Modernising the Jamaican woman
published: Tuesday | August 26, 2003

THE EDITOR, Sir:

I HAVE been reading some Jamaican government web sites and am utterly appalled to find that women are being given titles according to their marital status while men are not.

I think that it is high time that the State adopt one title for women. I find both 'Mrs' & 'Miss' repugnant: 'Mrs' conveys 'property of the husband', & 'Miss' is too old-fashioned. Why would any self-respecting woman put up with either of those titles? And as to those hyphenated surnames, they sound 'boasy' to me.

By the way, in Quebec, a woman cannot take her husband's surname by law. She keeps the surname she was born with. In this way, women can track down their old school friends. I am now in my sixties and would love to find my old school friends, but it would be very difficult to do so because their surnames have changed.

Make a bold step now Jamaica and modernise.

I am, etc.,

SILVIA WILLIAMS

1720 San Joseph Blvd

Gatineau, QC J2Y 4F8

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