Thread by @_alice_evans

Tremendous book on cultural change in 1950s/60s Italy!

By @niamhanncullen

🧶

Did you know that Northern and Central Italy were patrilocal, as recently as the 1960s?

“It was traditional in sharecropping communities of northern and central Italy for the extended family to live together and for the daughters-in-law to join her husband’s household”

Patrilocal sharecroppers would work the land together

Traditional folk music - @niamhanncullen notes - often spoke of tensions between a mother- and daughter-in-law

So these problems were widely recognised

But in the 1950s advice columns in popular magazines frequently featured letters asking,

“Should the couple live with the parents?”

“No”, they overwhelmingly answered, as this led to conflict

(The book doesn’t say this but I would add that structural transformation and the rise of independent wage labour enabled men to provide for themselves independently,

Then magazines advice overcame fears of social disapproval, by publicly endorsing greater liberalism)

.@niamhanncullen provides another great example of how television reduced expectations of condemnation.

Public displays of affection were unacceptable in rural Italy.

But it became more visible on TV & magazines.

This may have lessened fears & encouraged more conversations

An elderly man - when asked about the best thing he’d seen on TV - said:

“The kiss, kissing in public…because you can see that it’s not a sin, you can do it”

Mass car ownership was equally crucial - @niamhanncullen

Cars enabled freedom & privacy for young couples

[The same has been observed of the US]

But this was an ideological battle!

In 1950, the Catholic Church canonised Maria Goretti for resisting rape in 1902

They praised her defence of sexual purity

Catholic magazines also emphasised female sexuality purity

In the South, family honour was based on men’s capacity to protect female chastity.

Public spaces (streets, piazzas, bars) were for men.

When women entered, they lowered their gaze (for modesty).

A woman who caught a man’s gaze was deemed to be inviting attention..

Calabrian women who prepared for marriage in the 1920s + 30s spoke of shame (‘vergogna’)

Vergogna also featured in letters to magazines.

Wow. @niamhanncullen quotes another book, with interviews with ordinary Sicilians..

When asked whether they’d rather their daughter was a murderess or an unmarried mother, they all said a murderess.

And that honour compelled forced marriage to rapists.

[Shame was common in Southern Italy and Spain, as well as Latin America, it still persists in MENA, South Asia and to some extent East Asia]

Over the 1960s, honour killings were a major topic of political and media discussions.

School teacher Furnari killed his daughter’s lover & was given a prison sentence of 3 years.

This sparked outrage & public discussions.

[Though the law was only reformed in 1975]

In 1965, Franca Viola was abducted from her family home.

Her ex-fiancé & 7 other armed men violently kidnapped her.

Such cases were often in the news.

After honour was lost, marriage was the only acceptable solution.

These practices continue in Central Asia

Against custom, Franca Viola refused the ‘repertory marriage’

Local media portrayed this as family courage (making it more consistent with local culture)

But she spoke out: “‘I will never marry him. I’m not willing to submit to violence and prejudice.’

The main protagonist was sentenced to 11 years

The accomplices got about 4

This case was heavily discussed in the media; sending a stern signal to wider society that a woman would not be dishonoured by refusing a kidnapping. Attitudes began to change.

15 year old Carmelita Torrisi was abducted by a shepherd,

Abducted, while out shopping with her mother in Sicily.

But ultimately returned home the next morning.

She refused to marry based on coercion & gave many interviews.

But her family ultimately pressured her to marry

More social change:

By the 1950s, dowry was increasingly considered inappropriate

But a ‘corredo’ was expected in many parts of Italy - a woman might take a bed and linens.

“No woman married ‘with nothing’”

Romantic jealousy (verging on obsession) is a major topic in the book.

I wish I understood the origins & cross-country variation in this melodramatic jealousy.

Are Italian lovers exceptionally jealous? If so, why?
How & why has it changed over time?

I don’t think we have nationally representative, comparative, longitudinal data on romantic jealousy.

But I suspect it’s higher in cultures where men are expected to be breadwinners, and interactions between non-relatives are so rare that others presume impropriety

Here’s a great example, from @niamhanncullen

Giuseppina starts working after her husband loses his job.

He becomes consumed by obsessive jealousy & anxiety (about not being the breadwinner).

@niamhanncullen I would also expect male jealousy to be higher in cultures where the public sphere is male-dominated, enabling men to lecher with impunity.

That expectation of male harassment may lead men to worry about their wives and girlfriends - especially from men who themselves lecher.

@niamhanncullen NC provides examples of south Italian men being so jealous in the 1950s & 60s that they do not allow their wives to leave the house

This still continues in many honour cultures.

@niamhanncullen Women’s acceptance of male romantic jealousy is equally critical.

NC shares many examples of women interpreting possessive control as true love

@niamhanncullen NC’s book draws on 142 memoirs.

Alda wrote that her husband resisted her even leaving the house, and was extremely suspicious of other men’s looks

He created “a life of hell… it felt like I was an object”

She did not accept that this was ‘love’.

@niamhanncullen Aerre (born in 1942) was not allowed to talk to friends, and thought her boyfriend treated her like his property.

She reluctantly accepted this behaviour because she wanted to be with him.

Love compelled her to endure patriarchy.. until she rejected his jealousy as ‘mad’.

@niamhanncullen One point I personally would emphasise is that Italy’s economic miracle massively enhanced MEN’s economic independence and fraternity.

Previously men would work for family firms or family sharecropping.

Job-creating economic growth gave men greater economic autonomy & networks

@niamhanncullen Men enjoyed a massive increase in economic autonomy and workplace fraternity

Meanwhile, a cultural preference for housewives curbed women’s pursuit of jobs.

So they remained more dependent on a single male provider, their husband.

@niamhanncullen That asymmetric economic shift is important.

It helps explain why the public sphere remained male dominated,

and why women were also prone to jealousy (worrying about their husbands paying attention to/ spending on other women).

@niamhanncullen Analysing cases of separation brought to Turin’s courts, NC finds that many “cited adultery, frequent absences from the family home, gambling, and socializing away from the home”.

So, the big threat to marriage was men leaving her for another woman/ spending elsewhere.

@niamhanncullen Middle class wives often expressed frustrations that men socialised with other men and engaged politically, while they were stuck at home.

I’d that this is a function of how economics and culture maintained low female labour force participation

(just over 20%, like India today)

@niamhanncullen @threadreaderapp unroll