Miss/Mrs./Ms.

[John Dibble]

Option 1, but only in a formal situation. Otherwise I'm with patrick - get to know them on a first name basis if it's informal.

[John Dibble]

Also it is disturbing that women still take the husband's name in many marriages.

I agree that it's disturbing.

I don't see why - it's just a name. My mom kept here maiden name when she married, but it really wouldn't affect much if she had taken my father's last name. Hell, my father could have taken her last name for all I care. Like I said, it's just a name.

[John Dibble]

If anything, children should have their mother's last name since mothers generally do more than half of the child rearing.

Do they provide more than half the financial support to make that child-rearing possible?  Let me give you a hint -- only in poverty-stricken segments of society. What does that tell you?

Not really true nowadays - in an educated family it can go either way. Even when my dad was alive, my mom brought home more money - she was a programmer, he was a car mechanic/appliance repairman, and so she earned more. Nothing wrong with either job, just the simple fact is that one paid more than the other.

Still, we have to pick one or the other name for the surname, and there's nothing harmful about picking the father's surname. Also, it's not like the mother's maiden name isn't included - usually that's what a person's middle name is.

[John Dibble]

To anyone who advocates keeping the titles Miss and Mrs. for traditional reasons, imagine if the discrimination had been against blacks instead of women. In his article on political correctness, Douglas Hofstadter writes that our society would be much more repulsed if we called unemployed blacks "Niss" and employed blacks "Nrs.", when all whites were called Master. (even if that was the tradition)

That article is way too long for me to want to read it, especially considering the argument you are given here. It's really an assinine comparison, I mean, really. How does discriminination against unemployed blacks have ANYTHING to do with calling an unmarried woman Miss <insert name> and and married woman Mrs. <insert name>? I mean really, wtf?

[John Dibble]

To anyone who advocates keeping the titles Miss and Mrs. for traditional reasons, imagine if the discrimination had been against blacks instead of women. In his article on political correctness, Douglas Hofstadter writes that our society would be much more repulsed if we called unemployed blacks "Niss" and employed blacks "Nrs.", when all whites were called Master. (even if that was the tradition)

That article is way too long for me to want to read it, especially considering the argument you are given here. It's really an assinine comparison, I mean, really. How does discriminination against unemployed blacks have ANYTHING to do with calling an unmarried woman Miss <insert name> and and married woman Mrs. <insert name>? I mean really, wtf?

Obviously, dumb dumb, because the oppression of women is precisely analogous to that of blacks. 

And what does Miss vs. Mrs. have to do with oppression? They are simply titles and there is nothing offensive implied by them.

[John Dibble]

To anyone who advocates keeping the titles Miss and Mrs. for traditional reasons, imagine if the discrimination had been against blacks instead of women. In his article on political correctness, Douglas Hofstadter writes that our society would be much more repulsed if we called unemployed blacks "Niss" and employed blacks "Nrs.", when all whites were called Master. (even if that was the tradition)

That article is way too long for me to want to read it, especially considering the argument you are given here. It's really an assinine comparison, I mean, really. How does discriminination against unemployed blacks have ANYTHING to do with calling an unmarried woman Miss <insert name> and and married woman Mrs. <insert name>? I mean really, wtf?

Obviously, dumb dumb, because the oppression of women is precisely analogous to that of blacks. 

And what does Miss vs. Mrs. have to do with oppression? They are simply titles and there is nothing offensive implied by them.

No, the implication is ownership of the female by the male.

I fail to see how the title 'Mrs.' has ANYTHING to do with ownership - it's just a title to say a woman is married.