South Africa’s supreme court issued on Thursday that men should be able to take their wives’ surnames and a law that prevented this, constituted unreasonable gender discrimination.
The Constitutional Court said that the legal ban did not earn any legitimate government purposes and were suspended and paved the way for parliament to adopt changes to the legislation.
While men were deprived of the ability to take their wives’ surnames, the discrimination was “far more insidious” for women, the decision says.
It “strengthens patriarchal gender norms that prescribe how women can express their identity, and it makes this term relational to their husband, as a state and cultural standard,” it said.
The case was brought to the court by two couples, one of whom wanted to honor the woman’s parents who died when she was young.
In the second case, the woman wanted to keep her bond with her family surname when she was an only child.
Previously, men had to apply for the Department of Domestic Affairs to change their last name, a request that was not automatically accommodated.
Provisions that allow men to assume that their wives’ surname of marriage is already in place in other countries, mainly in Europe and in certain US states.
