South Africa's highest court has ruled that men may assume their wives’ surnames in a verdict hailed as placing men and women in an equal legal footing in marriage.
The Constitutional Court declared as unconstitutional a section of the Births and Deaths Registration Act that required men to first apply to the authorities for any change of name, whereas women enjoyed automatic rights to change their surnames after marriage, divorce or widowhood.
In its verdict on Thursday, the court found that this amounted to unfair gender discrimination because it failed to provide men with the same automatic rights, pubic broadcaster SABC reports.
"The court found that the inability of men to assume their wives surnames constitutes differentiation,” the court said in a post on social media.
Refused permission
The case was brought before the court by two couples - Jana Jordaan and Henry Van Der Merwe, and Jess Donnelly-Bornman and Andreas Nicolas Bornman.
Van Der Merwe said he was denied the ability to take his wife’s surname, while Bornman said he was refused permission to hyphenate his surname with his wife’s name.
They had successfully challenged the said section in a High Court, but still needed the constitutional invalidity to be confirmed by the apex court in order for it to take effect, SABC reports.
The constitutional court said the section deprived women of their “right to have their surnames serve as family names where their husbands wish to take that surname”.
"It reinforces patriarchal gender norms, which prescribe how women may express their identity, and it makes this expression relational to their husband, as a governmental and cultural default,” it said.
