Calls Grow To Change Japanese Law On Married Surnames

Julia Bottoms

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Calls have been made to change an antiquated law requiring Japanese spouses to adopt the same surname once married.

Whilst couples have the choice of which surname to choose, 95 per cent of the time the woman takes the husband’s name and forgoes her maiden name. 

As the only country in the world that requires this by law, Japan is now facing calls to revisit proposals drawn up by a government panel 30 years ago.

Such proposals involve changes to civil code initially established in 1896 during the Meiji era (1896-1912), a period overseeing the transition between Japan’s feudal system into an industrial nation-state.

Current Japanese Law On Married Surnames

Under current law, married Japanese women who change to their husband’s surname must go through the lengthy process of updating personal documents such as passports, ID cards, driving licences and residential licences.

The law permits only one name to be listed for a married couple on the individual’s family register sheet (Koseki). Women who want to continue using their maiden name in professional contexts are therefore required to explicitly explain this to their employers.

Machiko Osawa, a professor at Japan Women’s University, explained: “For [women] who have established themselves as professionals, being forced to change their name is a denial of what they have accomplished. It sows confusion and subordinates them to men.” 

Japan’s Gender Gap

Japan’s lack of progress towards gender equality has been acknowledged on the global stage. Currently, Japan is ranked 125th out of 146 countries in the 2023 Global Gender Gap Report (GGGP), dropping nine places from 116th in 2022. 

Japan’s long-accepted legislative frameworks conserve the “traditional family values” of the ruling Liberal Democratic party.

Blogger Yosuke Yano explained: “In Japan, those who advocate the use of separate surnames have a strong reputation for being ‘selfish individuals’.

“Conservative and traditionalist opposition to modifying the law argue that allowing women to retain their maiden name would ‘undermine the family unit’ and ‘confuse children’.”

David Chapman, Associate Professor in Japanese Studies at the University of Queensland, writes in The Asia-Pacific Journal: “This Family Registration Law remains the foundation upon which other structures are based and still has primacy in defining legal status as a national of Japan.”

The law simultaneously functions to disable legal recognition of Japanese nationals with relations that fall outside of heteronormative or nuclear familial structures.

Hope For Change

Slowly, Japanese women have been starting to use their maiden names socially and in the workplace.

In December 2015, the Japanese Supreme Court upheld the spousal name law after five women filed a lawsuit claiming that the law violates married couples’ civil rights. This caused the plaintiffs to argue that the law effectively amounted to “de facto discrimination against women,” suggesting some legislative acknowledgement of the inequality.

A public opinion poll in 2017 indicated that 43 per cent of the public would support a change to the law that would allow married couples to use their original surnames, an increase of 7 percent from 2012.

Increasing numbers of subversive and alternative family formations in Japan are at the forefront of resistance against state-defined notions of identity and family, led by group initiatives such as the Japan Alliance for LGBT Legislation. 

Recently, The Japanese Business Federation, known as Keidanren, has also expressed that the law is harmful to the nation’s business.

Keidanren chair, Masakazu Tokura, said: “I personally think [change to the policy] should be done. I want it implemented as a top priority to support women’s working styles.”

It is unclear whether this initiative is only being pushed on the basis of business enterprises, or if it signifies a step towards the formal recognition of gender inequality and the historic injustices faced by women in Japan.

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Featured image courtesy of Yoshihidi HANAKI on Flickr. No changes were made to this image. Image license found here.