The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the constitutionality of a controversial Civil Code provision requiring married couples to use the same surname in official matters. 
 
 The decision was a blow to campaigners who sued the state, asking the nation’s highest court to declare the rule unconstitutional. 
 
 The matter is contentious in Japan, with opponents calling it an infringement of women’s fundamental rights and conservatives regarding shared names as a central pillar of the family unit. 
 
 The top court did, however, declare that a law prohibiting female divorcees from remarrying within six months of their divorce is unconstitutional. 
 
 In response to the ruling on the ban on remarriage, Justice Minister Mitsuhide Iwaki responded Wednesday evening by pledging a swift legal revision. Noting the ruling suggested the ban be shortened to 100 days, the ministry issued a notice to its regional bureaus nationwide that women wishing to remarry 100 days after a divorce should be allowed to do so even before any legal revision takes place, Iwaki said. 
 
 Both rulings relate to family laws dating from the Meiji Era (1868-1912). Campaigners who brought the pair of lawsuits alleged discrimination against women. 
 
 One suit, filed in 2011, involved a statute requiring Japanese spouses to choose which single family name — the husband’s or the wife’s — to adopt in legally registering their marriage. 
 
 The plaintiffs argued this amounts to gender discrimination because being forced to choose a single surname infringes on personal dignity and the freedom to marry. 
 
 Presiding Justice Itsuro Terada said sharing a single family name is a system “deeply rooted in our society” and is meaningful in that it “enables people to identify themselves as part of a family in the eyes of others.” 
 
 Although admitting that being pressured to forfeit a maiden name often works to women’s disadvantage professionally — and may even trigger an identity crisis — Terada said such hardships can be mitigated, since women are free to use their maiden names in daily life. 
 
 However, campaigners cite inconveniences in the workplace as a significant reason for their opposition to the rule. Some say when a woman known professionally by her maiden name has to adopt a new one it creates major complications. 
 
 Meanwhile, the top court similarly rejected the plaintiffs’ appeal for a combined ¥6 million in compensation. 
 
 Noting that the law gives couples the freedom to decide which surname to adopt, Terada said it is not discriminatory in itself. 
 
 However, studies in the past 40 years show more than 96 percent of Japanese couples have opted for the husband’s name. 
 
 Some of the plaintiffs reported emotional distress in the form of depression and difficulty sleeping. 
 
 Coming at a time when the global trend is increasingly toward allowing the use of separate names, the ruling is “anachronistic,” said Masayuki Tanamura, a professor of family law at Waseda University. 
 
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 “The ruling will not encourage women to remain in the workforce after marriage and childbirth,” Tanamura said. “As the circumstances surrounding a family and public perceptions of it are evolving, the Civil Code provision, based on an outdated view of the family, must be changed.” 
 
 He added that the Diet should not take the ruling as an excuse for inaction, but should promptly revise the law. 
 
 Waseda Law School professor Mutsuko Asakura also lambasted the ruling. 
 
 Noting only three female judges on the 15-member Grand Bench of the top court that examined the case, she said the ruling underscored the gross lack of understanding by male judges toward inconveniences long imposed on women. It even risks further cementing the international community’s perception of Japan as a country “intolerant of diversity” and “insensitive to human rights,” she said. 
 
 Meanwhile, in response to a lawsuit filed by a 30-something female divorcee from Okayama Prefecture, the top court recognized the unconstitutionality of a separate statute prohibiting women from remarrying within six months of their divorce. 
 
 The court, however, rejected the woman’s appeal for ¥1.65 million in compensation for emotional distress. 
 
 Critics call the measure outdated in an era of early pregnancy detection and of DNA sequencing, which can identify paternity to a degree of accuracy unthinkable a century ago. 
 
 Terada said the ban represents an “excessive restriction” on women’s freedom of marriage. 
 
 Yet reducing the ban to 100 days would pose no constitutional problem, he said in reference to a related clause that says a child born within the first 300 days after a divorce is legally a descendant of the former husband, while a child born at least 200 days after the second marriage is deemed to be that of a new partner. 
 
 Debate over whether to revamp the Civil Code, which dates from the Meiji Era, flared up in the 1990s following Japan’s ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in 1985. 
 
 In response to public calls for change, a legislative panel of the Justice Ministry proposed amendments in 1996 to legalize having separate surnames and to shorten the six-month ban on remarriage. 
 
 It provoked fierce opposition from conservative lawmakers, and the proposals were shelved, defeating what would have been the biggest postwar overhaul of family laws. 
 
 Even today, resistance to the idea of spouses retaining separate names remains particularly strong among lawmakers within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Despite Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s push for “womenomics,” or the greater inclusion of women in society and economic life, the party opposes allowing separate surnames on the grounds that it would destroy “the sense of family unity.” 
 
 Public opinion is divided, too. 
 
 A survey conducted by the Cabinet Office in 2012 showed that respondents were split, with 35.5 percent in favor of allowing separate surnames and 36.4 percent against. A survey conducted by public broadcaster NHK last month also showed that 46 percent of respondents support the idea, while 50 percent oppose it. 
 
 The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women has repeatedly urged the government to take “immediate action” to amend the law. ||||| Image copyright AFP/Getty Images Image caption Most couples in Japan end up using the husband's surname 
 
 The Japanese Supreme Court has upheld a law that married couples must have the same surname, in a blow to women's rights activists. 
 
 Campaigners have said the law was discriminatory as most couples end up using the husband's surname. 
 
 However, the court said the law did not violate the constitution, public broadcaster NHK reported. 
 
 It did, however, deem a separate law that stops women remarrying within six months of a divorce unconstitutional. 
 
 Both sets of laws date back to Japan's 19th Century Meiji era. 
 
 Surname row: What do other countries do? 
 
 Judge Itsuro Terada noted that among the Japanese there was already informal use of maiden names, which eased the impact of the surname law. 
 
 He said parliamentarians should decide on whether to pass new legislation on separate spousal names. 
 
 The Japan Times cited studies in the past 40 years which show that more than 96% of Japanese couples opt for the husband's surname. 
 
 The surname case was brought by three individual women and one couple in a civil partnership, who argued that the law was unconstitutional, discriminatory and archaic. 
 
 Two lower courts have already ruled against them and public opinion on the questions was split. 
 
 Media caption Why some women in Japan are unhappy about their surnames 
 
 Women in Japan were traditionally able to retain their maiden names after marriage, until 1898 when the law was enacted as part of a feudal family system where all women and children came under control of the male head of the household. 
 
 The system was abolished in 1948 - but the surname law has been retained. 
 
 Separately, a divorced woman had filed a legal challenge to a law that states women cannot remarry within six months of divorce. 
 
 The law was originally intended to help determine the paternity of a child born shortly after the divorce. 
 
 The Supreme Court agreed with her that it was unconstitutional, but in its ruling left room for the possibility of retaining the law with a shorter waiting period. 
 
 The two sets of laws were previously debated in the 1990s when a government panel suggested changing them, but were retained unchanged when conservative politicians opposed the move. ||||| Five people in Japan are poised to launch an unprecedented lawsuit against the government, claiming that a civil law forcing them to choose a single surname after marriage violates their constitutional rights. 
 
 If they succeed, married men and women will for the first time be able to retain their own surnames, dealing a blow to one of the few remaining legal obstacles to gender equality. 
 
 In the vast majority of cases, women are required to relinquish their maiden name after marriage, although a small number of men take their wife's name. 
 
 Critics say the time has come to modernise the law in Japan, the only G8 nation with laws governing marital surnames. 
 
 The plaintiffs argue that the civil code's requirement that a single surname be chosen contradicts articles of the constitution guaranteeing individual liberty and equal rights to husband and wife. The five are also seeking ¥1m (£7,727) each in compensation from the government. 
 
 Kyoko Tsukamoto, who changed her maiden name in the family registry after marrying in 1960 but retained it in daily life, said the law had contributed to a "strong loss of self" and caused psychological damage. 
 
 "My husband and I still love each other, but this and the issue of Tsukamoto are different," said the 75-year-old former teacher. "I thought I would get used to my husband's name, but I couldn't. I felt a strong sense of loss growing inside me." 
 
 Opposition from conservative politicians delayed previous attempts to change the law. In 1996 the justice ministry devised an amendment that would give married women the right to retain their maiden names, but the move was blocked by MPs who said it would undermine the family unit. 
 
 The current government, led by the centre-left Democratic party, supports a change in the law but has yet to act amid opposition from a minor coalition ally. 
 
 "There were expectations that it could be enacted, but unfortunately this did not happen. They do not want to wait any longer," said the plaintiffs' lawyer, Fujiko Sakakibara. 
 
 The law has forced some couples to take drastic action. Tsukamoto and her husband divorced in 1965 so that she could regain her maiden name, but remarried when she became pregnant because civil law can impinge on the inheritance rights of children born out of wedlock. 
 
 Critics say the civil code, enacted in 1896 and amended by the US occupation forces after the second world war, ignores dramatic postwar changes to the role of women in the home and workplace. 
 
 The movement for change gathered pace in the 1980s when more women entered the workplace. Many complained that changing their names after marriage was detrimental to their career prospects and affected relationships with colleagues. 
 
 Yet the Japanese are divided over the issue: in a 2009 survey 49% said they supported a change in the law, while 48% were opposed. 
 
 Women still have to use their registered surnames on official documents such as passports and health insurance cards. 
 
 Many companies allow married women to retain their maiden names at work, but for Tsukamoto, who married in 1960, unofficial acceptance is not enough. 
 
 "Now I am 75, and I was shocked to realise that I can no longer do the things I was able to do even last year," she said. "That's when I thought, I am Kyoko Tsukamoto … and I want to die as Kyoko Tsukamoto."
– Japan's Supreme Court issued a ruling Wednesday that maintains a longtime civil rule some say is unconstitutional and discriminatory: forcing married couples to officially choose one surname, the BBC reports. Presiding Justice Itsuro Terada said that the surname mandate wasn't discriminatory, since a couple could choose to use either the husband's or the wife's surname, though the Japan Times notes that studies over the past four decades show that 96% of couples use the man's name. Terada also noted that women often used their maiden names informally anyway, which would mitigate any distress they felt over losing their maiden name on paper. The one-name system is "deeply rooted in our society," Terada said, and "enables people to identify themselves as part of a family in the eyes of others." Women's rights activists disagree, saying not only is the surname rule inconvenient for women professionals, it's also an emotional transition that can bring on depression and loss of identity, the Times notes. Some couples are even opting to simply stay in common-law relationships rather than marry so the woman can keep her surname, the New York Times notes. It hasn't always been this way. Japanese women traditionally kept their maiden names, but a strict 1898 feudal law forced women and kids to answer to male heads of household, per the BBC. That system was nixed in 1948, but the surname restriction stuck. On a somewhat more progressive note: A second rule barring Japanese women from remarrying until six months after a divorce to avoid paternity confusion was deemed unconstitutional, per the Times. That waiting period has now been cut to 100 days. (An alternate view: Don't judge a woman who chooses to take her husband's name.)