The largest opposition party is seeking to push forward a legal revision to enable married couples to have separate surnames by urging some members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to join hands with it.
The development comes as a deep divide surfaced within the LDP led by Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga as to whether to introduce such an alternative to a single surname per couple.
Yukio Edano, head of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, plans to call for adopting a revision to the Civil Code, which opposition forces submitted in 2018 to introduce separate surnames, in the regular parliamentary session starting later this month.