In a landmark judgment, South Africa’s Constitutional Court has ruled that men can now take their wives’ surnames without needing government approval. This move puts men and women on the same legal ground when it comes to marriage and family identity.
Before now, the law gave women the automatic right to adopt their husband’s surname after marriage, divorce, or widowhood, but men had to go through a stressful approval process. The court described this as unfair gender discrimination, stressing that true equality means both partners should have the same choice.
According to reports from SABC, the judges made it clear that blocking men from taking their wives’ names was a way of reinforcing patriarchal norms. They noted that the law also limited women’s right to have their surnames recognized as family names if their husbands chose to adopt them.
The case was brought forward by two couples — Jana Jordaan and Henry Van Der Merwe, and Jess Donnelly-Bornman with Andreas Nicolas Bornman. Both men had previously been denied permission: Van Der Merwe couldn’t take his wife’s surname, while Bornman was stopped from hyphenating his with hers. Even though the High Court first ruled in their favor, the Constitutional Court confirmation was needed for the decision to cover the whole country.
This ruling is being hailed as a huge win for gender equality in South Africa. Rights groups and legal analysts say it breaks down yet another barrier of systemic bias in the law. Couples are now free to decide how they want their family name to look — without unnecessary government interference.
