--- title: Maiden Names: Here Are Places Women Can't Take Their Husband's Name description: In many countries, a woman taking her husband's surname is a breach of local custom, or even illegal. canonical: https://time.com/3940094/maiden-married-names-countries/ author: Jacob Koffler article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-29T19:16:47.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:02:24.587Z og:title: Here Are Places Women Can't Take Their Husband's Name When They Get Married og:description: In many countries, a woman taking her husband's surname is a breach of local custom, or even illegal og:url: https://time.com/3940094/maiden-married-names-countries/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here Are Places Women Can't Take Their Husband's Name When They Get Married twitter:description: In many countries, a woman taking her husband's surname is a breach of local custom, or even illegal twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Here Are Places Women Can't Take Their Husband's Name When They Get Married > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=775ceb0c-1da8-4fd6-a73c-bf2f1089be53&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: 10 Questions for Gloria Steinem [Watch (HLS stream): 10 Questions for Gloria Steinem](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/zHI7xfDR.m3u8) (5:22)  _Published 2011-08-04. The feminist icon talks about her new HBO documentary, the current state of feminism and why she once considered getting a ‘tramp stamp’ tattoo_ by [Jacob Koffler](https://time.com/author/jacob-koffler/) ## Jacob Koffler Jun 29, 2015 7:16 PM UTC by [Jacob Koffler](https://time.com/author/jacob-koffler/) ## Jacob Koffler Jun 29, 2015 7:16 PM UTC While women in the U.S. are [increasingly keeping](http://time.com/3939688/maiden-names-married-women-report/) their maiden names, that’s nothing new just across the border. In Quebec, all women have been keeping their maiden names since 1981, whether they want to or not. Provincial law in Quebec forbids a woman from taking her husband’s surname after marriage. The rule was instated soon after the creation of the [Quebec Charter of Rights](http://www2.publicationsduquebec.gouv.qc.ca/dynamicSearch/telecharge.php?type=2&file=/C%5F12/C12%5FA.htm), which went into effect in 1976, and is intended to extend the charter’s statement on gender equality to names. And Quebec isn’t the only place. In [Greece](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/06/women-change-name-after-marriage-greece), a similar law requiring all women keep their maiden name was enacted in 1983 during a wave of feminist legislation. The tradition goes back even further in [France,](http://vosdroits.service-public.fr/particuliers/F77.xhtml) which has had a law on the books since 1789 requiring that people not use a name besides the one given on their birth certificate. Today, women [cannot legally change](http://vosdroits.service-public.fr/particuliers/F77.xhtml) their surname after marriage, but both men and women can accept the other’s surname for social and colloquial purposes. Italian women have more options. Although they [cannot legally change](http://www.altalex.eu/content/italian-civil-code-translated-english) their surname, which has been true [since 1975](https://books.google.com/books?id=7tbTBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA187&lpg=PA187&dq=italy+maiden+name+law+1975&source=bl&ots=h-vv8RALd2&sig=57ZJh6X5U2b%5FKMOCGbpaWIqN1uo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=CIeRVcOiE8nFsAWY6bdw&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=italy%20maiden%20name%20law%201975&f=false), they have the option of tacking their husband’s surname onto their surname. Women in the Netherlands are [always](https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Netherlands%5F-%5FDutch%5FResearch%5FIntroduction%5F%28National%5FInstitute%29) identified in documents by their maiden name and can only take their husband’s name under special circumstances. Belgian [law requires](http://diplomatie.belgium.be/en/services/services%5Fabroad/registry/giving%5Fa%5Fname/) that one’s surname does not change after marriage. In Malaysia and Korea, it is local custom for women to [keep their maiden names](http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/11/05/o.change.name.after.marriage/index.html?iref=nextin), and although there is no law stating that they cannot take their husband’s surname, it is a relatively foreign concept. Custom dictates that women keep their surnames in many Spanish-speaking countries as well, including Spain and Chile. In contrast, Japan requires that married couples take one of the spouses’ family names, which, unsurprisingly, means that 96% of married Japanese women assume their husband’s last name. Quebec’s law has caused little controversy over the past three decades, but there have been [cases](http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/news/story.html?id=72ddc06b-4660-4b92-8b92-3a26ae24b377) of women expressing frustration that they cannot take their husbands’ names even if they desire to do so. In the U.S., on the other hand, new analysis from the [_New York Times_](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/upshot/maiden-names-on-the-rise-again.html?%5Fr=0) found that only 30% of American women in recent years have opted to keep their maiden names, though that number is higher than it has been in the past. ## Transcript Hi I'm Belinda Laskin. I'm an editor at large at Time magazine and I have to admit this week that the person I'm interviewing, and this happens in many reporters careers, has actually had a material affect on my life, and in fact on many working women's lives. But despite that I'm going to try not to go too easy on her. Welcome Gloria Steinum. So, you have participated for May a documentary of your life. Why a documentary about your life, now? Are you dying? No, they might think so, though, but, am planning to stay here till a 100, at least. [ LAUGH ] What would you say to people who feel, today, that the fight for women's rights is all over, but shouting. I guess I would send them out for an eye exam, a hearing exam. [ LAUGH ] In other words, they're wrong. But I, but, [ LAUGH ] but I've, I realized that that idea is, is out there because it's a way of stopping, progress. So we hear, words like post- racist, post- feminist. When people I think would not say post democracy, I think people would concede at a minimum that we haven't reached democracy yet and we certainly haven't reached equality of women of all races or racial equality. In one of your earliest journalistic coos' you went undercover at the Playboy Barney Club to show. What a dreary and dead- end and horrible job it was. In the documentary, you express some regret about that. Would you like to explain why? Well, at the time, it was a gigantic career error, [ LAUGH ] because I had just narrowly begun to get serious writing assignments. And after I did that. Suddenly, I could, I, I literally lost an assignment, to write about the US information agency. But once feminism began to dawn on me, I realized, wait a minute, you know, I had more in common with the women who were working there than I did with the editors who sent me there. I'm Australian, and my country's most famous feminist let me continue in Germaine Greer, is like you, very good looking, and I wonder how much you think that helps, when you are standing up for women's rights. First of all, I have to tell you honestly. You don't think Germaine Greer is good looking. No, no, no, wait a minute [ LAUGH ], that I was, then when I became identified as a feminist, I was already close to 40. So it was clear to me that before and after I was a feminist I had a completely different measure of how [ LAUGH ] I looked. Before I was sort of, a pretty girl you know, attractive, afterwards I was beautiful suddenly and so it was more a comment on what people thought feminists looked like. Than it was, on how, I actually looked. The hard part for me is that sometimes those have been used to say that well she didn't work. She just got this because she looks good. But given that, beauty has a strange persuasive power. And that people advertise success is beauty when Jocks proposed with a product to sell something. Has it ever occured to your something trojahn horsey about it. Well, I would love to be a trojahn horse for revolution, hmm good idea. Hahaha [ LAUGH ]. No fine, i just feel that we just feel free to look however we want to look. We ought to be free to wear whatever we want and, and, be safe in the street. But if, if my being a pretty girl, listen, I'm 77 now I thought this would be over by now but anyways [ LAUGH ] [ LAUGH ] You know, was helpful, fine. You know, then it disproved a myth. So this is you. No botox nothing. I hear botox hurts. I though about getting a tattoo [ LAUGH ] A tattoo would be on the neck No I was going to get a tramp stamp on my 70th birthday. Oh, a tram stamp. [ LAUGH ] What is your view of the Dominique Strauss- Kahn situation? I'm very grateful to the NYPD that plucked him off the plane. [ LAUGH ] I'm very grateful to the maid who, you know, knew she had rights, and brought an accusation. It's a great step forward and one can see it's impact say, in France, you know, on the woman who also suffered an attempted rape by him and is now bringing a, a lawsuit. How do you feel about the direction feminism has taken with pessimism and third wave feminism. Are you encouraged by what you see? Yes. No, I'm very encouraged because I see the, the humor and the hopefulness and the, they just have much better detectors that we did. [ LAUGH ] They just don't take the same I am out of bias and it is great to see. 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