Femi Ashekun/
South Africa’s Constitutional Court has struck down a decades-old law that prevented men from taking their wives’ surnames, calling it discriminatory and a relic of colonial rule.
The ruling came after two couples challenged the Births and Deaths Registration Act, arguing that it entrenched patriarchal norms and violated constitutional rights to equality.
According to the BBC, the court found that the law amounted to gender-based discrimination and ordered parliament to amend the legislation and its regulations to reflect the judgment.
The case was sparked when Henry van der Merwe was barred from taking the surname of his wife, Jana Jordaan, while Andreas Nicolas Bornman was prevented from hyphenating his surname with that of his wife, Jess Donnelly-Bornman.
Both couples first succeeded in a lower court before the matter was escalated for confirmation by the Constitutional Court.
In its decision, the court noted that in many African cultures, women traditionally kept their birth names after marriage and children often took their mother’s clan name, but this practice was eroded with the arrival of European colonisers, missionaries, and the imposition of Western values.
The judges described the restriction as a colonial import rooted in Roman-Dutch law.
Neither the Minister of Home Affairs, Leon Schreiber, nor the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, Mamoloko Kubayi, opposed the couples’ application.
The Free State Society of Advocates also supported the case, stressing that the law unfairly denied men a choice available to women and perpetuated harmful stereotypes.
The judgment is seen as another milestone in South Africa’s efforts to advance gender equality since the adoption of its democratic constitution in 1994.
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