teachers' personal lives / ''Madam''

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 190355



--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, KEN ADAMS <kenadams705 at ...> wrote:
>
> >
> Carol responds:
> 
> And yet Madame Maxime, the French witch who's headmistress of Beauxbatons, isn't
> married. It seems that both "Madam" and "Madame" function as titles of respect
> that a professional woman (or even a glorified seamstress like Madam Malkin or a
> pub owner like Madam Rosmerta, who combines "Madam" with her first name) can
> choose to use. It seems to function something like "Ms.", allowing a woman to
> hide her marital status, except that it adds a hint of increased social status
> as well. OTOH, happy housewives like Molly Weasley are addressed as "Mrs." (with
> no indication that the term is derogatory) and young, unmarried girls are
> addressed as "Miss" by their teachers, just as the boys are addressed as "Mr."
> (I think it would have been "Master" in Victorian England and maybe even into
> the 1950s, at least for Muggles, but the Wizards seem to have a slightly
> different terminology.
> 
> Most likely, JKR didn't think it out. She may have started with the nicely
> alliterative "Madam Malkin" and gone from there. In any case, the use of "Madam"
> extends beyond Hogwarts into the British WW in general.
> 
> Carol, just thinking on her keyboard and arriving at no real conclusions.
> 
> Ken:
> The prefix Madam is commonly used in British English as a term of respect
> towards a lady, so that a schoolchild would be expected to refer to a teacher as
> madam. This applies whether the lady is married or not hence Madam Maxine. In
> the case of Madam Malkin it would no doubt indicate respect for an accomplished
> robe maker who also had the acumen to hold a business together, the same would
> apply to Madam Rosmerta. A shop assistant especially in a more quality shop would be expected to refer to a female customer as madam, as in those shoes fit you very well Madam do you know they are on a special offer this week. It is thus perfectly possible for a Mrs Bloggs to also be referred to as Madam Bloggs, especially in a school setting. This term almost certainly has French origins, probably from the days of the Norman conquest when the villains would be expected to refer to their newly acquired Norman mistresses as Madam. This may be more familiar to American readers in its commonly shortened form of Maam. It really is very common in Britain.


Carol responds:

Well, yes. Even here in America, if you speak to a mature woman you don't know, you'll address her as "ma'am" (never "madam"): "Excuse me, ma'am, you dropped this." If the woman is young, you'll address her as "miss." It actually has more to do with age than presumed marital status, IMO. ("Ms.," on the other hand, does deliberately conceal marital status. Whether it's used in Britain, I don't know, but it's certainly not used in the WW.)

Carol, not quite sure how your point differs from mine regarding the characters