Zoe Saldana’s Husband Takes Her Last Name
Mrs. and Mr. Saldana: Zoe and Marco. (Photo: Getty)
In the July 2015 cover story of InStyle this month, Zoe Saldana spills the beans on her marriage to Italian artist Marco Perego. While celebrity nuptial details are always exciting to hear about, the best tidbit to come from the interview is that Perego took his wife’s last name. Nowadays, it might be more common and socially acceptable for women to keep their last names after marriage — especially if the wife has a public career — but it’s still surprising when the man chooses to take the woman’s last name.
Saldana tells InStyle: “I tried to talk him out of it. I told him, ‘If you use my name, you’re going to be emasculated by your community of artists, by your Latin community of men, by the world.’ But Marco looks up at me and says, 'Ah, Zoe, I don’t give a s—.”
We applaud Mr. and Mrs. Saldana for their groundbreaking decision. After all, the whole practice of the woman taking the man’s surname stems back to patriarchal roots. Ethicist William MacAskill explains in The Atlantic: “The legal concept of coverture came from England and caught on in 19th century America: the idea was that a woman, upon marriage, becomes the property of her husband. She had no right to vote or take out a bank account because she could rely on her owner to do that for her.” For Zoe and Marco, choosing their last name was a decision made by both parties — and that’s how a modern-day marriage should start.
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