[HPFGU-OTChatter] Confessions of a Stepford wife (was Names)

[Pam Hugonnet]

Amanda Lewanski wrote in a very eloquent post:

> And to be honest, I like being someone's wife. Publicly. Someone I
> love chose me! Forever! I want people to know. Damn straight I'll
> carry his name, and go by "Mrs."; my pride in it equals his humility
> in offering it. We both wear rings proclaiming that we are spoken for,
> taken, possessed, etc. I got to do more.
>
>

    I feel very much the same way.  I took a lot of flak from a great
many friends for having a "19th century attitude about marriage."   I
view the change of last names as another of the offering my husband
brought to our marriage, an oppurtunity to for a new unit, to create
this family of Hugonnets.  When working, necessity has forced me to use
my maiden name because my husband and I are in the same field.  It can
be very confusing to get calls for "Dr. Hugonnet"  only to realise
partway through that the caller was looking for the other one.  So, of
necessity I am Dr. Barrigher professionally, but I think of myself as
Pam Hugonnet.

    But as an African American woman, I have an interesting observation
about titles that has been confirmed by other women of color, but my
white friends look at me blankly when I speak about it.  I wear wedding
rings.  They are not ostentatious, but readily visible.  While I flatter
myself that I have a somewhat youthful appearence, nobody is gonna
mistake me for a teenager or a twenty-something.  However, people insist
on calling me "Miss."  It even seems to happen more frequently when I am
with my children.  I have learned to draw myself up and say, "I am MRS.
Hugonnet."  Often the perpetrator looks flustered and corrects
him/herself, but sometimes it's glossed over or the person acts as
though they have been offended.  But it is a subtle form of disrepect
that I find offensive and puzzling.

> By the way, I did what my mother did, what I thought everyone did, and
> took my maiden name as my middle name--from Amanda Lee Peters to
> Amanda Peters Lewanski. But Jan, un-Texan, had never heard of this
> convention. Is it a regionalism? Honest, everyone I know of that took
> their husband's name did this. I'm curious.
>

    Sure.  That's par for the course around here.  Although I would
probably say that it's more the case in the last 25 years or so.  My
mother in law changed her name, dropping the middle, but she says it was
expected for the social strata she grew up  in.  My mom dropped her
middle name for her madien name shortly after I got married; she had
always hated her middle name, but it took her 40 years to work up the
nerve to do it.

    The title they really need to do something about is Mom.  Give us
another way of distinguishing ourselves.  Ever hear a kid say "Mommy" in
a store  and see 30 women turn around.

oneofacrowd
mrsdrpamelabarrigherhugonnet