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You might recall from my last column that I was proposed to recently. Certainly, one would think that a woman of my age would jump at any offer of marriage. The common misconception being that I’m not likely to receive too many more such offers. Ha! Wrong. No, I haven’t since received another offer. The misconception is that I’m jumping.
Odds are, if you’re a fifty+ year old woman you’ve already been down the aisle. I have. Twice. I married Mr. Unbelievably Wonderful, then Mr. Practically Perfect. This time, one of the interesting points of the proposal that I considered very thoroughly was the name. Don’t misunderstand me. He has a very charming name. Let’s call him Mr. Absolutely Charming. He asked during his proposal if I didn’t want to become Mrs. Julie Charming? It didn’t occur to me until much later that it was an absurd question! How many women, fifty or older, really want to “become” someone else?
I started to imagine, given my track record in the area of matrimonial endeavors that I would be Julie Bergher-Wonderful-Perfect-Charming, until this one ended in divorce and I tried it again. That’s three hyphens! This led me to think of other women who hyphenate. What judgment do we make when we see a string of hyphens? Successes? Failures? Incredibly bad luck in love? Or a woman who follows her heart, believes in fairy tales, and cares not what the rest of the world thinks? Hmmmm….
Let’s look at one or two infamous examples and decide for ourselves, shall we? We could start with Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor. By the time she finished, her full name was Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor-Hilton-Wilding-Todd-Fisher-Burton-Burton-Warner-Fortensky. Her acting abilities aside, our opinions of her marital failures are no doubt affected by the number of hyphens she accumulated (8). I certainly wouldn’t have gone to her for marital advice.
Then there’s my favorite, Zsa Zsa. She was once quoted as claiming to be an excellent house keeper. She said, “Every time I divorce, I keep the house [Dahling]!” I might be persuaded to take just a smidge of advice from Ms. Gabor, aka Sari Gabor-Belge-Hilton-Sanders-Hutner-Cosden-Ryan-O’Hara-Alba-Anhalt. However, at my age there is no way I could compete with either her record-breaking hyphen collection (9), or her property taxes!
Then there’s the question of identity. I recall that earlier in my life before and during my first marriage I was willing to do or become whatever might make my beloved happy. I took his last name. I worked, and cleaned, and tried to understand football. I limited (at times eliminated) time with my friends, my hobbies and many of my pursuits. The price for all of that was becoming Mrs. Him. I truly didn’t know any better. I thought that was what one was supposed to do. Maybe it was, and I just did it poorly. Since then, I’ve come to the realization that the only reason I might ever marry again would be to share the beautiful life I’ve created as Julie Bergher. Ms. Julie Bergher. If I ever add another prefix to my name, it will be Dr., but that’s not on my bucket list. Nor is another hyphen.
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