Embrace the men who have taken their wives’ surnames

It will not be long before men taking their wives’ surnames to emerge as anew normal

- NKOSIKHULULE NYEMBEZI

WHAT is in a surname? That is a dominating question now that men can now assume their wives’ surnames after the Constitutional Court ruled on September 11 that section 26(1) of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act and regulation 18(2)(a) are unfair as the law fails to afford men the right to assume their wives’ surname and unconstitutional as it unfairly discriminates based on gender in a manner that negatively affected both men and women.

In the case of men, they are deprived of the ability to take their wives’ surnames if they so wish. “In the case of women, the effects of this scheme are far more insidious. It is not merely so that they are deprived of the right to have their surnames serve as the family surname where their husbands wish to take that surname. It also 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,” the ruling stated.

The court found that this limitation of equality cannot be sustained under section 36 of the Constitution and declared the law and regulation were unconstitutional and gave the President, the Cabinet, and Parliament 24 months to either amend the law or pass a new law to ensure that males are afforded the right to assume another surname.