“When all Japanese will be called Sato”: the astonishing prediction of a Japanese researcher

“All the Japanese will be called Sato”: this is not a variation on “All the boys are called Patrick”, a charming little film by Jean-Luc Godard, but the prediction of a researcher if Japan does not change not its Civil Code. According to calculations by Hiroshi Yoshida, professor of economics at Tohoku University, the Japanese should all have the surname Sato in the year 2531. A consequence of the Japanese matrimonial regime, which forces one of the two spouses to abandon his name to adopt that of the other, inexorably pushing towards the gradual and general abandonment of family names.

The study was initially taken as an April Fool's joke before the researcher seriously explained his calculation method - but specifying that he had, with it, taken a political position. In practice, it is in fact the woman who almost always makes this effort - unless the husband consents to it, for example, to perpetuate the name of his wife who comes from a family without heirs. A breach of equality denounced by Hiroshi Yoshida

This renunciation was accepted, willingly or unwillingly, by Japanese women when they had to be content with the role of housewife. But they are increasingly reluctant: as they embrace real professional careers, they do not see why they would sacrifice the surname under which they began to build a reputation. Especially since said change results in grueling paperwork. And that it is only one of the legitimate subjects of complaint of Japanese women, always classified among the worst off in similar countries. According to the latest World Bank report on gender equality, published at the beginning of March, the Archipelago is 73rd out of 190 countries. Women there enjoy only three-quarters of the rights enjoyed by men, according to the report.

The subject of changing one's name has become consensual between the sexes: an overwhelming majority of Japanese men and women say, in survey after survey, that they are in favor of the right to keep one's surname after marriage. Even the main employers' federation Keidanren, although traditionally silent on social issues, took a position against this obligation at the start of the year. “We want the government to seriously consider introducing the option of separate names,” demanded the powerful Masahiko Uotani, Shiseido's general manager in charge of diversity within Keidanren.

The only problem - but fatal: the political class, attached to the traditional notion of family, refuses to reform the law - either out of conservatism or lack of imagination. The Japanese social structure is based on the koseki, a family civil status card with a brass framework to which every individual is attached. The uniqueness of the name of its members, behind the head of the family, is seen as a guarantee of the solidity of the links between them. “If we allowed spouses to each keep their first name, what would I call my children?” asks Kozo Yamamoto, a former member of the majority, blandly. Ultimate paradox: this staunch defense of the family of the past discourages those who would like to found... a home, preferring their comfortable single state. The number of marriages, at around 500,000, has never been lower in more than a century.