From: utzoo!decvax!duke!unc!bch
Newsgroups: net.women
Title: Re: Keeping the maiden name
Article-I.D.: unc.4704
Posted: Thu Feb 24 09:37:28 1983
Received: Fri Feb 25 03:40:43 1983
References: csu-cs.2051

My wife and I kept our given names when we were married and have
had no (well, almost no) problems in doing so.  Our respective
mothers do insist on sending mail to us as 'Mr. and Mrs. Byron
Howes' and somebody's mailing list has created a new individual
named Ivins Howes by using her last name as a first name.

Friends of ours have not had such good fortune, however.  Their
neighbors became mortally offended upon learning that despite
different last names they were not just living together but were,
in fact, married.  The idea that some people find cohabitation
more acceptable than marrieds keeping their given names intrigues
me.

I expect that business and formal organizations should not have
trouble with people living together having different names.
Cohabitation has become enough of a fact of life in this society
that business procedures have adapted to take account of it.
Different names, however, do confuse people in less formal, social,
situations.  It is less easy to drop couples into neat categories
on first meeting them if you are unsure of their marital status.