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Japan's Marital System Reform: The Fūfubessei Movement for Individual Rights
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
Abstract
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This article spotlights a push for human rights amongst Japanese women and men supporting a marital law revision that will allow spouses to maintain their individual surnames. While proponents of the reform comprise a variety of genders, ages, marital status, value systems, and reasons for supporting the reform, they have all experienced, witnessed or contemplated inequity in society – experiences that have shaped their perspectives on the importance of the individual self and life choices, that have prompted their dissatisfaction with marriage laws, social practices, and norms. The fūfubessei movement, which has been considered as a gender-equality movement, should be viewed from the perspective that individuals have the right to make their own decisions about their lives, including their choice of surname.
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.- Copyright
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