speaker 1: that if you are married Jane Johnson and you keep

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Speaker 1: that maiden name, your new formal address is MS. Jane Johnson,

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Speaker 1: which is also your form of address. If you are single,

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Speaker 1: you're still and your maiden name. Unmarried, you can still

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Speaker 1: be Miss Jane Johnson. And but if you're married and

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Speaker 1: you use your husband's name socially, then in your husband's

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Speaker 1: last name is Kelly, then obviously you would be Miss

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Speaker 1: Jane Kelly in social settings. But what about divorce, Molly. Now,

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Speaker 1: if you're divorced, you can choose them to keep the mrs.

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Speaker 1: It seems like it'd be confusing, but you can still

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Speaker 1: be Mrs Jane Kelly because someone's someone will keep there.

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Speaker 1: I mean, if you've already got kids and you're trying

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Speaker 1: to match your kids, you might keep it. Um. So

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Speaker 1: instead of being Mrs John Kelly, who in this hypothetical

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Speaker 1: on my post situation is who she's married to, you

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Speaker 1: would still be Mrs Jane Kelly um or Miss Jane Kelly.

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Speaker 1: Or if you go back to the maiden name, then

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Speaker 1: you can be Miss Jane Johnson. So basically, once you're

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Speaker 1: divorce is just a grab bag if yeah, okay, So

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Speaker 1: if you're addressing an invitation to a couple, um, this

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Speaker 1: is probably the most confusing scenario. If the couple's married

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Speaker 1: and she's still using the maiden name as opposed to

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Speaker 1: using the husband's name socially or just taking it all together. UM, okay, Mary,

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Speaker 1: using maiden name, it would be Mr John Kelly and

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Speaker 1: Miss Jane Johnson. Ms. Jane Johnson and Mr John Kelly,

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Speaker 1: because you don't always have to put the man first. Finally,

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Speaker 1: it's strides we've made now Finally, Molly. In case anyone's wondering,

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Speaker 1: if you are addressing something to an unmarried couple living together. Oh, um,

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Speaker 1: you're supposed to put their names on two separate lines.

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Speaker 1: She is very insistent about that two separate lines not joined,

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Speaker 1: so you only get one line when you're married. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so Jane Johnson, you're going underneath John Kelly or above

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Speaker 1: or above, but just not on the same line. Just

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Speaker 1: not on the same line. Okay. Yeah, So it's I mean,

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Speaker 1: sounds silly, but a lot of people just put all

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Speaker 1: this politics into who goes first. And the thing about

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Speaker 1: it is is that mms versus ms versus mrs has

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Speaker 1: taken on um this political connotation the same way that

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Speaker 1: your last name asks, because it's how you present yourself

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Speaker 1: to the world. But the thing that was interesting in

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Speaker 1: researching this is that this kind of um gendered language

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Speaker 1: is all around us. Yeah, absolutely, in ways we don't

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Speaker 1: even realize. I think that this one gets the most

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Speaker 1: attention because it's most prominent, because you do introduce yourself

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Speaker 1: with the name. But we are reading examples, um, some

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Speaker 1: feminist critiques of language, if you will, Um, take the

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Speaker 1: terms spinster and bachelor. Yeah, they mean the same thing

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Speaker 1: and totally different connotations. Which one would you rather be

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Speaker 1: I can't be the bachelor. Yeah he's living it up

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Speaker 1: where the spinsters just buy more cat food. Emili Well,

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Speaker 1: gender neutual language can be cumbersome to keep up with,

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Speaker 1: let's be honest, and some sometimes I think it is

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Speaker 1: important for women to think about it though, in terms

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Speaker 1: of this MS verse mrs debate and the spincer versus

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Speaker 1: bachelor and going down the line, where why is it

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Speaker 1: that with a lot of our language, Um, the terms

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Speaker 1: you describe women h related to their sexual life, their

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Speaker 1: sex life or their relationships are usually very m negative

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Speaker 1: unless it is attached to a partner exactly where your mrs.

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Speaker 1: It's unfortunate. It is unfortunate, And I think that it's

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Speaker 1: time to, uh maybe think of some new terms. Sminty gals,

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Speaker 1: if you have any awesome empowering terms for for single

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Speaker 1: women or married women or married women or guys just ladies. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we want to hear them, because I would I would

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Speaker 1: really like a an alternative dispenser or cat lady. What's

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Speaker 1: the what's the female bachelor? Yeah? What's the female bachelor?

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Speaker 1: And I don't want to hear cougar. I'm not talking

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Speaker 1: about cougar. Oh my God, I hate that word. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's a whole another podcast, Another podcast. Um, well, before

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Speaker 1: we close out, let's read some more interesting maiden name stories.

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Speaker 1: How about that? That sounds great. I'm going to start

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Speaker 1: off with an email from Sarah, who writes, first things first,

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Speaker 1: I am transgendered. I was once a dude, and now

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Speaker 1: I'm a chick, which is awesome. She put that in

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Speaker 1: like bold. Um. When I told my family at Attina

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Speaker 1: about myself, they probably threw me out of their house

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Speaker 1: in their lives, the lovely people that took me and

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Speaker 1: saved my life and allowed me to take their family

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Speaker 1: name so I could completely distance myself in the past. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Sixteen years later, I'm engaged to a pretty good guy,

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Speaker 1: and when we get married or civil partnered, he's taking

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Speaker 1: my family name. He understands that it's a name that

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Speaker 1: means a lot to me, that it's very much my identity,

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Speaker 1: and I want to honor the people that raised me.

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Speaker 1: His family, though, took a while to get used to

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Speaker 1: the idea. Thankfully, the name is she was a bigger

402
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Speaker 1: problem than my gender walkiness. But now they're on board

403
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Speaker 1: and we're moving ahead. We could have both kept our

404
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Speaker 1: regular names, but adoption agencies like their applicants to have

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Speaker 1: the same name if they're married. So there you go,

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Speaker 1: a different point of view. Awesome, thank you, Sarah. Well, Molly,

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Speaker 1: I have another listener mill from another Sarah. Why how

408
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Speaker 1: about them apples? Uh? Sarah wanted to share her perspective

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Speaker 1: on the topic of maiden names. She said that she

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Speaker 1: has been married for almost nineteen years. She worked as

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Speaker 1: an engineer for several several years before meeting her husband,

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Speaker 1: and then several more years before marrying him, so it

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Speaker 1: was already well known to people in her field that

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Speaker 1: her maiden name. That what her maiden name was, and

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Speaker 1: she didn't want to change it, so she would say,

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Speaker 1: add to this, my mother in law had never been

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Speaker 1: in favor of our wedding, so becoming known by what

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00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:12,119
Speaker 1: I considered her name was even more objectionable to me. However,

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Speaker 1: knowing that we would have children someday, I decided to

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Speaker 1: add his last name to mine, more like the South

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Speaker 1: American style. I didn't hyphenate UM my name though. For

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Speaker 1: our children UM they use my husband's last name. But

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Speaker 1: I still can use whichever I feel is right at

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Speaker 1: the moment, be it at work or around the family,

425
00:23:29,680 --> 00:23:32,520
Speaker 1: kind of like the ms mrs switch up. This has

426
00:23:32,520 --> 00:23:34,840
Speaker 1: worked well for us, even after we decided to homeschool

427
00:23:34,840 --> 00:23:39,040
Speaker 1: our children. Hey know about that, and the last name

428
00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:41,760
Speaker 1: in common was less of an issue. I feel people

429
00:23:41,840 --> 00:23:44,320
Speaker 1: should use whatever fits them. One of my sons, want

430
00:23:44,359 --> 00:23:46,600
Speaker 1: to wants to legally add my maiden name to his

431
00:23:46,680 --> 00:23:49,520
Speaker 1: name when he turns eighteen. He feels that my maternal

432
00:23:49,520 --> 00:23:51,600
Speaker 1: side of the family needs to be shown and continued

433
00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:54,680
Speaker 1: on through him, and hence would also have a dual

434
00:23:54,760 --> 00:23:56,840
Speaker 1: last name. He's open to the idea of adding his

435
00:23:56,920 --> 00:23:59,600
Speaker 1: ultimate wife's name to the mix as well. My other

436
00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:01,879
Speaker 1: son's don't see the big deal either way in this matter.

437
00:24:02,280 --> 00:24:04,560
Speaker 1: But as for me, I'm glad I just added my

438
00:24:04,640 --> 00:24:06,840
Speaker 1: husband's name to the mix. That way, I kept my name,

439
00:24:06,880 --> 00:24:09,520
Speaker 1: which my parents gave me and which I like, including

440
00:24:09,520 --> 00:24:11,760
Speaker 1: my middle name, and added to my identity of my

441
00:24:11,840 --> 00:24:15,080
Speaker 1: new family by adding my husband's name. Just my thoughts

442
00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:21,800
Speaker 1: on this topic. Okay, very nice. Here's one from Liza. UM. So,

443
00:24:21,960 --> 00:24:24,840
Speaker 1: Liza is about to get married on October, so have

444
00:24:24,920 --> 00:24:27,159
Speaker 1: a nice wedding day, Liza. You hear that before you

445
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:29,840
Speaker 1: hear this before? Um Liza is a working artist and

446
00:24:29,880 --> 00:24:32,280
Speaker 1: a hand engraver. As a wedding gift, my father has

447
00:24:32,320 --> 00:24:34,639
Speaker 1: made Michael and myself a set of plates and bowls.

448
00:24:34,760 --> 00:24:36,320
Speaker 1: He too as an artist and where I get my

449
00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:39,439
Speaker 1: talent from. So the dishes are amazing, except for the

450
00:24:39,520 --> 00:24:43,080
Speaker 1: E in the center, which is the letter that Michael's

451
00:24:43,119 --> 00:24:45,800
Speaker 1: last name starts with. I won't say here. Her dad

452
00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:48,080
Speaker 1: had assumed that she would take the name I have

453
00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:50,360
Speaker 1: no desire to. I even made the argument that if

454
00:24:50,359 --> 00:24:52,400
Speaker 1: Michael finds it unreasonable, then it is on the table.

455
00:24:52,440 --> 00:24:54,280
Speaker 1: Then isn't on the table for he to take? Mine

456
00:24:54,320 --> 00:24:56,480
Speaker 1: answer being no. So now I don't want to break

457
00:24:56,520 --> 00:24:59,080
Speaker 1: my dad's heart. He spent months on these plates, hand

458
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:01,520
Speaker 1: throwing them on the whe I love the gift, but

459
00:25:01,560 --> 00:25:04,000
Speaker 1: I'm offended that he assumed I would take my husband's name,

460
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:06,080
Speaker 1: especially since I was raised I have my own identity

461
00:25:06,080 --> 00:25:11,240
Speaker 1: and belong to myself above all. That stinks. Tricky situation,

462
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:13,520
Speaker 1: but I have I have all the faith that they

463
00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:15,600
Speaker 1: are going to work it out before October. I mean,

464
00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:17,800
Speaker 1: I'll also throw out that my last name starts with any.

465
00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:20,480
Speaker 1: So if they want to give the dishes and plates

466
00:25:20,520 --> 00:25:22,920
Speaker 1: and bowls to me, I mean I could just take

467
00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:25,200
Speaker 1: this problem right off their hands. I don't I don't

468
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:27,000
Speaker 1: know how Michael feel about it, but I'm just throwing

469
00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:29,120
Speaker 1: it out there, always thinking of number one, Molly, that's

470
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:33,479
Speaker 1: good independent woman. Um. And to close things out, I

471
00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:38,040
Speaker 1: have an email from j who, drumroll, please took his

472
00:25:38,119 --> 00:25:42,640
Speaker 1: wife's name. Wow. Um. I considered this greatly. During our

473
00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:45,960
Speaker 1: engagement period, we looked into traditions and determined that we

474
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:49,320
Speaker 1: had no particular reason to honor traditions as they were

475
00:25:49,359 --> 00:25:52,080
Speaker 1: antiquated and hell, no real meaning to us. So what

476
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:55,120
Speaker 1: we did take into account were a few factors. He said,

477
00:25:55,119 --> 00:25:56,920
Speaker 1: my side of the family has two other boys that

478
00:25:57,000 --> 00:26:00,000
Speaker 1: carry on the name, and one of those boys already

479
00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:01,639
Speaker 1: has a son, so the name carries on to the

480
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:04,640
Speaker 1: next generation. Of course, this relies on the sexist tradition

481
00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:08,760
Speaker 1: to continue, but that seems likely. Number Two, my wife's

482
00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:11,159
Speaker 1: family name was going to die off if she were

483
00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:13,560
Speaker 1: not going to keep it going. Uh. This went back

484
00:26:13,560 --> 00:26:16,159
Speaker 1: for several generations that we could trace, and while she

485
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:18,479
Speaker 1: was never adamant about keeping her name alive, it seemed

486
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:20,879
Speaker 1: to be a fair consideration. Three. We want to have

487
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:25,919
Speaker 1: an unhyphenated, unhyphenated common family name personal preference here certainly,

488
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:27,600
Speaker 1: but we wanted our children to have parents with the

489
00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:29,879
Speaker 1: same last name and to keep it simple and for

490
00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:32,560
Speaker 1: when we considered the traditional reasons for taking a name.

491
00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:35,399
Speaker 1: I felt extremely welcomed and accepted into my wife's family

492
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 1: throughout our relationship, and there was no reason for this

493
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:41,160
Speaker 1: acceptance to have any less validity than any acceptance from

494
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:44,439
Speaker 1: my family. Because I spent the time to research this

495
00:26:44,520 --> 00:26:47,199
Speaker 1: and investigate my true intentions, I felt entirely justified my

496
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:50,000
Speaker 1: decision to take my life my wife's name. I haven't

497
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:52,480
Speaker 1: suffered any ridicule from my friends from this because it

498
00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:54,639
Speaker 1: was my decision and my choice, not something that I

499
00:26:54,680 --> 00:26:57,560
Speaker 1: was put into a position to consider. My family did

500
00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:00,639
Speaker 1: have issues initially, but everyone respected my choice. This is

501
00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:02,879
Speaker 1: probably the most important thing for anyone to consider in

502
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:05,920
Speaker 1: changing one's name. Why are you doing so and what

503
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:08,640
Speaker 1: do you believe in those reasons? For me, the fact

504
00:27:08,680 --> 00:27:10,800
Speaker 1: that it was the traditional thing to do was not

505
00:27:11,040 --> 00:27:15,080
Speaker 1: enough of a reason. So very good insight. Thank you, Jane,

506
00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:18,600
Speaker 1: and if you guys have any insight on this topic

507
00:27:19,040 --> 00:27:20,960
Speaker 1: or just have a question or comment from Molly, feel

508
00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:24,240
Speaker 1: free to email us at mom Stuff at how stuff

509
00:27:24,280 --> 00:27:26,680
Speaker 1: works dot com. And during the week you can head

510
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:30,359
Speaker 1: over to our blog called how to stuff. And if

511
00:27:30,359 --> 00:27:36,160
Speaker 1: you just want to read and expand your minds, your

512
00:27:36,200 --> 00:27:39,520
Speaker 1: mind blown, have your mind blown by words on the screen,

513
00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:42,800
Speaker 1: you should head over to our website how stuff works

514
00:27:42,920 --> 00:27:49,920
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

515
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:53,719
Speaker 1: Does it how stuff works dot com. Want more how

516
00:27:53,800 --> 00:27:56,480
Speaker 1: stuff works, check out our blogs on the house stuff

517
00:27:56,480 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 1: works dot com home page seven