Tokyo: After nearly fifty years of persevering with a life under her husband's surname, 75-year-old Kyoko Tsukamoto is taking the Japanese government to court so that she can at least bear her own name when she dies.
"My husband and I still love each other, but this and the issue of Tsukamoto are different," she said.
The former teacher uses her maiden name, but due to Japanese civil law requirements she had to take her husband's name when she married to make the union legal.
But debate over the surname issue, long a sore point with some women, has heated up as more women stay in jobs after marriage and juggle two names -- their maiden name at work and their registered name on legal documents.
"I thought that I would get used to my husband's name, but I could not, and a sense of loss grew inside me," Tsukamoto said.
"Now I am 75 and I was shocked to realise that I can't do things anymore that I used to be able to do last year. That's when I thought that I am Kyoko Tsukamoto and I want to die as Kyoko Tsukamoto."
Tsukamoto is one of five people planning to file a lawsuit against the government and local authorities as early as February, saying the civil code that requires married couples to register under the same surname violates equal rights among married couples, as well as personal rights.
Men are allowed to take their spouses' name, but it is rare.
The group will seek compensation for what it says is the legislature's failure to enact change, the first such case to be debated in open court in Japan, the only country in the Group of Eight major industrialised nations with such a surname rule.
Hopes grew that the government would submit a bill to amend the civil code after the Democratic Party of Japan, which has advocated letting married couples keep separate names if they wish, took power in 2009. But opposition from a coalition ally caused the plan to stall.
"There were expectations that it could be enacted but unfortunately this did not take place. They do not want to wait any longer," said Fujiko Sakakibara, lead lawyer for the group.
TRADITIONAL FAMILY
The rule is tied to Japan's traditional concept of the family, which in the past ensured that property, businesses, and surnames were passed on to men within the family unit.
Some say it is outdated. In certain cases, couples repeat marriages and divorces between each other to avoid having to register their children as out of wedlock births, partly because the civil code limits inheritance rights for such children.
Tsukamoto, with her husband since 1960, is going through her second marriage with him after divorcing once in 1965 to get her maiden name back. They re-married when they had their third child but her husband has rejected requests for a second divorce.
Those against change say it's a matter of family unity and are wary of the impact on children's identities. They also warn of a possible increase in divorce.
Tsukamoto began studying women's issues at the age of 63, after she was freed of duties to nurse her parents. She has since taken up an activist's role.
"Others were getting by well in society and I have thought that perhaps I was stupid to insist on this ... Now things are changing in a good direction, unimaginable in 1960," she said.
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