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Q: Can Chinese women opt to take their husband's surname after marriage?
I noticed that women here seem to keep their maiden name after marriage but do they have a choice about that?
I was told that they don't and according to genawiki that seems to be the norm.
Chinese women do not change their surnames after marriage. During the imperial times, many women assumed the husband's surname, which replaced the woman's maiden name. However, most notable women of those times did not change surnames after marriage, for example, Cai Wenji (蔡文姬), Wu Zetian (Empress, 武則天), Yang Yuhuan (楊玉環), Li Qingzhao (Poet, 李清照). Some women, mostly poor, do not have personal names and are simply called by their family names suffixed with shi; in this case, the husband's surname is added before the maiden name after marriage. This tradition is no longer commonly practiced in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Macau, although on most pages of phone books in Taiwan and Hong Kong, one can still find a few women's names with their husband's surname prefixed.
Here's the link
As far as I have heard they can, but it is not common, everybody will keep their surname. If they have a baby, it will has the husbands surname.
Technically yes any person can change his or her name if with a good reason. However it's very difficult for an average Chinese person without "guan xi" to change his/her name, for whatever reason. Especially after 18 or 16. Marriage as a reason to change surname? The police will not be buying it.
Anyone know how the process works if you marry in China and go back to say America. What's the process in getting the wife to have her last name changed in America to the husbands name?
