You are cordially invited!

During the years I attended school, we carried home invitations for our parents, inviting them over for the Annual  School Day or the Sports Day. Our teacher would painstakingly write neatly on the board, ‘Mrs. & Mr. _______’, ask us to take it down on the envelope and complete it by adding our father’s name and surname. She would also specifically mention to add ‘Dr.’ where applicable. One was very particular about spelling for ‘Dr. Chakraborty’ would not attend if he was addressed ‘Dr. Chakravarty’! We seemed to have little problem those days as we did not have any other title to worry about. An army unit came much later and I often heard my friends remark how careful they had to be while addressing army personnel!

Personally, I have never had any issues for I was used to seeing my mother’s signature which included Smt. (Srimathi, for short) her name followed by my father’s name. When I started signing, I gave up the Srimathi part, writing my own name and my husband’s after it. So it was easy to address me as Mrs. Ramani. As a school teacher,I have given out invitations and followed the same technique as did my teachers in school and for some reason it wasn't a big deal until today!

Giving out the invites, I wrote on the board, “Mrs. & Mr. ___________” and called upon my class, fourth graders,  to take it down on the envelope and complete it by adding their father’s name and surname. I also specified the ‘Dr.’ bit.  Just a handful of them got it the way it was expected of them. Most of them wrote down their mother’s name with a Mrs., followed by their father’s name with a Mr.  And of course, added, businessman, advocate, actor for right measure! One child wrote only her mother’s name and told me, matter-of-fact, the she didn't have a father!

It got me thinking. Thinking the way my nine – year olds did!  My daughter continues to use her maiden name after marriage. And so do many women today. How can a  child identify  its mother with the father’s name? Also the term Mrs. now seems obsolete and Ms. redundant. And why the partiality towards doctors? I realized it is a deeply personal and sensitive issue and, with divorces and remarriages on the rise, we need to realign ourselves to the modern social setup.  

Dear parents, you are cordially invited. Shouldn't that be sufficient?