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DEAR MISS MANNERS: Why is it considered rude to ask an adult his or her age?

It's a fact of life, just one aspect of a whole person, and it's not like keeping it a secret is going to prevent the onset of old age.

GENTLE READER: The sad answer is that our society considers growing older to be a misfortune, if not a personal failing.

People, especially ladies, often go to great lengths to conceal their age, and it is deemed rude to inquire about, or even to defer to, age. On the contrary, flatterers think it charming to pretend to mistake maturity for youth.

Age is a fair precedence system to use, as the one based on gender is fading. Yet often the very people who would benefit from it are offended by any such courtesies.

Miss Manners agrees with you about how ridiculous and even psychologically damaging that is. Nevertheless, you would cause offense by ignoring that convention.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I'm terribly old-fashioned and judgmental, but if you have been living together and have offspring together, why should you expect a big wedding?

GENTLE READER: You probably miss the old days, when people would speculate about whether a bride was "entitled" to wear a white wedding dress.

Miss Manners does not. The premise, which had to do with a part of the bridal body inside the dress, was vulgar then, just as it would be vulgar now to decree who does and who does not deserve a big wedding.

But this does suggest an interesting question: Why do couples even want big, expensive weddings, when the events no longer mark important changes in their lives?

Time was, weddings changed things dramatically. The newlyweds took up residence together. The bride changed her surname. Any children they had would be recognized by the law.

Now, one can no longer assume that life is any different for bridal couples after the wedding than it was before. They already live together. She may not change her name. They may already have children.

And yet weddings are bigger and splashier than ever.

Miss Manners attributes this, in part, to the almost mandatory casualness of today's lifestyles. Weddings may be the only occasions when adults can experience the stylistic lavishness they ogle when watching awards shows.

For once relieved of the general requirement of condemning formality as elitist, they discover that dressing up is actually fun. But they have to cram it all into one occasion, which explains why brides have taken to scheduling dress changes during the course of the day.

Another influence of awards shows is the chance to experience stardom. Modern weddings are less about the couple entering into civic and often religious traditions than about crafting biographic epics about themselves.

But perhaps the biggest reason is the opposite of what Miss Manners had thought. Perhaps it is exactly because there are not such changes in their everyday lives that a major occasion is required to celebrate and to make public the fact that there actually is a difference between being married and not.

What Miss Manners fails to understand is why anyone would begrudge them that.

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(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, gentlereader@missmanners.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

Copyright 2026 Judith Martin

COPYRIGHT 2026 JUDITH MARTIN