Five people in Japan are reportedly preparing an unprecedented legal challenge against the Japanese government. Why? They claim that a civil law forcing them to choose a single surname after marriage violates their constitutional rights. If they succeed, married men and women in Japan will for the first time be able to retain their own surnames, removing one of Japan’s few remaining legal obstacles to gender equality.

In the vast majority of cases in Japan, women are required to relinquish their maiden name after marriage, although a small number of men take their wife’s maiden name as their new surname. Critics, however, say the time has come to modernise the law surrounding marital surnames in Japan – the only G8 nation with laws governing such matters.

The five challengers of the law argue that the law’s requirement that a single surname be chosen contradicts articles of Japan’s constitution guaranteeing individual liberty and equal rights to husband and wife. The five are also seeking 1m Japanese Yen each in compensation …

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