A YOUNG professional wants to marry the father of her two children. But if she does, one of them would have to take the other’s surname. Japanese law requires married couples to share a family name. That would lead to confusion: they have almost the same first name and work for the same organisation.
Theirs is a rare case. But there are plenty of practical reasons, let alone ones of principle, why people might not want to change their names. Married female employees are often allowed to use their maiden names at work. But the bureaucracy, which has long enforced the law for official documents (for the names both of employees issuing them and of ordinary citizens mentioned in them), is only just beginning to be more flexible.
Female judges have recently been allowed to sign rulings using either their maiden name or their married one. For certain tasks, the patent office is giving workers a choice too. From next year the government will allow people to use their preferred name...Continue reading
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