They are not married and, thankfully, that's not possible anymore to change names after marriage in Quebec since 1999.
How did they stop that?
It's in fact in 1981, not 1999.
It was during a reform of family law, which gave married women the right to own property(!), among other things. Before the reform, you were taking automatically the name of your husband unless you filled special forms (let's note than in Canada, provinces take care of vital records, including names). They removed that during the reform because they thought it was violating gender equality and violating the principe than names shouldn't change without a good reason, to simplify things for everyone. It wasn't retroactive, through. Some women still decided to do so after that, but it wasn't recognized by any administration and you couldn't get any service under that name. It's pretty much dead, now.
Did the Anglos put up a fuss? Around here not changing your name is seen as a "French thing" to do.
Wait, Maxque, are you saying married women couldn't own property in Quebec until 1981??
Women were waving most of their rights on marriage, then. Well, they could own property, but they needed the authorization of their husband. Under law, a married woman had the same legal relationship to her husband than kids. They had some rights since 1964, but they were still considered inferior to their husband and couldn't do much without the authorization of the husband. It was because the husband was the one with the rights to manage family assets. The wife only had an "advising" role (since 1964).
Ironically, it crippled marriage popularity in the 70's and Quebec never went over it. It's one of the place in the world with the most non-married couples, reaching 50% in some regions of Quebec.
Note than Quebec was pretty much a theocracy until 1960.
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