- Did you Kofo Abayomi was a Nigerian man who changed his name to marry a widow in 1930?
South Africa‘s Constitutional Court has ruled that husbands can take their wives’ family name, overturning a law that banned them from doing so.
Thursday’s decision upheld a ruling made last year by a lower court, with Justice Loena Theron saying the existing law discriminated “on the grounds of gender” and was a “colonial import.”
The law, which only allows a woman to change her family name when her marital status changes, was introduced during the apartheid years of white-minority rule.
The court suspended the current legislation and gave the government two years to amend the Births and Deaths Registration Act.
The case was brought by two couples who sued the Department of Home Affairs for gender discrimination.
One couple wanted both to have their family names hyphenated, while a second couple wanted the husband to take his wife’s family name.
Court says women taking men’s names a ‘colonial import’
The current legislation infringes on the right to equality enshrined in South Africa’s constitution, introduced in 1994 after the end of apartheid, the court found.
The Constitutional Court ruling noted that “in many African cultures, women retained their birth names after marriage, and children often took their mother’s clan name.”
“With the arrival of the European colonisers and Christian missionaries, and the imposition of Western values, the tradition of women taking their husband’s surname was introduced,” it said.
Social media in an uproar over the ruling
The Constitutional Court decision was met with mixed reactions and often heated comments on social media.
Some welcomed it as a progressive step for South Africa, while many other, mainly male, users slammed it as going against the country’s culture and tradition.
“Why are men panicking in the comments, the ruling isn’t enforcing that you take the wife’s surname, it is optional? Calm down wow,” one South African woman wrote on X.
Kofo Abayomi: The Nigerian who changed his name just to marry a widow in 1930
In Colonial Lagos, Lady Oyinkan Ajasa (Lady Oyinkan Abayomi) was born daughter of Sir Kitoye Ajasa, a Yoruba aristocrat who was the first Nigerian to be knighted by the British, and Lucretia Olayinka Moore, a princess of the Egba royal family, in Lagos, was born on March 6, 1897.
She was schooled at the Anglican Girls’ Seminary in Lagos and graduated in 1909. From there to the Young Ladies Academy at Ryford Hall, Gloucestershire. In 1917, she attended the Royal Academy of Music in London. She moved back to Lagos in 1920 and became a music teacher at the Anglican Girls’ Seminary.
It was during this time that she met a lawyer named Mr Moronfolu Abayomi ( the love of her life ), whom she married in 1923.
He was assassinated two months later in court, she was devastated and didn’t want to marry anyone ever again.
Dr Kofo John wanted to marry her, and her response was, “You have to change your name to my late husband’s name – Abayomi.” Guess what happened?
He agreed, married her and changed his name to Dr Kofo Abayomi. The very famous Dr Kofo Abayomi
South Africa’s ruling is a progressive step for equality, and the Kofo Abayomi story, though often repeated, looks more like folklore than proven history.