How Do You Have a Baby via a Sicilian
past Maria Luisa Romano
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In because such statistics, it should exist remembered that the number of Sicily's unwed couples having children is somewhat higher than the 14% cited considering near such couples have a single kid while many married couples take more i. These are generalities, of course.
It used to be that at that place were "legitimate" children and "natural" ones, and these terms still appear in some Italian laws. A more than enduring vestige of the past is the practice, outlawed in 1928, of assigning to foundlings surnames indicative of their origins: Proietti, D'Ignoti, Trovato, Di Dio, Mingota, Esposito, D'Amore, Mulo. More than oft, such children were given whimsical surnames - fifty-fifty those of royal families - such as Savoia or Farnese. In certain cities a particular surname would arbitrarily be assigned to all such children, though the name itself would be generic enough to avoid any social implications. Matronymics, such as Di Maria and D'Anna, were typically assigned to the children of unwed women.
According to a popular cliche, something of a sociological urban legend, in centuries past information technology was mostly either aristocrats or peasants who spawned most children born outside wedlock, and "centre form values" (which supposedly discouraged the practice among the suburbia) are sometimes cited in caption of this. While Frederick II was certainly prolific in fathering natural children, the reality is that Sicily had scarcely any middle class to speak of until the twentieth century so, statistically speaking, comparatively few births of any kind were to parents of the tiny heart class before 1900.
Recent legislation has addressed the phenomenon of births outside marriage. When enrolling a child in school, for case, the "short" form of nascence certificate required demand not listing his parents' names but merely the child'due south proper noun, place and appointment of birth. (In Italian republic a woman does not accept her married man'south surname upon marrying.) It is as well easier for a father to "recognise" his child built-in outside union, who may exist assigned the surname of either his mother or father. In effect, most of the social stigma of "illegitimacy" has disappeared, even if the concept of "legitimacy" has not vanished entirely. If recognised, the child built-in outside marriage also has more rights of inheritance (as his male parent's heir) today than he would have had decades years ago. Genetic testing has played its part too.
Times change. Into the early years of the twentieth century nigh Sicilian marriages were bundled by the spouses' parents or (at least) would not be undertaken without parental blessing.
Exterior of the elite, where titles of dignity and coats of artillery (albeit non recognised in law since 1948) cannot be transmitted to children born outside wedlock, the social stigma attached to births outside spousal relationship has largely disappeared. At 1 time this was a very real fact of life, even if recent literature and depictions sometimes make light of it. In the 1968 moving-picture show Buona Sera, Mrs Campbell, Gina Lollobrigida plays an Italian mother uncertain of the identity of the American human being who fathered her child during the Second World State of war, a story which inspired the musical Mamma Mia. Of course, few of today's "unwed births" are nearly so dramatic - though I personally know of at least iii cases among Sicily'south "middle course" where a DNA test was required to decide the paternity of a 20-ish woman's infant. Phrases like "ragazza madre" (teenage female parent) are rarely heard anymore, perhaps because so many unwed mothers are well into their twenties if non their thirties. What is interesting, because Italian republic's Roman Catholic culture and the horrendous attitudes of the recent past, is how readily Sicilians seem to have embraced the idea.
Indeed, it has gone mainstream. A number of Italy'due south national politicians - from senators and deputies to the prime minister himself - have fathered children exterior marriage. Even a prince of the Business firm of Savoy is counted amongst this fraternity. In some cases information technology's a question of a husband fathering a kid with his mistress, simply in fact some of these "married" men are legally separated from their wives; in Italy a separation runs at least three years before a divorce can be granted.
Divorce has clearly played a function here, for if Italy'southward mandatory iii-year waiting period between separation and divorce did not be, more petitioners for divorce would exist free to marry at an earlier engagement. The fact is that many divorced men exercise, in fact, somewhen wed the mothers of their "natural" children, fifty-fifty if some forego the thing entirely.
At the same fourth dimension, many unwed parents who were free to ally when their child was born (but did non) will, in fact, get married post-obit the child'southward birth.
Whether the paternal recognition of a child born outside marriage, or the subsequent marriage of his begetter and mother, is tantamount to legitimisation is, for the nearly part, an arcane legal and social argument. Clearly, Italia notwithstanding considers matrimony an of import institution and Italians have been reluctant to pass laws recognising "common law" marriages ("coppie di fatto"). European Spousal relationship norms usually influence national laws sooner or after, and that may eventually happen here.
A more prosaic, but immediate, business concern is the claiming of a man's alimony and other benefits by the mother of his child (not being his married woman) in a jurisdiction where common-police unions do not be. This would be especially tricky in cases where the child's parents do not live together. At all events, however, the rights of a recognised child to his father's surname and estate are protected by recently-enacted laws.
Clearly, it'southward fourth dimension to rethink the outsider's perception of Sicilians every bit "traditionalists." Traditions, later on all, evolve over fourth dimension.
Nigh the Author: Maria Luisa Romano has written about social topics for various Italian magazines, including this one.
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Source: http://www.bestofsicily.com/mag/art347.htm
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