May I see some I.D. please?
5:08 p.m.
Once more, drgeek has been the unwitting source of inspiration for a diary entry. Probably after getting a hit or two he�ll investigate their source and follow the trail back to me and the above link, but in the meantime I will leave him oblivious to my use of his diary to help spark my creative outlet.
Before I was married, in fact, when I was dating and in love with my very first boyfriend, I used to spend hours writing my first name and his last name together to see what they would look like were we to wed. Sigh. I was all of 14. When I did wed, 11 years later, I did not take my husband�s name for various reasons. Firstly, we perform together as a soprano/guitar duet. Were we to have the same last name, it would sound like a law firm. Secondly, my own last name is pithily short and it takes no time for me to sign my name, since I use only my first initial. Hubby�s last name is nine (count �em, nine) letters long. That more than doubles my own signature. What am I, an idiot? There must be another immediate reason, but I have forgotten it.
I worked at a law firm for a year when I was 20-to-21 as a legal secretary, and one of my fellow secretaries told me how after she got married she experienced a sense of loss of identity. Firstly she had cut her long hair, so didn�t recognize herself in the mirror. Then all her I.D. started arriving in the mail, changed, with �Susan Smith� replaced by �Susan Jones�, and she felt as though she didn�t know who she was anymore. Eventually she got over it and learned to live with her new �identity�, but the transition was a little strange. This story obviously stayed with me.
At my own wedding, which took place in my parents� house, every time I met Marge S. (not Simpson, although it�s tempting) in the hallway (a friend of my mother-in-law�s), she would say very brightly and loudly to me, �Hello there Mrs. Hubby!� and I would just smile at her. Finally, after the third time she did this, I asked her why, and she answered, �How did it feel to write your maiden name for the last time when you signed the register?� Of course, I told her that it wasn�t the last time, since I was not changing my name. She felt a little stupid at that point, I bet, but since the woman is now dead, I will refrain from making any more comments about her. But she was coming from a generation where young brides became their husbands� property and took their names. I heard subsequently that hers was a very unhappy marriage, her husband a drinker and both a mental and physical abuser, and her children grown up to be no-goods. So much for changing her name.
The women in my husband�s family were rather put out that I did not take my husband�s name. They had taken their�s, after all. I simply refused to toe the party line. Now, after more than 20 years of marriage, some letters are addressed to Mr. & Mrs. Hubby, and some to Mr. Hubby and Ms. Elgan. I think they finally realize that I am not changing my name. What the hey, the children bear the patriarchal name (they didn�t have to, by law, but they do by choice), so don�t get your panties in a knot, folks.
Then we moved to the Province of Quebec. Quebec is different from the rest of Canada in one big way. When the French were defeated by the English on the Plains of Abraham in 1759 and Quebec became an English territory, the victors allowed the population to retain its language, religion, and feudal law. Hence Quebec has quite a different flavour from the rest of our home and native land. One of the things that separates us is our marriage law. (I already told you that gay marriage is now legal here, but that really has nothing to do with this entry.) I was at a wedding last May at which the minister read from the marriage act, emphasizing that a woman keeps her name and her property. In Quebec, a woman cannot take her husband�s name even if she wants to. Which probably means that I was destined to live here.
Okay, drgeek, this is what inspired me. You said, �We also got a bit of wedding business taken care of: we went to see a vintage Rolls Royce that will carry me to the Church for our wedding, and convey Mrs. Geek and myself to the reception after we are married.� I am sure that purely for Diaryland purposes, Fianc�e S. will be referred to as Mrs. Geek after you are legally joined in matrimony, but I am absolutely certain that in real life she will continue to be known as Ms. or even Miss S. N�est-ce pas?
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