Talk:Pattie Menzies

Lady Menzies?

I understand that the wife of a knight is normally Lady <surname>. However, Pattie Menzies was made a Dame in her own right, years before Bob Menzies was ever knighted. I suppose if she wanted to, she could have insisted on being known as "Lady Menzies" after his knighthood, but she never did, and nobody but nobody ever called her "Lady Menzies". That would have been a denial of her own personal honour, in favour of a reflected one and therefore a lesser one. Is there any good reason why we use "Lady Menzies" in the article at all; and more to the point, why she appears, in "Titles and styles from birth", to have lost her Dame title after her husband was knighted? That certainly was not the case. -- JackofOz (talk) 01:05, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

There is no reason what I can see, except that someone has put two and two together and assumed that "Lady Menzies" would be the right title. I agree with your analysis and support the removal of that assumption. Blarneytherinosaur ^gabby? 09:22, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I've made the changes. -- JackofOz (talk) 11:04, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

A similar case is Norma Major, a Dame in her own right but also a Lady by virtue of her husband's knighthood. In both the English & Scottish orders of precedence the wife of a Knight of the Garter or Thistle ranks higher than a Dame of the British Empire so this makes "Lady Major" technically the superior title & style to "Dame Norma Major"; however Major herself prefers to use the title & style she achieved in her own right. I don't know if the Australian order works the other way round. Timrollpickering (talk) 20:05, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Also Dame Agatha Christie, who was the wife of Sir Max Mallowan and thus theoretically "Lady Mallowan", but she never used that surname, ever. I'm not up on the Australian Honours Order of Precedence, but somehow I don't know that that would have been very germane over here. She'd been Dame Pattie since 1954; Australians would generally have regarded a switch to Lady Menzies in 1963 as a kind of demotion, regardless of whatever the Order of Precedence might have said. She never switched, so it's all hypothetical anyway. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:41, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Christie is a different case as Mallowan was only a knight bachelor and the wife of a knight bachelor ranks lower than a Dame in the Order of the British Empire, whereas the wife of a KG or a KT ranks higher. These things are not always logical. Certainly "Lady Menzies" was her highest title she was entitled to from 1963 onwards but if neither she nor anyone else availed herself of that title then it's moot. Timrollpickering (talk) 23:05, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

We're getting into fairly abstruse territory here. Few people would attach any importance to, or even comprehend, the notion that the wife of a Knight of the Garter outranks a Dame in her own right but the wife of a Knight Bachelor doesn't. The wife of a Knight Bachelor is just as much Lady Whoever as the wife of a Knight of the Garter. The title Lady is the equally visible thing about both their names, and in both cases it stems from the man they married, not from any of their own works. Had Dame Pattie Menzies reverted to Lady Menzies when her husband became KT, it would widely have been seen in Australia as a downplaying of her own personal achievements, regardless of whatever the Honours Order of Precedence might have said about the matter. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 11:13, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

External links modified

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20050829132609/http://primeministers.naa.gov.au/meetpm.asp?pmId=12&pageName=wife to http://primeministers.naa.gov.au/meetpm.asp?pmId=12&pageName=wife

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