Love, Honour, and Jealousy: An Intimate History of the Italian Economic Miracle (Emotions in History)

Love, Honour, and Jealousy investigates the impact of the Italian economic miracle of the 1950s and 1960s on intimate life. Just as Italy was rapidly forged into an urban, industrial nation in these years, the ways in which Italians thought about family, love, and marriage were transformed by migration and modern consumer culture. At the core of this book lies the investigation of almost one hundred and fifty unpublished diaries and memoirs written by ordinary men and women who were coming of age during these years. These personal testimonies reveal unique insights into the experiences, thoughts, and feelings of those who came of age against the backdrop of a rapidly changing Italy. The personal stories are explored alongside the films, magazines, and music of the time, which were saturated with both new and old ideas of romance. Films and magazines encouraged young Italians to put romantic love and individual desire over family, contributing to changing expectations about marriage, and often resulting in family tensions. At the same time popular love stories were frequently laced with jealousy, hinting at the darker emotions that were linked in many minds, to love. This darker side was a significant part of the story of changing ideas about intimacy in post-war Italy, as was the growing desire to marry for love. Control and violence against women was closely linked to southern ideas about family honour but also to anxieties about Italy's changing society, which manifested itself in romantic jealousy. Through its exploration of courtship, marriage, honour crime, forced marriage, jealousy, and marriage breakdown, Love, Honour, and Jealousy traces the ways in which the lives both of individuals and of the nation itself, were shaped by changing understandings of romantic love and its darker companions, honour and jealousy. Cover Love, Honour, and Jealousy: An Intimate History of the Italian Economic Miracle Copyright Dedication Acknowledgements Contents List of Figures List of Abbreviations Note on Sources and Translations Introduction FROM POST-WAR RUIN TO PROSPERITY: THE ITALIAN ECONOMIC MIRACLE FIRST-PERSON WRITING: THE NARRATORS FIRST-PERSON WRITING: NARRATIVE, MEMORY, EMOTION, AND LANGUAGE THINKING ABOUT EMOTIONS IN POST-WAR ITALY CHAPTER OUTLINE 1: ‘Who to Choose?’ Finding a Suitable Marriage Partner MASCULINITY, COMING OF AGE, AND EMOTION WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES OF COURTSHIP: BETWEEN SELF AND FAMILY THE ECONOMICS OF MARRIAGE: DOWRY, TROUSSEAU, AND THE NEW HOUSEHOLD STRUGGLING WITH OBSTACLES TO LOVE CONCLUSION 2: ‘Forgive Me, Love . . . It Was Stronger than I am’: Negotiating Intimacy and Sexuality FAMILY, FIDANZATI, AND THE ‘RULES OF ENGAGEMENT’ SEXUAL KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE NEGOTIATING PHYSICAL INTIMACY THE POLITICS OF INTIMACY CORRESPONDENCE TO COMPANIONS: SHIFTING VOCABULARIES OF LOVE CONCLUSION 3: Where Violence and Love Meet: Honour and Italian Society LOVE, ELOPEMENT, AND THE MALE GAZE IN SOUTHERN ITALY HONOUR AND ITALIAN SOCIETY HONOUR ON TRIAL IN 1960S SICILY THE KIDNAPPING OF FRANCA VIOLA FILIPPO MELODIA ON TRIAL: TRAPANI, DECEMBER 1966 FAMILY AND FEMINISM: AFTERMATH OF THE TRIAL CONCLUSION 4: ‘Love Means Jealousy’: A Jealousy Epidemic in Post-war Italy? ‘LOVE MEANS JEALOUSY’: JEALOUS LOVE IN POST-WAR ITALY ‘THAT TERRIBLE THING CALLED JEALOUSY’: JEALOUSY AS PATHOLOGY JEALOUS MEN AND WORKING WOMEN ‘I KEPT HER CAREFULLY AS A FLOWER IN A VASE’: JEALOUSY AND CONTROL OVERCOMING JEALOUSY: CLASS, GENDER, GENERATION, AND ‘MODERNITY’ CONCLUSION 5: ‘The Marriage Outlaws’: Experiences of Marriage Breakdown Before Divorce MARRIAGE, SEPARATION, AND DIVORCE IN POST-WAR ITALY BEFORE THE MIRACLE: LEGAL SEPARATION 1947–55 MEMOIRS OF MARRIAGE BREAKDOWN: FORCED AND ARRANGED MARRIAGES ‘WE SPOKE, WITHOUT EVER UNDERSTANDING EACH OTHER’ : ROMANCE, MALAISE, WORK, AND THE 1960S WOMAN THE IMPACT OF FEMINISM: ACTIVISM AND AWARENESS NEW VISIONS OF LOVE AND FAMILY: POLITICS, GENERATION, AND MARRIAGE BREAKDOWN ‘WITHOUT ONCE THINKING THAT I WAS AN ADULTERER’: ADULTERY, MARRIAGE, AND COHABITATION CONCLUSION Conclusion: Individuals, Families, and Nation APPENDIX 1: Educational Attainment of First-person Writers (National Diary Archive Sample Set) APPENDIX 2: First-person Writers by Father’s Profession (National Diary Archive Sample Set) Bibliography Unpublished Primary Sources Published Primary Sources Memoirs Newspaper Magazines Other Literary Sources Films Secondary Literature Index This book investigates how the intimate lives of Italians were transformed during the post-war ‘economic miracle’ of the 1950s and 1960s, during which millions of Italians migrated to the cities, leaving behind rural ways of life and transforming how people thought about love, marriage, gender, and family. At the core of this book lies the investigation of almost 150 unpublished diaries and memoirs written by ordinary men and women who were growing up and coming of age during these years. The book weaves these personal stories together with the Italian popular culture of the time, which was saturated with both new and old ideas of romance. Films and magazines encouraged young Italians to put romantic love and individual desire over family, contributing to changing expectations about marriage, and sometimes tensions within families. At the same time popular love stories were frequently laced with jealousy, hinting at the darker emotions that were linked, in many minds, to love. Through its exploration of courtship, marriage, honour crime, forced marriage, jealousy, and marriage breakdown, this book traces the ways in which the lives both of individuals and of the nation itself were shaped by changing understandings of romantic love and its darker companions, honour and jealousy. As the economic miracle of the 1950s and 1960s transformed Italy from a poor and largely rural nation into a prosperous, modern one, attitudes to love changed too. This book draws on unpublished personal testimonies of ordinary men and women, exploring their thoughts on courtship, marriage, honour, forced marriage, jealousy, and marriage breakdown