July 25, 2005
Etiquette Fun
I have recently learned that it is correct to address an envelope to Mr. & Mrs. John Doe even if the wife kept her maiden name. In that situation, “Mrs.” would imply “wife of John Doe.” As in, Mr. and the wife of John Doe, which I realize looks weird when written that way, but you get the idea.
Posted in
Housekeeping | By Amy at 7:29 pm |
Comments(3)
Yes, that’s true. I learned that in Miss Manners when I was getting married. I think it’s pretty cool, although I don’t actually do it because I’d rather avoid offending people. I’ve found that it doesn’t really help to know the exact rules of etiquette, because most people don’t know them, and will be offended even if you’re not actually doing anything offensive.
Yup, that is the conventional, although nowadays isn’t so popular as it implies to some that the wife is the property of the husband. So I would probably write “Mr B and Mrs C Whatever”. Similarly, married women strictly should be addressed by their husband’s initial. So you’d be Mrs M, not Mrs A. But again, not something people do much.
I wish people did follow the proper forms of address more often. I mean, we spent an awful lot of money having a big party & getting married and gosh darn it, I’m Matt’s wife. If I wanted to go on for ever & ever just being boring ol’ Amy, I coulda stayed single. I like being Matt’s wife and it’s fine with me if it’s proper to label me as such. I don’t even mind that it’s not really proper/formal to run around referring to him as my husband.
As to the idea that it implies that the wife is the husband’s property, well, I think that’s almost open to interpretation. To me, property is something that can be sold/exchanged. Wedding vows are for life, thus a husband or wife is not exchange-able. I definitely belong to my husband and he belongs to me, but we are not property of each other. :) I’m anal & I know it, and nobody will ever get a complaint from me for using proper etiquette.
Incidentally, in the discussion I was reading that sparked the orginal blog entry, someone mentioned that it used to be kind of a socially negative thing to be addressed as Mrs. Jane Doe as it meant that the woman was divorced or widowed.