New Yorkers Michael Sirlag and Alexander Paulsson each (unwittingly) made a little dent in the patriarchy last Sunday. It was not because both men married women and both marriages were covered in the February 19 New York times Style Section – nothing new about that. No, the news is this: Although there is nothing to indicate that the couples knew each other, the reports of both their (straight) marriages contained a phrase seldom seen in the Times wedding section: “The bridegroom will be taking the bride’s name.”

As a regular reader of the Times wedding reports, these words jumped out at me. A quick Google search showed that the phrase “the bridegroom is taking the bride's name” was included in a NYT wedding report only once before – in a May 2010 piece on the wedding of Anna Toivola da Camara Leme and Jorge Perestrelo Lobo de Mesquita from Portugal. Other than that – nothing. But for (straight) women – the New York Times always reports on their post-wedding names.

The Times assumes that married men won’t change their names, and only includes post-wedding name information for men when – in the Times’ view – it is something that is unusual. In Mr. Sirlag’s case, the Times even went so far as to include information about the reason for the unusual naming decision. (She was closer to her family than he was to his!)

The only wedding reports last Sunday that included information about the post-married man’s name were the two outliers – Paulsson and Sirlag. Even the piece on the wedding of Brian Winfield and Kim Byrd, two men who married each other this past Saturday, had no mention of their post-wedding name plans.

But for the women – the New York Times always reports on their post-wedding names. Sunday’s paper (with no lesbian weddings reported) saw all the standard phrases: “The bride will be keeping her name” or “The bride will continue to use her name professionally,” or, most common “the bride will be taking her husband’s name.”

The Times does seem to have a “name-neutral” policy for gay weddings. When Susan Galereave and Kiki Zeldes’ wedding was reported on January 1, there was no post-marriage naming information. Same with Beth Sapery and Rosita Sarnoff’s wedding report last December. And a quick check of reports on newly married gay men (which, in the Times, seem to out-number reports on lesbian weddings by at least ten to one) show no naming information.

ABC News reported in late 2011, based on a study of the The New York Times wedding announcements from 1971 to 2005, that only about 18 percent of brides kept their own names, while only 1 percent did so in the 1980s.

Sure enough, when I got married in the 1980’s, I had to explain to my hometown Massachusetts paper (and my in-laws) that not every woman changed her name, and I would be one of the non-changers. In those days, you’d never see a reference in the New York Times to a woman keeping her name – for professional reasons or otherwise. Back then the Times never even mentioned what would happen to the woman’s name because it was assumed she would change it. Some time in the ‘90’s that policy changed and now we have the detail of a (straight) woman’s post-marriage name.

It’s time for another change.

People should be able to marry whomever they want and take whatever name they want after their weddings. The New York Times shouldn’t make assumptions about anyone’s names. Now that it is 2012, and the long-awaited era of gay marriage has finally arrived, it is a perfect opportunity for the Times to change the rules again:

The New York Times should either stop reporting on the post-married names of women, or include the same information for men.

Lainey Feingold is a disability rights lawyer in Berkeley California.