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Karen Skidmore's avatar

I took my husbands name 25 years ago, and no one questioned me or my friends at the time. It was the 90’s. But would I do today? And my daughter, who is 22 and not even in a relationship so isn’t marching down any aisle any time soon, I wonder what I and my husband will advise her.

It is a system designed by men for men, particularly with the suffix - if you aren’t a Mrs, then does a Miss suffice because Ms just sounds downright dowdy! Boys are Mr and stay Mr throughout their life - married or not. It is right that we challenge this, though, because this expected name change goes back to a time when women had no rights - could own no land or have a bank account or be protected from their husbands violence.

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Jo  Mullineux's avatar

I remember having a massive existential crisis about 3 months out from my wedding. I was so confused. My husband felt that as I had a brother who would keep the family name then I ought to take his because he was the last boy! I succumbed and I do like the fact that we have a family identity. We couldn’t double-barrel we have far to many syllables between us.

I still feel funny about it sometimes and my own family often forget, my nickname was JP as a kid which was my initials and I still get called that by them.

Rarely in the real world does anyone use my last name, except I work at a school. I am not a teacher and I often joke with the pupils that they should call me Jo not Mrs Mullineux, that is my mother-in-law!! Which is weird when I think about it because she will have given up her name, in fact she did it twice because she was widowed and then married my father-in-law.

It is a really tricky one and all the more complicated if you have children which I don’t. I often wonder if we ought to have come up with a completely new name when we got married and both changed to that. In reality admin would have killed that!!

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