Interesting legal ruling and a surname annoyance

[Nosnogginginthekitchen]

So i found the following article, whereby a judge has decreed the woman be awarded some financial benefit for supporting her husband as he completed two degrees, which allowed him to further his career (he obvs waited till he'd completed these before deciding to divorce her). So far, so fair really.

The reporting, however, annoys me. Throughout the article he is referred to by their surname, whlst the journalist uses her given name. Considering they share the same surname, should it not be Mr X and Mrs X or use the given names for both of them. For some reason this has really ticked me off and I can't quite articulate why.

Probably doesn't help that I feel 'stuck with' my STBX's surname, having built up a career with it and not wanting a different name to my children. I wish I had been as feminist when I got married as I am now and either kept or hyphenated my surname.

Anyway.
article here

It is like he owns and inhabits the surname, whereas she does not. Yet the writer calls her Mrs Temesa at one point and even manages to call them Chimwemwe Temesa and Ellen Temesa when introducing them. Should have stuck with those names throughout the article.

Of course. It's patronising to her. He is addressed formally and she is addressed informally. There's a well-known phenomenon of interviewers calling men by their titles ("thank you Dr Smith and Dr Miller for joining us") but addressing women with the same qualification and status by their first name ("and thank you Susan").

Oh, I've just seen that he is referred to not as Mr Surname, but just Surname. Apologies for not reading more closely.

I actually dislike this practice too, not for any reason related to feminism, but because it feels degrading to be referred to just by your surname. I think the more old-fashioned convention was never to refer to a woman in this way, but to say Miss Surname or Mrs Surname (so you'd have a newspaper report referring to Smith and his wife Mrs Smith). However, I'm not sure what stylistic considerations were supposed to govern whether a writer drops a man's title or not. I'm sure there are all sorts of historical patterns of usage that made sense in various times and places, which have ended up jumbled together out of context and codified in various style guides.

Nowadays you also see women referred to as "Smith" in reports, and I hate that even more. To me it feels like levelling down instead of levelling up.

I got a new surname when I married but only because I preferred it, if I hadn't preferred, I would have kept my old one and that was years ago.