I don't care in the slightest about Madonna, she hasn't had a good song in years and she creeps me out for reasons I can't even articulate. I'm just annoyed at glancing at the article and seeing her listed as "Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone Penn Ritchie". It's like articles that insist on inserting the surnames of all of Elizabeth Taylor's husbands after her name. Madonna dropped Penn as a surname after her divorce. She has adopted Ritchie as her last name, not a choice I'd make but not one I feel the need to mock either. She's also kept her birth surname as a middle name, as many women choose to do. As for her two middle names, that's hardly her fault (adding Louise and Veronica seems like a good choice on the part of her parents, considering that she was given her mother's first name and also how unusual the name Madonna is). So she's Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone Ritchie, probably Madonna C. Ritchie on most documents. Not terribly outrageous or pretentious of her.

Women's names seem to be seen as mutable and open to scrutiny and criticism. Meanwhile, there's a guy with the absurd surname 'Pitt' going around adding his name to the birth certificates of helpless children, three so far this year, and no one questions it.

I thought 5'4" was the average height for women?

Oh well, the mall stores are all going downhill lately anyway. I buy most of my clothes from Lands' End (great professional clothes, inseamed for free, and delivered to my door). However, I had to find a dress for a wedding last year and was horrified by how much department stores have changed in the past few years. Macy's had cheap garbage and apathetic employees; Filene's proper was almost as bad as its famous basement; Nordstrom's gowns were made of cheap shiny fabric (when even my husband comments on the poor quality of the fabric, it's very bad), and all the little boutique stores were full of lime green (who buys that?). I finally went back to the Internet and found a lovely silk and chiffon gown with a cool asymmetrical hem. I can't imagine why I'd ever set foot in a department store again.

"Nelle's maternal grandfather was named Finch"

Was Lee's maternal grandfather's first or last name Finch? It's a small detail, but it would be interesting to know if Atticus and Scout Finch got their last name from her grandfather's first name (which points to his influence on the Atticus character) or from his last name (which was probably her mother's birth surname and thus might have been a way of naming the Scout character after her mother or herself).

Internet shopping works for me, because Lands' End does some tailoring of the clothes before sending them. Also, you can return Lands' End stuff to Sears rather than having to ship it back.

Really, I hope the owners of Men's Wearhouse decide to branch out and make a Women's Wearhouse someday, since it's such an easy place to shop. My husband spent about two hours there and got a complete work wardrobe. I wish I could do the same.

Yes, everyone is jealous of you and your unique relationship. Yes, all your friends will end up alone and bitter, only you have managed to snag the prize. Yes, you're a real rebel, getting married and giving your children your husband's last name, that is [i]so[/i] rare.

I bet I know what's annoying her friends and family. The LW is probably walking around (with her left hand a foot in front of her) all bright-eyed, smug, and naive, talking about how unique and special her marriage will be, but then dropping little comments that make her friends and family realize she's headed right for Feminine Mystique land. The LW is probably reacting to her feminist friends' indifference to her marriage (because the rest of society is giving her strong positive feedback and she wants that from everyone). Her next letter will be in three years, when she tells Cary how daring she is for becoming a stay-at-home mother and asks him why her remaining friends are bothering her with statistics about impoverished former SAHMs.

I got married while attending the most liberal law school in the country, in one of the most liberal cities. All of my queer hippie friends were happy for me. The staunchest of my feminist friends may say, in unrelated conversations, that they don't believe in marriage or that they think marriage is still usually unequal. However, that doesn't mean they're not in committed relationships or that they're intolerant towards married women. It just means they don't act as though getting married is the equivalent of winning a Nobel Prize, Olympic medal, and Miss America all in the same year.

The LW would really be better off living with her fiancé for a few years before the wedding, but that won't give her the cool feeling of being a rebel, nor all the lovely gifts ('cause that's how society usually marks its outcasts, with money and china).

So why are they using their own daughters as examples of natural selection?