South Africa Allows Husbands To Take Wives’ Surnames: Why Religious Leaders Are Outraged
The Constitutional Court in South Africa decided last month that husbands can adopt their wives’ surnames in the same way wives assume their husbands’ surnames upon getting married, ruling that until now the law discriminated against men.
While it is being celebrated as a progressive decision by some, the Sept. 11 ruling has outraged many across South Africa and throughout the continent — with some religious and traditional leaders saying this is an assault on the institution of marriage and family as God instituted them.
The apex court’s ruling is a result of a challenge by Henry van der Merwe, who was denied the right to take the surname of his wife Jana Jordaan; and Andreas Nicolas Bornman, who could not hyphenate his surname to include Donnelly, the surname of his wife, Jess Donnelly-Bornman.
While the two litigants are happy with the court’s decision, many Africans across religions find it unpalatable. The ruling comes when South Africans were recently outraged by the debate about the possibility of including polyandry in their Marriage Act, to counter-balance polygamy, which is allowed in the same Act.
Noting that this decision would always be optional, some cultural and religious leaders said it has the potential to disrupt cultural and religious values and confuse future generations, with some dismissing it as ‘un-African, ‘laughable’ and ‘destructive.”
Since most African marriages involve the payment of lobola (bride price) by the bridegroom to the wife’s family, a practice that is both cultural and biblical, the analysts expressed concern that this could complicate future marriages as to who would pay the lobola. They also pointed out that since Muslims, many African Christian churches and some African traditional religions allow polygamous marriages, the possibility of husbands taking up their wives’ surnames would result in real confusion.
“Think of a polygamous family — whose surname will be used in the homestead?” Prof. Gugu Mazibuko, a cultural expert from the University of Johannesburg, wondered.
“Is it the first wife’s? Or if the first wife uses the husband’s surname, but the second wife insists he use hers - then what happens? It creates problems,” explained Mazibuko, who was critical of the lack of consultation in the decision-making process involving a matter that can affect many Africans.
South Africa, Africa’s largest economy, is home to millions of other Africans from across the continent who are attracted by better economic prospects. There are also concerns that foreigners would easily disguise themselves by marrying South African women and assuming their surnames.
“It is an abomination to God for a man to take his wife’s surname,” Rev. Trevor Itumeleng Molefe, the founder and senior pastor of Mercy Seat Family Fellowship in Villa Liza, a township in the Boksburg area of Gauteng in South Africa, told Religion Unplugged. “It violates biblical, spiritual, and family principles and will cause confusion to the next generation.”
Molefe explained that in his tradition, women take the men’s surnames because Eve came from Adam and not the other way around.
“The woman was made for the man, and that is why the woman takes the surname of the man,” he added. “The man is the head of the woman and the head of the family. A family is known by the man’s surname.”
However, Bishop Josiah Mashashane, the president of the South African National Christian Forum said the forum is not very much concerned with the latest ruling, which he said is largely more of a cultural attack than a religious one.
“The Bible does not explicitly command a wife to change her surname to her husband's surname, since the Bible was written before the widespread use of surnames,” Mashashane told Religion Unplugged.
“The tradition of married woman changing their maiden surname to their spousal surname is a cultural and historical convention, not a religious one, though some may interpret it as aligning with principles of headship or submission within a marriage,” he said.
Mashashane said the Christian sector is not confused or moved by this judgment since its position is, while not strictly equal in all functions, men and women are seen as complementary, designed by God to work together in marriage and in fulfilling the dominion mandate to rule over creation.
“Both are to be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the earth, indicating a shared, though differentiated, role in procreation and the fulfillment of God's commission,” he said. “The instructions for submission in the Bible were given to address cultural norms and order in the Christian families, rather than to suggest inherent inferiority. There’s no confusion in the body of Christ, Ephesians 5:23 states that the husband is the head of the wife, similar to how Christ is the head of the church, and verse 22 of the same book instructs wives to submit to their husbands, while husbands are to love their wives just as Christ loved his church and gave his life for it.”
A threat to God’s order?
While Mashashane appears to be taking the matter lightly, it is not so with Molefe, who insists that the matter is equally important to Christians as it is to African traditionalists.
“A husband cannot take his wife’s surname,” Molefe said. “Not now, not ever. It will strip him off his authority, headship and pride.”
He said a man taking a woman’s surname would overturn God’s design to mean the woman is the head and the man was made for the woman, and in an African contex,t it will also mean the woman should pay lobola for the man.
“Historically, surnames came as a result of population growth, and they were/are the names of the fathers or grandfathers in a family,” Molefe said. “When talking about lineage, it is paternal and is along the man’s surname. In today’s context, if David were to introduce himself to Saul and would have used his mother’s name/surname, King Saul would not have understood who David’s really was. Confusion, confusion, confusion.”
Prince Mutandi, the secretary for education at the Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers’ Association, told Religion Unplugged that although things could be changing due to increasing cultural diversity, it is not an African cultural practice for men to assume their in-laws’ family names.
“It’s a taboo … something not common in our African traditional religion,” Mutandi said. “It destroys lineage of the family and ancestral belief system to norms and values.”
The court gave the South African parliament 24 months to amend the Births and Deaths Registration Act (Act 51 of 1992) and implement its ruling. If effected, the decision makes South Africa one of the few countries in the modern world where a husband can legally assume his wife’s family name.
While the practice takes place informally in Canada, it was once prevalent in early modern Scotland, where it was sometimes customary for men to take their wives’ surnames, especially when the wife was an heiress, and it was considered unusual for a wife to adopt her husband's surname on marriage.
A spokesperson for the Muslim Judicial Council in South Africa, Prof. Muneer Abduroaf, told Religion Unplugged that as far as their community is concerned, the ruling has no bearing on them because there is nothing in the Islamic traditions to indicate that a woman should take her husband’s name or vice versa.
“The wife doesn’t change her identity upon marriage, but continues to use her father’s name,” Abduroaf said. “The idea of changing surnames upon marriage is something that is foreign to Islamic law; it’s something that is western and that is not approved of in Islam.”
Cyril Zenda is a journalist based in Harare, Zimbabwe.