In Japan, especially if you are female, you are forced to change your surname into your spouse’s one. Recently, more and more people start to feel that is out-of-date.
Actually, I myself have been doubtful about the idea so long- and even had a drastic quarrel between my mother. It was when I was junior high school student. My mother, looking at the news about changing surname, said:
I’m sure almost all mothers in Japan feel bad if someone marries with their son says ‘I don’t want to change my surname into your son’s one’. It sounds that she does not want to become family with us.
I replied:
OK, then, you would feel bad when I change my surname as then I am no longer your family.
That’s the start of long, exhausting argument.
That’s not what I meant to say! How dare you say such a thing to your mother, your family!!
But you said same surname stands for the membership of your family. I don’t think what I said was wrong. If you think that was wrong, it means what you said was wrong.
It lasted so long, ending up with me weeping and mother being enraged. After that horrible experience, I gave up talking about the subject with my mother.
But, recently, when we watched TV show about changing surname, my mother suddenly said to me:
I agree with the idea of keeping one’s surname after marriage.
What?
I got shocked and petrified. WHAT SHE SAID?
I met people who choose to keep their surnames after marriage several times. I think it’s up to your choice to change or not to change your surname after marriage.
OH. So… HUMANS REALLY CHANGE, right? Even my mother. who is really, really stubborn (like me). That experience… gave me… relief. Sometimes, you cannot trust the idea of changing other people’s stance about something, and I was in that state of mind recently. But… even my mother changed. Maybe, I can once again trust the variability of humans.
Seeing my mother’s back-which became smaller- I thought, feeling a ray of light in my head.
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