Saying “I Don’t” to Patriarchal Wedding Etiquette

Summer brings weddings, and weddings bring elegantly addressed wedding invitations and envelopes. The soon-to-be brides dutifully follow the etiquette guidelines set out by the likes of Martha Stewart and Emily Post.

Unfortunately the misguided “etiquette” guidelines for wedding invitations also perpetuate the patriarchal legacy of coverture. This legal system of coverture was adopted in the US and, though it no longer exists, its legacy lives on through various customs, including wedding etiquette, as well as larger entrenched systems of gender inequality.

⚖️According to the National Women’s History Museum, “Coverture held that no female person had a legal identity. At birth, a female baby was covered by her father’s identity, and then, when she married, by her husband’s. The husband and wife became one–and that one was the husband. As a symbol of this subsuming of identity, women took the last names of their husbands. They were ‘feme coverts,’ covered women. Because they did not legally exist, married women could not make contracts or be sued, so they could not own or work in businesses. Married women owned nothing, not even the clothes on their backs. They had no rights to their children, so that if a wife divorced or left a husband, she would not see her children again.”⚖️

By addressing me and my husband as “Mr. and Mrs. Craig Coughlin,” my identity is being “covered,” which is a nicer way of saying erased. While, yes, it’s just an envelope, it carries on a legacy of misogyny and oppression of women that should never have existed.

And, if we are being technical, my last name is “Browning Coughlin,” and modern etiquette guides say you should list me and my husband separately on an invite (using Ms. or Mrs. would be acceptable). Further, current etiquette guides would note that my job title of Professor should be listed with my name on the invitation (and even note that I should be listed first).

But it’s simpler and shorter to just write “Mr. and Mrs. Craig Coughlin,” despite the fact that, with a simple stroke of a pen, I am reduced to someone without my own name, without my hard-earned professional status, without an identity other than “wife.”

Instead of symbolically perpetuating the erasure of women’s identities and professional achievements, can we **please** erase so-called etiquette that does just that? No, this small change won’t dismantle the bigger issues of gender inequality, but it is a small change in the right direction.