You have to change your last name when you get married, why is this custom that never existed in Japan?

Changing your last name when you get married is a custom that has never existed in Japan. And it is the result of learning from the West. Japan's culture was originally based on learning from other countries, and at the time of the Meiji Restoration, Japan began to follow the example of Western countries and began to learn from the Western tradition of having a family name for everyone, and to take the husband's name after marriage.

But in Japanese tradition, not everyone needs to change his or her surname, and there is one situation in which it is not necessary to do so. The first is that when a Japanese nobleman marries, his name is a symbol of his status, so even if he marries, the noblewoman's last name does not need to be changed, and if he is a son-in-law, he is required to take his wife's family's last name.

In many European and American countries, a husband's surname was added to the wife's name after marriage, so Japan followed the example of Western countries. It also enacted the Family Registration Law, in which there are clear provisions that require every family to have a fixed and unified family name, and that children inherit their father's family name, and if a woman marries, she inherits her husband's family name. If a woman marries, she inherits her husband's family name, and if she divorces, she can use her original family name. No one is free to change their family name.

This statute was very patriarchal, and there was a lot of discrimination against women. So in the later years, when there was a slow development of equality between men and women, there were some changes in this statute. It no longer requires the wife to change to her husband's family name, but if the couple has the same household registration, then they must choose and adopt the same family name.

So now, strictly speaking, the wife is not required to take her husband's surname, and in fact it is possible for a man to take his wife's surname. But obviously in real life, most of the wife from the husband's surname is more, after all, if the man followed his wife's surname, social pressure is relatively large. The first thing you need to do is to get your hands dirty.