Barbara Stefanelli (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
ORk, Jennifer Lopez got married to Ben Affleck: the news has reached every corner of the globe despite the tragedies in progress, has revived the fans of the backfires, has wrested well-deserved comments on how much she (at the fourth marriage) looks like a girl on the eve of the first.
The wedding was modern and ancient. Modern because it was the bride who announced them via newsletter, with an invitation to subscribe – aimed at non-followers yet – to have access to doc details.
He thus demonstrated that he was “in control” of his own image and life, as promised in a historic piece of identity (Jenny from the Block).
Ancient because the fable of the former finds was sealed with the change of surnamemuch more significant change than that of the white dress (two in the course of a single ceremony).
The communication to the audience of a newsletter called On the JLo it was in fact signed Mrs. Jennifer Lynn Affleck.
We have been spared, for now, only the vowel rotation of the initials in “JLa”. Debate followed. For example, among the signatures of the “Style” section of the New York Times. “One of the most sensational acts of public submission“. “Why didn’t he become Ben Lopez?” “Maybe, in such virtually uncertain situations, it was to communicate: we really did it and my name is Affleck.”
Have we perhaps reached an evolutionary step? While for centuries having to assume the surname of the husband (in Italy until 1975) marked the belonging to the head of the family, now being ready to wear it as if it were the third white suit demonstrates a superior power.
The opposite of submission. As if to say: nothing scares me, not even suspend a surname with which I have gained fame and fortune. Let the adventure start from scratch …
We would like, indeed, to be landed on the prairie of individual freedoms, where each person makes his or her run without differences in height at the start and without obstacles during, without the eddies of collective pleasure that the derailment of a woman releases all around.
But in the United Statesto stay in the land of JLo and Hillary Clinton, still in 2015 only 20 percent of wives proposed with the surname of origin and there are no contrary currents.
Now it is clear that someone will raise their hand to say that there is much more (the Supreme Court ruling on abortion, the #Metoo in crisis, the return of Trump). And we could go back to Juliet who wondered why a name should be so important since the scent of the rose is unmistakable, even if it were called hyacinth… All right.
However, for a few more centuries, don’t call me by your surname.
Is the threat to women’s rights to the point that the question of the surname also matters? Write to us [email protected]
All articles by Barbara Stefanelli
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