Social pressure deters mothers from using their legal right to pass on their surnames, women’s rights campaigners said yesterday, adding that the number of children taking their mother’s surname remains minimal.
“Many mothers who give birth to girls are pressured into having more children, as only boys can carry on the family name, but if girls could pass on their surnames, it would not be absolutely necessary to have a son,” said Kaohsiung Awakening Association president Peng Yen-wen (彭渰雯), a professor of public affairs management at National Sun Yat-sen University.
The number of children being given their mother’s surname has increased only marginally over the past few years, Peng said.
Before 2007, children could be given their mother’s family name only if the mother did not have any brothers or if their father had taken his wife’s surname after being adopted into her family, Peng said.
Despite legal changes, the percentage of children being given their mother’s surname increased from 1.66 percent in 2010 to 1.85 percent last year, the Awakening Foundation’s legal department director Chin Chi-fang (秦季芳) said.
“Reaching an agreement gives the impression that both sides are equal, but they are often not as equal as we imagine and both sides face pressure from family elders and society,” she said. ”People think that having your mother’s surname is rare and special, ignoring that mothers and fathers should have equal standing.”
Peng said that when births out of wedlock and drawing of lots are taken into account, the number of children taking their mother’s surname rises to more than 4 percent. Drawing lots to determine whether a child takes the surname of their mother or father is required in cases where the husband has disappeared, she said.
“People are often curious why more than three-quarters of drawing lots result in children taking their mother’s surname — the main reason is that when mothers draw the father’s surname, they often decide not to register and instead come back the next day,” she said.
Amendments made to the Civil Code in 2010 that allow filing suits to change minors’ surnames when it would prove beneficial to the child have been more successful, increasing the rate of success from 65.4 percent in 2010 to 85.6 percent last year, Kaohsiung Awakening Association executive-secretary Wu Yi-fei (吳宜霏) said, adding that legal bias in favor of maintaining the father’s surname continues.
“Because of people’s belief in traditional patrilineality, the assumption is that the father’s surname is better for the child, so you have to present specific evidence to judges to convince them to allow for a surname change,” she said, adding that a change is typically only allowed for divorced mothers with full custody of their children.
Divorced mothers are often deterred from applying to change their children’s surname due to possible disputes over alimony, in case the father refuses to pay on the grounds that the child is no longer “like family,” she said.
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