The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-11-24

London, November 24-We women cer- tainly get hold of queer ideas nowadays. don't know whether it is the result of war conditions and the consequent broadening of the ideas as well as the shoulders of the female citizens of the world, but certainly some of the "agita- tions" of the gentle sex in Great Brit ain rare passing strange to those of us who still have a remnant of old-fashioned idealism left to them. In an important newspaper this week the following let ter has appeared, and it seems sufficient ly interesting to quote in full It runs as follows:
 Sir: Now that women are emerging from their chysalis stage and preenine their wings preparatory to flight into freer atmosphere, why should they be bound to take the name of the man they marry, any more than he should take theirs?
 Surely the affix of Mrs to the maid en name should be sufficient.
 Let the married woman of the future retain her own name
 HELENE GINGoLD."
 VI course, the reasoning ability of this ielter IS somewhat handicapped owing to the fact that the writer, although sienino herself Helene Gingold'' is actually and legally Mrs Lawrence Cowan. She has, however, never made use of her married name put has preferred to be known as
 the Baroness Helene Gingold."
 am told that she has always refused to drop her maiden name and the title that was, 1t is understood, inherited from her father. She has for years been known as an extremist in the matter Of female suffrage and woman's rights gen ig ole seems to me, fervent follower in the footsteps of Ella Wheeler Wilcox and has written Poems of Passion" that would test the powers of an asbestos lining to their binding. The Baroness delene IS also playwright, an actress, both. on the stage and for the movies, , and has pretensions to politics. Wheth- CT, she will ever succeed in representing a constituency in Parliament remains to be seen, but I fancy that should she continue her present advocacy of women refusing to use the names bestowed upon them by their husbands she will not achieve complete popularity either in poli- tics or in the domestic world
 In England there are many women who have not taken unto themselves the use of the surname of their living husbands. The late Lily, Duchess of Marlborough, was case in point. Although after the death of the duke she married Lord Will liam Beresford, she continued to be called by her ducal title" The Countess Of Strafford who was Mrs. Sam Colgate of New York. is another example of this state of affairs. After Lord Strafford s death she married again but she is still know as Lady Strafford." The ever- green Lady Randolph Churchill has also clung to her first husbands title, al- though for short time after her mar riage to Mir, now Captain, George Churchill West, she dropped her title. But now that she has taken unto her self a third husband (Mr. Montague Porch) she has once more reverted to the old familiar name and as Lady Ran dolph' is still a power in the land.
 The only well known woman of title that Lean recall at the moment as hav- ing abandoned the handle" to her name presented to her on marriage is the, charming lady once known as the March, ioness of Anglesey who, after the an nulment of her marriage to the mar quise (who subsequently, died) married Capt. Hugh Gilliatt. She at once made it known that she wished to be called Mrs. Gilliatt and had no desire to wear coronet that no longer was hers. Now that come to think of 1t also, the first Countess Rosslyn who was divorced from the earl and married a commoner. MT. Thomas Jarratt, preferred to become Mrs" although l believe she could have retained her title if she had desired to do so. Her husband, by the way, was the Earl of Rosslyn, (brother to the Duchess of Sutherland) who married pretty American girl Anna Robinson, who died a few years ago under such miserable circumstances in New York.