Naming: The inequality. Women as citizens or women as 'wives/mothers-in-waiting': Marriage law, 'surnames', and the politics of recognition in Canadian, Quebecois, and Japanese society

To uphold equal citizenship in practice, the state must be accountable for the realities of women's oppression under public and private patriarchy. One area of the law that continues to promote the delineation of women's primary identity into the roles of wife/mother is marriage law. Using Pateman's concept of the “sexual contract”, I outline the contradictions inherent in malestream liberal democratic theory that trump women's equality rights in contemporary Japan and Canada. Using Taylor's “politics of recognition”, I expose the one-sided importance of men's last names as the refusal of society and the state to affirm women's human worth. Critiquing the “framework of choice” for its promotion of the moral regulation of women, I argue that marital naming serves as an important indicator of, and contributor to women's inequality. I conclude by recommending the Quebec model of birth name permanency that renders impotent the power of the marriage contract and patronymy over women's personhood.