When the Chinese Wang Rong gave birth to her second child, she reminded her husband of a promise he made to her before their marriage by allowing her to give her family name to their children, so that her father’s lineage did not stop.
“My father had two daughters, and I refused to let our family end with us,” the young Chinese woman recounts. I refuse that my father would regret that he did not have a son. ” In China, like many peoples, children bear the father's surname, which is written before the first name. But an increasing number of women are insisting that their family names be passed on to their children.
This was partly the result of the one-child policy that was adopted for a period of more than forty years, as many women wore single units bearing the family name of their parents, and as a result, the balance of relationships between husbands changed.
However, the weight of traditions, the opposition of the husband’s family, and the fear of people's words are factors that sometimes complicate the situation.
With husbands allowed to have a second child now, some parents have found a solution to this problem. The first has the father's family name, and the second has the mother's family.
There are no official figures available in this field, but in Shanghai, the country's most developed city, which has impossible to socialize the country a newborn born out of every 10 in 2018 the mother's family name, according to the city municipality, and this is also achieved by Wang Rong.
An employee at an insurance company recounts: “We were still under the one-child law at the birth of our eldest son, and my husband insisted on following the traditions and giving him his family name. I took advantage of the opportunity to allow the birth of a second child in 2016. ”
Many of her eight-year-old son's classmates have their mother's surname.
"It is not surprising, therefore, that the family name of his two-year-old brother is different from his name," she explains. He does not even question the issue, and only some curious neighbors have expressed their displeasure.
In cities, however, no one can know the other’s family name, unlike the countryside, where people know each other, and the child and father may be ridiculed if it is found that he bears the name of his mother’s family.
The issue sparked controversy nationwide last March, when a woman announced online that she would divorce her husband because he refused to have their son carry her name.
"It may sound like a good husband but he has all the privileges in this marriage, especially transferring his family name to children," the woman wrote on the Weibo social network. Her message has been shared 47 thousand times before withdrawing censorship. Chinese women keep their father's family name even after their marriage. Under the law, children can bear the family name of either parent, but customs give preference to the father's family name.
The gradual development towards the adoption of the mother's name also reflects a change in the balance of relationships between spouses, according to sociologist Liu Yi from King's College London.
The families who gave birth during the one-child policy (1979-2016) had no other choice than betting on the daughter. In recent years, an entire generation of women who pursued graduate studies abroad sometimes, and they have impressive career paths.
Women who give their family name to their children usually earn more than their husbands or come from more accessible families with a better social knowledge network, according to sociologist. These women revive a 2,500-year-old tradition in the Zhou dynasty, and Jang Yirin, a Beijing name expert, explains that women from influential families used to give their family names to their children. The issue has economic consequences, especially in rural areas, where males inherit the greater part of the parents, because they are able to complete the family name.
No gender equality
A study published by the National Women's Union, in 2019, shows that the names of at least 20% of Chinese women in rural areas respond to the title deeds of their lands, as the vast majority do not have real estate rights. In the countryside, the girls used to leave the family to serve the husband's family, who also carried dowries, which is a burden on their families. However, restricting childbearing to only two children still affects women negatively, according to writer Shen Liu, who had to give up her only son's family name after a dispute with her fever. It clarifies that in general, if the virgin boy is a male with the father’s name, the second child, whether male or female, can carry the mother’s name. But if the first child is a female and the second a male, a battle may take place to determine which name the boy will bear, and in most cases the father will decide. Shen believes that "this is another form of patriarchy. There is no real equality between the sexes."
- allowed to have a second child to solve the problem, the former holds the father 's family name, and the second mother 's family.
- In the cities, no one knows the other’s family, unlike the countryside, where the child with his mother’s family name is being ridiculed.