Opposition party pushing divided LDP over separate surnames in Japan
The largest opposition party is seeking to push forward a legal revision to enable married couples to have separate surnames by urging some members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to join hands with it.
The development comes as a deep divide surfaced within the LDP led by Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga as to whether to introduce such an alternative to a single surname per couple.
Yukio Edano, head of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, plans to call for adopting a revision to the Civil Code, which opposition forces submitted in 2018 to introduce separate surnames, in the regular parliamentary session starting later this month.
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Under current laws, a couple must choose between either of their surnames upon marriage. While the rule is applicable to either, as it is women who change their surnames in more than 90% of the cases, it has been criticized as discriminatory.
Suga was supportive of the change long before becoming prime minister, and he even suggested in a Diet session in November that he remains committed to introducing the option.
But in an interview broadcasted live online the following month, Suga called for "taking things slowly" in light of a rift within his party that surfaced in compiling the government's basic gender equality promotion policy for the next five years.
"It became quite a debate within the party," he admitted in the program, adding he hopes people don't get "too emotional" over the topic."
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/01/04/national/opposition-ldp-separate-surnames/
Wife and I use separate last names. I'm American and she's half-Korean, half-Japanese
They made no fuss when we registered using separate family names, partially because our passports reflect that. In Korea it's common for both to keep their own family name
Our daughters all use Japanese last names (all still in school).