Gauri BhatiaSeptember 28, 2025 07:17 AM IST First published on: Sep 28, 2025 at 07:17 AM ISTRecently, I came across a fascinating piece of news: a court in South Africa had ruled that men could take their wives’ surnames after marriage, overturning a previous law that banned them from doing so. This was in sharp contrast to what I had read a few years ago: Japan had upheld a 19th century rule that married couples must have the same surname.While one ruling shuns gender-based discrimination and the other upholds an archaic tradition, in most parts of the world, married couples almost always end up using the husband’s surname as their own. In India too, while there is no legal impediment either way, the default is to take on the husband’s surname.AdvertisementI decided to keep my maiden name, rather my birth name — the more politically correct way of saying it — some 30-odd years ago, when I turned into a Mrs. I had informed my Mr — there is no prefix for a man that clarifies his marital status — about my decision. But it was a silent rebellion, I was too scared to openly confront my elders. Nobody in my or my husband’s family had done this before and I was too young at 23 to brazenly defy established norms of behaviour.Luckily, as a journalist, I did find some company in women who fiercely guarded their maiden bylines.Something that struck me early on in my career, as a down-table sub-editor on the sports page of a national daily, was that women sportspersons were always described by their first name on second reference, while we used the last name for the men. I asked my boss, a veteran sports writer, why? He replied that women athletes also change their last names after marriage, hence to avoid any confusion. Cut to today, the tradition continues on most newspaper sports pages.AdvertisementSo embedded in our society is this name-change custom, that any deviation is a huge novelty.Very recently, and not for the first time, while travelling abroad, my husband was asked at the immigration counter why his and my last names were different? I would have loved to have replied, “Officer, because HE refused to change HIS name after marriage.” And I would have enjoyed seeing the reaction. But you generally avoid annoying immigration officials.Routinely, while applying for an election card or opening a bank account, well-meaning officials have on forms substituted my birth name with my husband’s, presuming it was a typo.Last year, when a famous parliamentarian objected to being addressed by her husband’s name, it was reported in the media as a “light-hearted moment” in parliamentary proceedings.The facetiousness with which men and many women — both young and of my generation — have treated the subject has surprised and irritated me. From calling it a non-issue to comments like “I never asked my wife to change her name. It was her choice” have been thrown at me. What choice? To conform?Why do women who don’t want to conform still have to negotiate this with their partners? Why isn’t it a given? Why do young educated women with agency still feel the need to obey?Reasons can range from social conditioning and deep-seated patriarchy to financial insecurity, romanticism to a sense of belonging or even to a hangover of the sentiment widely propagated in Indian films, which is “somebody has to give my child his name”.A childhood friend once said to me, “My to-be husband had such a tantrum when I suggested I should keep my maiden name… that I let it pass.”Since not changing your surname after marriage is so forbidden, news like the court decision in South Africa brings much comfort. Change comes as an act of defiance, one at a time.The writer is a Delhi-based freelance journalist who has worked with major Indian publications for over 25 years.National Editor Shalini Langer curates the fortnightly ‘She Said’ column