Yep, I should have said that the bit I've never heard the foolproof solution for is not so much marriage as passing on the name to children - and of course, another problem with the current system is that the only model for having children which works namewise is to marry and use a single surname for the whole family. Double barrelling won't take you past a single generation. There's meant to be an interesting system in Spain but I've never quite got the hang of it.
I've had quite a few people tell me that people will assume I'm divorced if I call myself Ms, do you get told that as well? Of course, I also get helpful people telling me that people will think I'm an alcoholic if I don't drink, so I'm not really too bothered by such nonsense.
"Living together" seems to come up quite a lot as an option these days. I think you're right, "partnered" (as used in Le Guin's The Dispossessed) would probably be the best catch-all term. Although why on earth does everyone need to know one's relationship status, as you say? I can just about see situations where it might be relevant, for instance needing to know a contact in case of emergency, but even that doesn't have to be about your love life. OK, it'd probably be relevant in cases relating to something done jointly, such as children, but surely in those cases the form would need far more than a simple box declaring marital status.
There's a nice Margaret Drabble from, hmm, several decades ago anyway, called The Millstone. In it a young woman unexpectedly gets pregnant from her only sexual encounter and quite peacefully settles into single (really single) motherhood. She is rather peeved when she finds that her medical notes at the hospital call her Mrs even though she explains that she's unmarried, and is told, "Oh, we call all the women in the maternity ward Mrs, it's a courtesy title." Hint: you should be ashamed of being an unwed mother, you slut you, but we're generously going to cover up for you.
no subject
Date: Wednesday, 3 June 2009 05:18 pm (UTC)From:I've had quite a few people tell me that people will assume I'm divorced if I call myself Ms, do you get told that as well? Of course, I also get helpful people telling me that people will think I'm an alcoholic if I don't drink, so I'm not really too bothered by such nonsense.
"Living together" seems to come up quite a lot as an option these days. I think you're right, "partnered" (as used in Le Guin's The Dispossessed) would probably be the best catch-all term. Although why on earth does everyone need to know one's relationship status, as you say? I can just about see situations where it might be relevant, for instance needing to know a contact in case of emergency, but even that doesn't have to be about your love life. OK, it'd probably be relevant in cases relating to something done jointly, such as children, but surely in those cases the form would need far more than a simple box declaring marital status.
There's a nice Margaret Drabble from, hmm, several decades ago anyway, called The Millstone. In it a young woman unexpectedly gets pregnant from her only sexual encounter and quite peacefully settles into single (really single) motherhood. She is rather peeved when she finds that her medical notes at the hospital call her Mrs even though she explains that she's unmarried, and is told, "Oh, we call all the women in the maternity ward Mrs, it's a courtesy title." Hint: you should be ashamed of being an unwed mother, you slut you, but we're generously going to cover up for you.