The Muslim Rights Concern, MURIC, has called on the Federal Government to review the Nigerian marriage laws with the aim of allowing women to bear their father’s names after marriage.
MURIC’s executive director, Prof Ishaq Akintola, made the call in a statement he issued on Monday.
Akintola is of the opinion that the current practice that permits women to bear only their husbands’ surnames is wrong, describing it as gender discriminatory, archaic, and oppressive.
He argued that it is unfair for a man who did not take part in the upbringing of a woman to suddenly surface and change her surname.
He said, “No woman dropped suddenly from the sky and even if some appear out of nowhere, they must have been born, bred, nurtured, and marmaladed by certain parents before they grew up and matured into womanhood.
“Their education was also sponsored by their parents at a time when the future husband probably knew nothing about them and spent no kobo on their upbringing and their education.
“It therefore beats logic, fairness, and natural justice that a husband appears out of nowhere to commandeer a woman’s parental identity simply by marrying her”.
He lamented that most educated women are forced to advertise their change of names in newspapers to retain the validity of their documents and properties obtained before marriage.
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