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New amendment requires mothers' OK for surnames

An amendment to the Civil Law (民法) prevents fathers from passing down their surnames to offspring without mothers' permission, Ministry of the Interior spokeswoman Cheng Bao-chu (鄭寶珠) said.

The new law applies to couples where one spouse is not Taiwanese, as well as to native Taiwanese couples, she said.

In effect

In effect since last month, the amendment puts an end to any remaining legal basis for the age-old tradition of automatically giving newborns the surnames of their fathers.

The new law requires both parents to sign an agreement on what surname their newborn baby will have before visiting household registration offices to register their baby's legal name.

Before the amendment, a mother could only pass on her surname to offspring under special circumstances, such as not having any brothers who share her surname, civil affairs authorities said.

Hordes of parents

The new amendment has led to hordes of parents, unaware that they were required to submit a formal agreement on their infants' surnames, making wasted trips to the household registration offices only to be informed that they must have the agreement.

One in four babies

One in four babies in Taiwan is born into a "cross-border" family, which typically consists of a local man and his Southeast Asian immigrant spouse.

"It doesn't matter if the parents are both Taiwanese or if one is a foreigner," Cheng said.

"All parents of newborn babies are required to submit an official agreement on their baby's surname," she said.

Growing number

Faced with a growing number of parents ignorant of the new requirement, civil affairs authorities have turned to health authorities to distribute surname agreement forms to couples in maternity wards.

Other forms are downloadable free of charge on city and county-level civil affairs departments' Web sites.

There is no official format for such an agreement.

Unable to agree

If parents are unable to come to an agreement on their child's surname, the interior ministry said that local household registration offices are authorized to hold a name drawing.

If the parents fail to attend the drawing, a household registration officer will conduct the drawing and register the chosen name in their stead.
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