A ruling by South Africa’s highest court has sparked intense debate about ‘cultural values’ and colonial laws. In September, the Constitutional Court struck down an apartheid-era law that barred husbands from adopting their wives’ surnames, arguing that it amounted to gender-based discrimination.
Around the same time, Kenyan media personality and author, Adelle Onyango, was the subject of intense debate after reading a short story about her divorce on an episode of The Moth podcast. She explained that she had declined to take her husband’s name, wear a ring, or to have a child.
