SMNTY Classics: Miss, Ms., Mrs.

A & B revisit this episode to educate themselves about the difference between Miss, Ms., and Mrs.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi, this is Annie and this is Bridget and you're
listening to stuff Mom never told you. For today's Classics
Minty Classic, we're bringing back an older episode. I think

(00:25):
this is back when Christen and Molly we're hosting, and
Molly was like one of the first host UM where
they discuss the differences between mrs ms and mr also
But like most of us probably know that one, UM.
And it's something that a lot of you wrote in

(00:45):
about after we did our episode on changing last names,
and it's something that confuses both virgin I still I
know off my we were just having this conversation. UM,
I would say Annie and I were like reasonably smart people.
Let me break it down for you. We do not
know the difference between miss and missus. I thought I did,

(01:07):
and I did do. I really offended someone um in
high school and it kind of like scarred me for life.
And now I just feel this this nervousness of that
moment of what do I do? Here we go. I
try to avoid it. Yeah. I call a lot of

(01:29):
women by their last names for this specific reason, to
just avoid the issue. Yeah. And UM, it's not an
issue only in the United States. I know in France,
there's Madame and Mademoiselle. It's just this strange. It's it's
sort of another thing that comes with being a woman

(01:50):
that men don't have to really deal with. I mean,
we even have to check it on forms like I
don't even know what I I free time I check it.
I think. I hope, I hope that the government isn't
gonna be at my door for me getting this wrong
and you know, investigating me for fraud because I said
I was a miss and not missus right, because it's

(02:14):
I mean, they're going to talk about all of this
in the episode, but there there seems to be a
second level to it that I wasn't aware of, of
age based or something. I don't know. So hopefully we'll
we'll we'll listen to this episode and we'll get a
crash course in it, and hopefully it'll it'll it'll teach
us a thing or two Annie, and we'll never have
to be anxious about it again. Welcome to Stuff Mom

(02:39):
Never told You from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey Baron,
Welcome to the podcast. This is Kristen and this is Molly.
So Molly. We got a lot of response from our
wonderful mom Stuff listeners about our podcast on why women

(03:00):
or give up their maiden names. Yes, everyone's story is fascinating. Yeah,
we got great stories from guys and girls who kept
their maiden name, guys who took their wife's names, all
sorts of versions of of what they did with their
last names when they got married. But one question that
came up a lot in these listener emails was about

(03:21):
what to do if you are a woman who keeps
her maiden name and you want to signify that you
were married, but you still have your maiden name, you
don't have the same last name as your husband, what
do you do? For instance, I will refer to this
email from a listener named Lucy, and Lucy kept her

(03:41):
maiden name when she got married and she says um.
Among all the questions I received is one, how will
people know if you're married if you don't have the
same name as your husband? And I was interested to
see if you have any data or thoughts with regard
to what title women who keep their maiden name prefer
to adopt. I don't feel like a MISSS because I'm
not game my husband's name and MS seems to suggest

(04:03):
that I'm divorced that I've divorced a lot of people,
so I've stuck with miss for now. But even this
has created problems recently when I was applying for car
insurance and the website wouldn't permit me to state that
I was a miss and married. YEA, so sticky situation.
It is very sticky because you know, we got email
from listeners who are like Mrs So and so is

(04:23):
my husband's mother if I haven't taken that last name so,
and you know, if you're addressing wedding invitations to people,
what do you put? Yeah, what's the etiquette for it?
And then some people have hang ups with the title
miss because it seems to have, um, I don't know,
political connotations these days that they might not like. So
we decided where the connotations. Let's take let's take this

(04:46):
maiden names part two and look at the difference between
Ms Mrs Miss and try to figure this out and
answer somebody else questions. So let's start with, um, just
the basic etymology of mrs okay, because back in the day,
you know, your mom was probably Mrs Edmonds. My mom
was a yeah, you know what I mean? Um, that

(05:08):
was you know, the general title the American wives gave themselves.
So according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, UM, mrs was
an abbreviation of mistress and um. It was the plural
from the French madame, and the pronunciation mrs. Was considered

(05:29):
vulgar until at least the eighteenth century, and it was
considered one's wife from around nineteen twenties, so it actually
hasn't been around as long as I thought it had been.
So it was vulgar because people from very early on
got this connotation with um. The French brothels, if you will,
there were madame's operating these nightclubs where shady dealings were done.

(05:49):
But originally just mistress was meant to show that you've
had power over underlings. Basically it was running out of state.
Then that meant that you had uh, you know, maybe
servants that you were taking care of. It was just
uh position of power. And you often here in older literature,
the the term mistress of the house. She's the one

(06:10):
who takes care of all the house affairs. She's not
necessarily someone's wife, and she wasn't necessarily the woman that
your husband is having affair with. Right like, that connotation
came along much later as well. And then on the
flip side you have miss, which was usually used just
to denote a younger girl. Right, so to abbreviate mistress,
they got mrs. Right, And so then to say, okay,

(06:33):
mrs is sort of an older lady with this power.
The young miss of the house has no power yet
she's going to school. I don't know why that required
accents um. But then in the nineteenth century, what we've
got is the industrial Revolution, and so more women head
off to the workplace. They're not just stuck in these
big old estates anymore. And for one reason or another,

(06:55):
the other people that they're working with one don't know
if they're married or not. Social availability, yeah, who who
is available in this sweatshop? Yeah? So the use of
ms versus mss to define whether or not you were married, um,
came out as a result of women in the workplace,
and I guess men wanting to know whether or not
they could course them. So then another common thing for

(07:18):
women in the workplace was to be a secretary. Yes,
and the secretaries would type up all the correspondence for
their boss. And there's the question of if you're sending
a letter to a lady and you don't know if
she's a miss or mrs. What do you do? You
don't want to offender? That was sort of the first
real instance of miss as this um generic term for

(07:40):
a woman. Yeah, this is something that these secretaries came
up with, and the first use of miss. Well. The
Oxford English Dictionary attributes the first formal use of miss
to a book called the Simplified Letter, which was published
in nineteen fifty two for the National Office of Management Association. Right,
so if you're a secretary, this is the book you
get and it says mean you don't know how to
address well and just put miss in there. Yeah, makes sense, Um,

(08:02):
but some people do um date the first use of
miss all the way back to seventeen sixties seven when
they said that it appeared on the tombstone of a
woman named Sarah Spooner. And it was again it was
just another abbreviation, abbreviation for mistress, like Mrs. M R
S was so Oventually, it's just this abbreviation. It's this
way to um, you know, avoid confusion and letter writing.

(08:26):
And then the feminists got ahold of it, and they
got ahold of it through these secretarial handbooks. Right, we
have second wave feminism, which comes up in the nineteen sixties,
in nineteen seventies and their tagline, one of the taglines
at least of the movement was uh personal is Political
And it's really this idea of women changing how they
are perceived UM in their daily lives through UM political actions.

(08:51):
And in nineteen seventy, the National Organization for Women UM
made a formal request for or past the formal a
solution calling for the use of MSS to denote other, single, married, whatever,
so that women would no longer have to be defined
in terms of whether or not they were connected to
another man. Because as a mister, anybody who is a MR, single, married, divorced, widowed, whatever,

(09:18):
he's going to be MR his whole life. Everyone's a MR.
So they were thinking, by definition, there should be a
term that all women can be as well. And if
you've listened to the Maiden Name podcast along with this
is sort of the same movement. Hey, don't change your name.
When you're introduced to someone as MRS. You know, John Wayne,
you are putting yourself out in the world as this

(09:39):
person's wife. And by being MSS Molly Edmonds, I guess
if I'm married John Wayne, then I'm presenting the world.
I'm presenting myself to the world as me as opposed
to this person's property. I don't know why I thought
of John Wayne. I don't know, but I'm picturing your
wedding photos right now and it's kind of awesome wild
West wedding. The interesting thing about this push for MISS

(10:11):
to become adopted by a lot of women is the
number one force holding out against MISS, the anti MISS faction,
led by The New York Times. Yeah, this was amazing
to me. In the research, you know, there there was
some quote I read that at one point when The
New York Times was describing a party that um Gloria
Steinham hosted, they had to say, you know, miss Steinham,

(10:33):
who works at MSS magazine. So the only way they
had referred to MISS was in relation to the magazine.
So the New York Times basically holds this editorial standard
like we're not going to change to MISS, even though
every other newspaper is doing it. It's just it's we
don't need it. Yeah, and they got flak from other
publications as well. I think Time published a piece in
the maybe late seventies early eighties, lambasting The New York

(10:56):
Times for not switching over to miss because a lot
of other major news out it's had adopted MS as
the honorific title for women. And it wasn't until ninety four,
when Geraldine Ferraro is running on the Democratic ticket for
vice president, that the New York Times finally caves. Gerlen
Ferraro was married to a man named John Zacharo. I

(11:17):
may not be pronouncing that right, but she kept her
main names, So she was Geraldi and Ferraro married to
John Zacharro, so she should have been Mrs Zacharo, but
she kept her maiden name. Now, what she wanted to
be called was either Ms. Ferraro because she liked that
sort of terminology that these people had adopted, or Congresswoman Ferraro. Um.
But you know, there was this debate with George H. W. Bush,

(11:39):
and he made this big deal of calling her Mrs Ferraro. Yeah,
she would refer to she referenced him as Vice President Bush,
and he would come back at her with will Mrs
Ferraro right? And you know it was seen as this
move to put her like distinctly in a domestic sphere
as a post woman who could hold a leadership role.
And I do remember reading that when Biden debated Palent
that one of the biggest mistakes he could have aid

(12:00):
was to have said Mrs Palin as opposed to Governor Palin.
So there's this big um sticky situation spearheaded by Jailing
and Ferraro. And this is only when The New York
Times says, Okay, to denote the fact that she's this
woman in a certain situation, we're going to call her
ms Ferraro to take out sort of these politics of
being married or not right. And I think that I

(12:22):
think The New York Times still does use MSS on
occasion because one article that I read recently, I was
talking about the number of UH congresswomen who go by
MSS and some who prefer mrs. Like I want to
say that um Olympius Snow, for instance, is a miss
whereas Hillary Clinton, I think is actually Mrs Clinton. And see,

(12:44):
that's the thing is at this point, because it doesn't
really catch on the way the feminists designed it. To
the fact that The New York Times is holding out
shows that not every woman immediately was like, yeah, let's
all be missed. Yeah. One thing. That one kind of
strange childhood memory. I don't know why it's stuck in
my head so much, Molly, but I remember um being
pretty young and my mom was a teacher, and this

(13:08):
was probably in you know, late eighties, early nineties, and
I remember her complaining about her the school where she taught,
forcing the well, not forcing, but I wanted to institute
women just going by miss all the female teachers no
longer being miss or mrs just doing miss across the board,
probably to simplify things, Um. And I remember her complaining

(13:31):
and saying, you know what, this is not right that
my school is trying to turn me into Miss Conger
because I am Mrs Conger. Yeah, I've been Mrs Conger
for years and years and years, and I don't like
the sound of miss to be to be honest, I mean,
it's sort of the same thing. We're just trying to
change your maiden name. If you've already been Mrs So
and so for however many years, it's not natural necessarily
to just all of a sudden become Ms so and so. Yeah,

(13:53):
And on the flip side of it, I'm sure there
are plenty of women out there who would consider miss
to feel far more empowering than MRS. Or for people
like oh smally who are unmarried women. I wouldn't necessarily
like to call myself Miss Conger. It does seem a
little demeaning when a guy calls me miss Conger, like
you could have pat me on the head, and you know,
it makes you sound very small, Like I think those

(14:15):
age connotations are still there, but you know this connotation
to miss. Now, people see miss you know, attached to
Edmunds or Conger, and they probably just assume, well, that's
because she's of a certain age and still unmarried. They
might see it on other women as a sign of
being divorced, like I think now there's this connotation because uh,
the merried women don't necessarily want to backtrack and become

(14:36):
Miss so and so. That if you're Miss so and so,
that you're trying to hide something, either the fact that
you're unmarried, divorced, or a raging feminist. And a lot
of the studies that I've found about the use of MS,
it kind of echoes all of this saying that MS
hasn't replaced, really hasn't replaced mrs. On a wide scale.

(14:56):
Women are still choosing. I'd say it's probably fifty um,
but it's more of a replacement for miss. Yes, I
think we are getting rid of the MISS except for
young girls, but it's still this choice about whether you
want to adopt all this, you know, for for lack
of a better term, feminist baggage. If it was the
it's the same thing we discussed in our feminism podcast
where people don't really like this label of feminists and

(15:19):
so as a result, they may not like this label
of title that the feminist came up with and pushed for.
But one thing only that that surprised me when I
was researching all of this, because you're when you're referring
to feminist baggage. I found, um, a couple of studies
UH on people's perceptions towards women who labeled themselves as
MISS as opposed to MISS or mrs. And I was

(15:41):
kind of expecting the results to say that, you know,
people perceive women who call themselves MISS as being more
you know, uptight and rigid and whatever go down the list, um,
But it was actually quite the opposite. People who are
labeled labeled themselves as MISS are perceived simply as more

(16:01):
having more control over their lives, maybe being better achievers
UM and better educated and having more UM. I think
the term they used was agency over their world. UM.
At the same time, they were perceived as less communal,
but nevertheless still very powerful as individuals, which is why
I think you see miss used a lot in the workplace.

(16:24):
We're reading this article that said a lot of women
are miss so and so in the workplace, and then
when they go home their misses so and so, And
it may just be for ease. You know, you're taking
your kid to school, and it's easier to say, you know,
I'm Mrs x X, being the same last name as
your child's last name. So um. They were talking sort
about this, these dual lives that women lead, where in

(16:45):
their workplace there this very strong, independent woman as defined
by their miss whereas when they go home they'll still
take on these traditional rules almost you know. The writer
positive that maybe it was to prove that their success
and their job hadn't defeminized them in some way. So
if we do have these women who plenty of women
who are miss sometimes and there mrs other times, or

(17:07):
for women like us who are unmarried, and we could
be mss or we could be miss. What is what
is the etiquette? Let's answer our let's answer our listeners questions. Okay,
let's turn to Emily Post. Yes, Emily Post the maven
of social etiquette. Yeah, basically, um, as far as business terms,
it is true, MS is the way to go. Yeah,

(17:28):
I mean if it would, in doubt, I would go
miss because if you assume that it's Mr and Mrs
so and so, that can be just as offensive. I
think is doing it the other way. Now, according to
Emily Post, now, her example is someone named Jane Johnson. Yes,
this is the maiden named Jane Johnson. Emily Post says
that if you are married Jane Johnson and you keep

(17:51):
that maiden name, your new formal address is MS. Jane Johnson,
which is also your form of address. If you are single,
you're still and your maiden name. Unmarried, you can still
be Miss Jane Johnson. And but if you're married and
you use your husband's name socially, then in your husband's
last name is Kelly, then obviously you would be Miss
Jane Kelly in social settings. But what about divorce, Molly. Now,

(18:16):
if you're divorced, you can choose them to keep the mrs.
It seems like it'd be confusing, but you can still
be Mrs Jane Kelly because someone's someone will keep there.
I mean, if you've already got kids and you're trying
to match your kids, you might keep it. Um. So
instead of being Mrs John Kelly, who in this hypothetical
on my post situation is who she's married to, you
would still be Mrs Jane Kelly um or Miss Jane Kelly.

(18:37):
Or if you go back to the maiden name, then
you can be Miss Jane Johnson. So basically, once you're
divorce is just a grab bag if yeah, okay, So
if you're addressing an invitation to a couple, um, this
is probably the most confusing scenario. If the couple's married
and she's still using the maiden name as opposed to
using the husband's name socially or just taking it all together. UM, okay, Mary,

(18:58):
using maiden name, it would be Mr John Kelly and
Miss Jane Johnson. Ms. Jane Johnson and Mr John Kelly,
because you don't always have to put the man first. Finally,
it's strides we've made now Finally, Molly. In case anyone's wondering,

(19:22):
if you are addressing something to an unmarried couple living together. Oh, um,
you're supposed to put their names on two separate lines.
She is very insistent about that two separate lines not joined,
so you only get one line when you're married. Yeah,
so Jane Johnson, you're going underneath John Kelly or above
or above, but just not on the same line. Just

(19:43):
not on the same line. Okay. Yeah, So it's I mean,
sounds silly, but a lot of people just put all
this politics into who goes first. And the thing about
it is is that mms versus ms versus mrs has
taken on um this political connotation the same way that
your last name asks, because it's how you present yourself
to the world. But the thing that was interesting in
researching this is that this kind of um gendered language

(20:07):
is all around us. Yeah, absolutely, in ways we don't
even realize. I think that this one gets the most
attention because it's most prominent, because you do introduce yourself
with the name. But we are reading examples, um, some
feminist critiques of language, if you will, Um, take the
terms spinster and bachelor. Yeah, they mean the same thing
and totally different connotations. Which one would you rather be

(20:28):
I can't be the bachelor. Yeah he's living it up
where the spinsters just buy more cat food. Emili Well,
gender neutual language can be cumbersome to keep up with,
let's be honest, and some sometimes I think it is
important for women to think about it though, in terms
of this MS verse mrs debate and the spincer versus

(20:51):
bachelor and going down the line, where why is it
that with a lot of our language, Um, the terms
you describe women h related to their sexual life, their
sex life or their relationships are usually very m negative
unless it is attached to a partner exactly where your mrs.

(21:13):
It's unfortunate. It is unfortunate, And I think that it's
time to, uh maybe think of some new terms. Sminty gals,
if you have any awesome empowering terms for for single
women or married women or married women or guys just ladies. Yeah,
we want to hear them, because I would I would
really like a an alternative dispenser or cat lady. What's

(21:34):
the what's the female bachelor? Yeah? What's the female bachelor?
And I don't want to hear cougar. I'm not talking
about cougar. Oh my God, I hate that word. Yeah,
that's a whole another podcast, Another podcast. Um, well, before
we close out, let's read some more interesting maiden name stories.
How about that? That sounds great. I'm going to start
off with an email from Sarah, who writes, first things first,
I am transgendered. I was once a dude, and now
I'm a chick, which is awesome. She put that in

(21:57):
like bold. Um. When I told my family at Attina
about myself, they probably threw me out of their house
in their lives, the lovely people that took me and
saved my life and allowed me to take their family
name so I could completely distance myself in the past. Uh.
Sixteen years later, I'm engaged to a pretty good guy,
and when we get married or civil partnered, he's taking
my family name. He understands that it's a name that
means a lot to me, that it's very much my identity,

(22:18):
and I want to honor the people that raised me.
His family, though, took a while to get used to
the idea. Thankfully, the name is she was a bigger
problem than my gender walkiness. But now they're on board
and we're moving ahead. We could have both kept our
regular names, but adoption agencies like their applicants to have
the same name if they're married. So there you go,
a different point of view. Awesome, thank you, Sarah. Well, Molly,
I have another listener mill from another Sarah. Why how

(22:40):
about them apples? Uh? Sarah wanted to share her perspective
on the topic of maiden names. She said that she
has been married for almost nineteen years. She worked as
an engineer for several several years before meeting her husband,
and then several more years before marrying him, so it
was already well known to people in her field that
her maiden name. That what her maiden name was, and
she didn't want to change it, so she would say,

(23:04):
add to this, my mother in law had never been
in favor of our wedding, so becoming known by what
I considered her name was even more objectionable to me. However,
knowing that we would have children someday, I decided to
add his last name to mine, more like the South
American style. I didn't hyphenate UM my name though. For
our children UM they use my husband's last name. But

(23:25):
I still can use whichever I feel is right at
the moment, be it at work or around the family,
kind of like the ms mrs switch up. This has
worked well for us, even after we decided to homeschool
our children. Hey know about that, and the last name
in common was less of an issue. I feel people
should use whatever fits them. One of my sons, want
to wants to legally add my maiden name to his

(23:46):
name when he turns eighteen. He feels that my maternal
side of the family needs to be shown and continued
on through him, and hence would also have a dual
last name. He's open to the idea of adding his
ultimate wife's name to the mix as well. My other
son's don't see the big deal either way in this matter.
But as for me, I'm glad I just added my
husband's name to the mix. That way, I kept my name,

(24:06):
which my parents gave me and which I like, including
my middle name, and added to my identity of my
new family by adding my husband's name. Just my thoughts
on this topic. Okay, very nice. Here's one from Liza. UM. So,
Liza is about to get married on October, so have
a nice wedding day, Liza. You hear that before you

(24:27):
hear this before? Um Liza is a working artist and
a hand engraver. As a wedding gift, my father has
made Michael and myself a set of plates and bowls.
He too as an artist and where I get my
talent from. So the dishes are amazing, except for the
E in the center, which is the letter that Michael's
last name starts with. I won't say here. Her dad
had assumed that she would take the name I have

(24:48):
no desire to. I even made the argument that if
Michael finds it unreasonable, then it is on the table.
Then isn't on the table for he to take? Mine
answer being no. So now I don't want to break
my dad's heart. He spent months on these plates, hand
throwing them on the whe I love the gift, but
I'm offended that he assumed I would take my husband's name,
especially since I was raised I have my own identity
and belong to myself above all. That stinks. Tricky situation,

(25:11):
but I have I have all the faith that they
are going to work it out before October. I mean,
I'll also throw out that my last name starts with any.
So if they want to give the dishes and plates
and bowls to me, I mean I could just take
this problem right off their hands. I don't I don't
know how Michael feel about it, but I'm just throwing
it out there, always thinking of number one, Molly, that's
good independent woman. Um. And to close things out, I

(25:33):
have an email from j who, drumroll, please took his
wife's name. Wow. Um. I considered this greatly. During our
engagement period, we looked into traditions and determined that we
had no particular reason to honor traditions as they were
antiquated and hell, no real meaning to us. So what
we did take into account were a few factors. He said,

(25:55):
my side of the family has two other boys that
carry on the name, and one of those boys already
has a son, so the name carries on to the
next generation. Of course, this relies on the sexist tradition
to continue, but that seems likely. Number Two, my wife's
family name was going to die off if she were
not going to keep it going. Uh. This went back
for several generations that we could trace, and while she

(26:16):
was never adamant about keeping her name alive, it seemed
to be a fair consideration. Three. We want to have
an unhyphenated, unhyphenated common family name personal preference here certainly,
but we wanted our children to have parents with the
same last name and to keep it simple and for
when we considered the traditional reasons for taking a name.
I felt extremely welcomed and accepted into my wife's family
throughout our relationship, and there was no reason for this

(26:37):
acceptance to have any less validity than any acceptance from
my family. Because I spent the time to research this
and investigate my true intentions, I felt entirely justified my
decision to take my life my wife's name. I haven't
suffered any ridicule from my friends from this because it
was my decision and my choice, not something that I
was put into a position to consider. My family did
have issues initially, but everyone respected my choice. This is

(27:00):
probably the most important thing for anyone to consider in
changing one's name. Why are you doing so and what
do you believe in those reasons? For me, the fact
that it was the traditional thing to do was not
enough of a reason. So very good insight. Thank you, Jane,
and if you guys have any insight on this topic
or just have a question or comment from Molly, feel

(27:21):
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you should head over to our website how stuff works

(27:42):
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