South Africa’s Constitutional Court has ruled that men can legally adopt their wives’ surnames, overturning a colonial-era law that had prohibited the practice.
The court deemed the restriction discriminatory and out of step with the country’s post-apartheid commitment to gender equality.
The landmark ruling came after two couples challenged the law, which falls under the Births and Deaths Registration Act.
The court declared the statute outdated and biased against men, paving the way for its amendment by Parliament.
One of the petitioners, Henry van der Merwe, had been denied the right to take the surname of his wife, Jana Jordaan, while another, Andreas Nicolas Bornman, was blocked from hyphenating his surname to include that of his wife, Jess Donnelly-Bornman, according to South Africa’s public broadcaster, SABC.
In its ruling, the court traced the law’s origins to South Africa’s white-minority rule, explaining that the naming convention—whereby a wife assumes her husband’s surname—was rooted in Roman-Dutch law and colonial legislation.
“The custom that a wife takes her husband’s surname was introduced through Roman-Dutch law and colonial legislation,” the judgment stated, noting that these norms disrupted indigenous African naming traditions.
The court also acknowledged that many African cultures traditionally allowed women to retain their maiden names after marriage, with children often bearing their mother’s clan names. These practices, the court said, were replaced by Western conventions imposed during colonization and missionary activity.
The couples who brought the case had already secured a win in a lower court and turned to the Constitutional Court for final confirmation. They argued that the legislation was patriarchal and archaic, and infringed upon equality rights enshrined in the South African Constitution.
Neither Minister of Home Affairs Leon Schreiber nor Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Mamoloko Kubayi opposed the challenge, acknowledging that the law no longer reflected modern constitutional values.
The Free State Society of Advocates, which supported the applicants, argued that preventing men from adopting their wives’ surnames reinforced outdated gender stereotypes and denied men the same choices afforded to women, according to The Sowetan.
With the ruling now in place, Parliament is expected to amend the Births and Deaths Registration Act and related regulations to bring them in line with the court’s decision.
