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Rules that favor boys should be
reformed By Kuo
Cheng-deng郭正典
Sunday, Mar 13,
2005,Page 8
Each year as International Women's Day rolls around, local women's
organizations take stock of the women's rights situation. One important
question concerns the right of children to have their mother's family name
or take their own name. This year, that day coincided with the successful
name change of Legislator John Chang (章孝嚴),
illegitimate son of former president Chiang Ching-kuo
(蔣經國), to Chiang (蔣). This name
change could be connected to Chiang's political ambitions. But given the
long struggle by women's groups for this right, it still highlights the
importance of this issue.
This patriarchal focus is most clearly manifest in Article 1059 of the
Civil Code, which stipulates that children should be given their father's
last name, except when the mother has no brothers, or if it has been
agreed that the children should be given their mother's name. It also
stipulates that the children of a man who lives with his wife's family
shall be given their mother's name, except if it has been agreed that they
shall be given their father's name.
Women's groups have already proposed amendments to this article and to
the Statute of Names (姓名條例), suggesting that it should be possible to
decide by agreement or by drawing lots whether a child should be given the
father's or the mother's name. They also propose that children should have
the right to change their name after reaching adulthood.
Taiwan's plains peoples are mainly matriarchal societies, while the Han
are a patriarchal society. Taiwanese society only adopted the patriarchal
system after the arrival of Han people in Taiwan, and it only became a
problem for the plains peoples after their Sinicization. Han society's
stress on the importance of men over women has, for example, led to
drownings of female infants in China.
Although such phenomenon are unusual in Taiwan, the problem of
emphasizing boys over girls cannot be ignored, and we are already
beginning to see a gender imbalance. Many people abuse reproductive
technologies to ascertain the sex of a child and then abort girls, which
leads to a gender imbalance.
Research shows that the appearance of a gender imbalance in Taiwan
coincides with the introduction of such reproductive technologies. The
natural ratio between boys and girls is 105:100, while in 1990 in Taiwan
it was 110:100, 5 percent more boys than natural. In other words, 20 years
on, one of 20 Taiwanese men will be unable to find a Taiwanese wife. This
could become a serious social issue.
Women in fact make a greater contribution to a child's upbringing than
men, and it is therefore unnatural to have a law stipulating that a child
should be given the father's name. European and US divorce courts often
give the woman custody of the children. The fact that the custody of the
Taiwanese-Brazilian child Iruan Wu Ergui was given to his maternal
grandmother is only one example that shows how Taiwanese courts are
following the same trend.
Unfortunately the articles in Taiwan's Civil Code regulating a child's
right to choose their family name are not as flexible as in Europe or
North America, and deep-seated social attitudes placing more importance on
boys have created a gender imbalance.
If we want to implement the regulations about equality between the
sexes in Article 7 of the Constitution and avoid future problems resulting
from the inability of Taiwanese men to find Taiwanese wives, parents
should be given more freedom to decide whose name their children should be
given. This is a necessary development if we want to break traditional
values placing more importance on boys.
Kuo Cheng-deng is chief of the Division of Medical Research and
Education at Taipei Veterans General Hospital.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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