In this post-emancipation, pre-egalitarian society the still unchanged modes of address for women are an arcane throw-back to subservience and though intellectually stimulated populations encourage and strive for true equality, it seems that one’s title of address, though outdated, has yet to be overhauled. Until that day comes here is the reality behind each title, when to use it and why you have been using them incorrectly all this time:
Miss Jane Doe – This is the standard form of address for an unmarried woman, the name and form of address given to her since birth. Little has changed in this regard over the centuries.
Mrs John Smith – Miss Jane Doe has married Mr John Smith and has become Mrs John Smith. This is the correct form of address when a woman marries a man. Her identity and her legal relation to her family is relinquished and transferred to her husband who [historically] now has the legal ownership to his wife. Mrs (Mr’s) denotes ‘belonging to Mr…’ and is proceeded by the man who owns her. This form of address is perhaps the least understood of the trio and is routinely misused.
Ms Jane Smith – Only after divorce could a woman officially use her own first name, proceeded by the family name of the man she has divorced herself from. Again, though she is legally free from the man she was married to, she would still need to, officially, explain her marital status by noting who previously owned her via the family name of her former husband. Today, Ms is officially recognised as the only form of address that does not denote whether or not a woman is married.
This unequal linguistic quagmire has been subject to so many debates in the western world
These are the set rules for forms of address: Miss, Mrs and Ms. Fortunately we live in a world where women are no longer expected to be the legal property of the man she marries, and as such can keep her own name without relinquishing her ties to the family that raised her, but many women mistakenly use terms such as ‘Mrs Jane Smith’, without realising the historic baggage that such an approach brings. Perhaps in an attempt to keep an aspect of her identity without fully releasing the shackles of historic misogyny?
Though Ms was originally intended to show that said woman was divorced, it is currently the only form of address that can be used officially to demonstrate neither married or unmarried in status. Ms, therefore, is the only form of address that should (morally) be used to address a woman. This unequal linguistic quagmire has been subject to so many debates in the western world. With the most sensible proposition being made to replace Miss/Mrs/Ms with one singular title like the male Mr whose marital status has no baring on his identity.
Read more about this in articles by The Guardian and The Irish Times
Photo: Florian Klauer