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Old newspaper clippings reveal a custom that now seems almost absurd: Married women were routinely identified by their husbands’ full names.

A woman might appear as “Mrs. Dan Schuckman,” even though her own first name certainly was not Dan. Under the same convention, Julia Child could have been called “Mrs. Paul Child” after winning a blue ribbon for apple pie—even though Paul did not bake it.

The rule grew out of etiquette once taught as a sign of respect. Envelopes addressed to married women were supposed to use the husband’s formal name, without nicknames. Correspondence to a couple became “Mr. and Mrs. George Clooney,” while signatures placed the man first—“Clyde and Bonnie,” never “Bonnie and Clyde.”

I dutifully followed those instructions until sometime in the 1980s, when the logic began to unravel. If I met a woman on the street, I would never greet her using her husband’s first name. Why should an envelope do so?

By the 1990s, another problem was impossible to ignore: The old rules did not comfortably account for women who were divorced, widowed or never married. “Ms.” offered a simple solution by avoiding assumptions about marital status. Eventually, even that formality could give way to writing a woman’s name without any title at all.

The debate has not entirely disappeared. The controversy over whether Jill Biden should use “Dr.”—a title she earned—showed that society still argues about how women are addressed.

On this point, modern practice wins. A woman’s own name and earned title tell us who she is far better than her husband’s identity ever could.