South Africa’s Constitutional Court rules that men can take wife’s surname

South Africa’s highest court has ruled that husbands can take the surname of their wives, overturning a law that barred them from doing so.

In a victory for two couples who brought the case, the Constitutional Court ruled that the law amounted to gender-based discrimination.

Henry van der Merwe was denied the right to take the surname of his wife Jana Jordaan, while Andreas Nicolas Bornman could not hyphenate his surname to include Donnelly, the surname of his wife, Jess Donnelly-Bornman, reports the public broadcaster, SABC.

Parliament will now have to amend the Births and Deaths Registration Act, along with its regulations, for the ruling to take effect.

The two couples had argued that the law was archaic and patriarchal, and violated equality rights enshrined in the constitution that South Africa adopted at the end of white-minority rule.

They successfully challenged the law in a lower court, the High Court, but asked the Constitutional Court to confirm its ruling.

A legal body, The Free State Society of Advocates, joined the court case in support of the two couples.

It argued that by restricting a man’s right to assume their wife’s surname, the law perpetuated harmful stereotypes, as it denied men a choice available to women, the Sowetan news site reports.