Traditional

[franceslievens]

Just a moment ago I realised how traditional the daycare where Little Bit's enrolled, is*. Even though they've got both our mobile phone numbers they first call me to ask for an appointment. P.'s at home, so I have him call back as I need to teach when I find the message on my phone.
Today I get another phone call from the same woman, wondering why I didn't call back – which I didn't, but I had my boyfriend call back. After having found all the relevant information, she proceeds to refer to my "husband", who I've been happily unmarried to for more than 8 years, thank you very much.

*Or maybe it's just the lady I was talking to.

Comments

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

Unsurprisingly, I've been in similar situations and it got me thinking.

Of course,lately K has been called my "husband" a lot of times or just "Mann" - I usually don't bother to correct people - I only do that when they assume that we've got the same last name. My doctor was thoughtful enough to ask me whether he had the same name or not when she was about to fetch him from the waiting room to have a look at the ultrasound, too.

But then I sometimes think that the traditional words are used or the woman is called because it still is the norm and some people don't react well when a different route is taken: "But of course, we are married. What do you think?" - "Why did you call my husband? He doesn't know about these things."

It's like when my doctor used "mongoloid" instead of "Down's" - I assume that she does that so that people understand her.

In your case, though, it sounds a bit like that woman isn't particularly organised...

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

Okay, she did say "man", and not husband, but in Dutch it implies the same thing.

Marriage is still the norm, so much so that if one of us comes to die Little Bit will inherit everything (except the house, because that's taken care of in sales contract). And that's something you can't change by legally living together, whatever you do. So we might get married some time down the line, just because it's easier bureaucratic-wise than then arrangements. I find it not amusing though that it's still easier.

And assuming your bf/husband has the same name? Just ugh. Even when married I would never be Mrs. P. My Mama never used her married name when things involved just her.

But yeah, I got the feeling she had forgotten to check the schedule and didn't really trust her colleague's capacities. *g*

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

It's the same with Mann in German.

Yes, the inheriting thing is what annoys me most about not being married. Tax credits aren't really the issue..

As to having the same name: In Germany, it's still unusual that women keep their name after marriage (it's only been legal for ten years or so) and once you get married and decide to take your husband's name it's this whole big thing of applying for new passport, identity card etc. and informing all and sundry that your name has changed. It's very unusual to have a married name and still go about using your maiden name in specific contexts. Sometimes, with double-barreled names, when the wife decides to use both names with a hyphen, she might use only one name in some contexts. Like my colleague, who only uses her maiden name at school, though the official documents of course have the full name. This can lead to terrible confusion: About two weeks after we got our new class, one of our students spotted her in town at some event and said to a family friend: There's Mrs X, my new teacher. - No, that friend said, that's Mrs Y (using her husband's name). Little boy started to doubt his own mind and it was only cleared up a couple of days later.

I'm glad that women can keep their name now - I wouldn't want to get rid of mine.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

I never considered it could be an actual legal issue! I always thought women using their husband's name did this only in a context where verifying their identity wasn't necessary or where they were their husband's wife in the first place. For the state they still had their maiden name.

I just asked P. and he confirmed a woman cannot legally take her husband's name, and never has been able to (unless you pay a lot of money to change your name).

My school teachers were all known by their maiden name -- even when married. Except for that one teacher who used her husband's name (an old mayor of our town), because too many teachers had the same name as her (her surname was indeed the most common name in Flanders).
I guess the maiden name thing for teachers also stems from the fact that in the old days female teachers were always unmarried. At catholic schools female teachers stayed at home to look after the kids. And later on a teacher usually started teaching before getting married and hence was known by her maiden name by the students.

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

Let me get that right - when a woman marries in Belgium keeping her maiden name is the norm and taking the husband's last name is a costly and unusual legal nightmare?

Up to about ten years ago, here the woman HAD to take the husband's name or (which was more unusual of course) the husband HAD to take the wife's name, i.e. the couple had to choose one "family name". In the late 1970s or so hyphenated names came up, so that the wife could keep her maiden name alongside the husband's name which leads to unwieldy names like Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger.

When female teachers marry, most of them change their names in the school context - so, about four female teachers at my school started to be known by their husband's names after getting married. Unusually, two male teachers also changed their names, too, but for a different reason, I think.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

when a woman marries in Belgium keeping her maiden name is the norm and taking the husband's last name is a costly and unusual legal nightmare

You got that right. I remember discussing family names with two children I was babysitting. It ended up being this whole game of discovering everyone in a family has the same surname except for the mother. (Kids always get the father's last name. We don't have a choice in that matter.)

In a lot of contexts married women are specifically asked to use their maiden name. I never quite understood that, because I always presumed a woman uses her own name and not her husband's.
Hyphenated names are frequently used to refer to families, as in Familie Janssens-Peeters.

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

It's all very interesting. I had a look around the internet how it works in different countries. I wonder whether some European union bureaucrat will come up with plans to make it all conform to one standard. (Hah, that would be a nightmare!)

The hyphenated names have actually been around longer than I thought.

Nowadays you can choose one family name for the children and it doesn't matter whether it's the dad's or the mum's last name (if both kept theirs), but you can't have different last names for your kids.

Related link: Ms, Miss or Mrs (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7952261.stm), though it's of course completely misleading that the European Parliament has banned Miss or Mrs!