"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet"
Two weeks ago, France bit the bullet. The epithet mademoiselle has had her last outing, and is no more. Indeed, the word mademoiselle will disappear altogether from administrative documents in what appears to be the first step towards complete eradication of the term. French Feminists are surely jumping for joy, but what does this really represent for young ladies in France? Mademoiselle will be usurped by its slightly senior counterpart Madame. But, one cannot help but wonder if this is truly the lesser of two evils.
On a personal level, I feel offended if called Madame. I object to it for a variety of reasons, the first of which being my own vanity. Being called Madame seems to be something I should expect once I reach a certain maturity of age. But aged 23? Secondly, I have always been offended by the Madame or Mrs. which occasionally appear on my doorstep. My mind always forms the same outraged thought: how dare they presume that I am married? I consider that Mademoiselle, and indeed Miss are the more flattering alternatives in terms of age, and marital status, particularly for a younger generation of women.
However, I do wholeheartedly agree that the nominal demarcating of married and unmarried women is wrong. Wrong because the same system does not exist for men. My solution to the problem would be: coin a new universal term for women, or invent a word for unmarried men. The English language has Ms which I believe fulfils this purpose for women. Alternatively, Master could act as an epithet for unmarried males. On the other hand, perhaps we should all get PhDs or medical degrees instead and forget about all this nonsense.
Etymologically, the term Miss stems from Mistress and serves as a term of respect for young women, or girls. Bizarrely enough, the abbreviation Mrs also stems from Mistress. How can two abbreviations of the same word represent two separate marital conditions?
It may be too late for France to salvage Mademoiselle, but surely us Brits can find a more suitable alternative than Mrs -- a term emptied of any pejorative connotation. I vote Ms.
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Very interesting this, I do support the elimination of any salutation that carries within it information that can be used to discriminate or that is just unnecessary and for that reason I prefer Ms to Mrs or Miss and I am always informing my French students that one shouldn't assume marital status in English so encourage them to be aware of Ms and to see it as the equal alternative to Mr.
ReplyDeleteI have less of a problem with Madame than Mrs, because I never felt that Madame implied marital status in the way Mrs does - but that's the perspective of my 44 year old self (I may have felt differently at 23 for sure), I always think of Madame as a mark of respect (not age) and I like the fact that even an unmarried woman can have the same status as a married woman, regardless her age, whereas a spinster in the English language will remain Miss for life.
But without the Ms, perhaps Madame will just come to stand for woman? I don't think it will change in the street however, and I am surprised tha language police haven't been out in force already.
I have always preferred "Miss" when talking with a single woman.
ReplyDeleteI noticed that you are in the publishing business. I discovered a book recently and it is very good.
"The Short, Short Hitchhiker" by Stanley Gurcze
http://hitchhikeamerica.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/the-short-short-hitchhiker/
This lady reviewed Gurcze's book and she thinks it is better than Kerouac's "On the Road" and Krakauer's "Into the Wild"--and that is saying quite a bit. "On the Road" is considered a classic and "Into the Wild" was a bestseller. Just thought you may want to read it sometime, if you are interested in travel/hitchhiking books.
I noticed the photo of you in your profile. You are very beautiful. I am sure you are familiar with Sylvia Plathe--she was a great poet and also very beautiful.
I hope your novel is going well.