Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T10:28:19.489Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Natural mothers: teaching morals and parent-craft in Italy, 1945–60

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

Stefania Bernini
Stefania Bernini*
Affiliation:
History Department, Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA. Telephone: 01908274066. E-mail: s.b.bernini@open.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

At the end of the Second World War, politicians and social observers apprehensively considered the condition of the family and its destiny and role in post-war Italy. As well as informing political discourses and sociological examinations, the family became a privileged terrain for medical and psychological enquiry, with particular attention given to parenthood and the maternal role of women. The article explores the role played by religious and medical authorities in shaping narratives of parental responsibilities during the post-war years. The interplay of biology and morality in medical discourse and Catholic teaching is discussed in the context of debates about motherhood and the management of childbirth. Particular attention is given to discussions about the use of pain relief in labour and the reception by Italian Catholic gynaecologists of the so-called ‘natural childbirth method’, advocated during the post-war period by a number of European and American practitioners.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 9 , Issue 1: Special Issue: gender and the private sphere in Italy since 1945 , May 2004 , pp. 21 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. Fiume, Giovanna, (ed.), ‘Introduzione’, Madri. Storia di un ruolo sociale , Marsilio, Venice, 1995, pp. 9–28, p. 16.Google Scholar

2. Triolo, Nancy, ‘Famiglia, aborto e ostetriche in Sicilia, 1920–1940’, in Fiume, (ed.), Madri , pp. 247–267, pp. 257–263.Google Scholar

3. For a contextualization of the problem with particular attention to the Anglo-Saxon experience see Oakley, Ann ‘A Case of Maternity: Paradigms of Women as Maternity Cases’, Signs. Journal of Women in Culture and Society , 4, 4, 1979, pp. 607–631, and Oakley, , Women, Medicine and Health, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1993, pp. 20–21.Google Scholar

4. See Pavone, Claudio, Alle origini della Repubblica. Scritti su fascismo, antifascismo e continuità dello Stato , Bollati Boringhieri, Turin, 1995, pp. 155–156.Google Scholar

5. For an interesting comparison with Germany, see Moeller, Robert G., Protecting Motherhood. Women and the Family in the Politics of Post War West Germany , University of California Press, Berkeley, 1993, pp. 2–3.Google Scholar

6. Among the most recent contributions is the, already quoted, Fiume, , (ed.), Madri. Google Scholar

7. See Caldwell, Lesley, Italian Family Matters. Women, Politics and Legal Reform , Macmillan, London, 1991, pp. 23–25.Google Scholar

8. Jedin, Hubert, ‘Popes Benedict XV, Pius XI, and Pius XII. Biography and Activity within the Church’, in Jedin, Hubert, Repgen, Konrad and Dolan, John (eds), History of the Church , Vol. X, Burns and Oates, London, 1981, pp. 29–33.Google Scholar

9. Allum, Percy, ‘Catholicism’, in Baranski, Zygmunt G. and West, Rebecca J., The Cambridge Companion to Modern Italian Culture , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001, pp. 97–112, pp. 102–104; also Riccardi, Andrea, ‘Governo e profezia nel pontificato di Pio XII’, in Riccardi, (ed.), Pio XII, Laterza, Rome–Bari, 1984, pp. 31–92, pp. 53–57.Google Scholar

10. Pius, XII, ‘Al mondo cinematografico’, 28 October 1955, Discorsi e Radiomessaggi di SS Pio XII , Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana, Città del Vaticano, 1941–58, Vol. XVII, pp. 341–357, pp. 352–353 (translation mine). A complete collection of the Church's documents on marriage and the family is in Piero Barberi and Dionigi Tettamanzi, Matrimonio e famiglia nel magistero della Chiesa. I documenti dal concilio di Firenze a Giovanni Paolo II, Massimo, Milan, 1986.Google Scholar

11. The debate on the purpose of marriage had been stirred up by the publication of Doms, Herbert, Vom Sinn und Zweck Der Ehe , in 1935. The idea of parallel aims was eventually accepted by the Vatican II, in the encyclical letter Gaudium et Spes, published in 1965. See Ruffini, Eliseo, ‘Il matrimonio alla luce della teologia cattolica’, in Melchiorre, Virgilio (ed.), Amore e matrimonio nel pensiero filosofico e teologico moderno,Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1976, pp. 101–170, 108–111.Google Scholar

12. Bianchi, Antonio, Matrimonio Cristiano. Istruzioni , Sant'Alessandro, Bergamo, 1948 (3rd edn), pp. 202–203; also, Papi, Anna Benvenuti, ‘La santità nel matrimonio: momenti e motivi di una contraddizione’, in De Giorgio, Michela and Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane (eds), Storia del Matrimonio, Laterza, Rome–Bari, 1996, pp. 63–90, p. 64.Google Scholar

13. Pius, XII, ‘Address to Married Couples’, 10 September 1941, in The Dignity and Happiness of Marriage. Selected Addresses of Pope Pius XII to Married Couples , Campion Press, London and Dublin, 1959, pp. 48–54, p. 48.Google Scholar

14. The advice was given to a reader who had hit his wife for using ‘obscene language’ in front of their children: quoted in Marazziti, Mario, ‘Cultura di massa e valori cattolici: il modello di Famiglia Cristiana’, in Riccardi, , Pio XII , pp. 307–333, p. 318.Google Scholar

15. Bianchi, , Matrimonio Cristiano , p.151.Google Scholar

16. Costituzione Italiana , Einaudi, Turin, 1975, p. 9.Google Scholar

17. Commissione Parlamentare d'Inchiesta sulla Miseria, Camera dei Deputati, Relazione della commissione parlamentare d'inchiesta sulla miseria e sui mezzi per combatterla. Atti , Vol. 1, 1953, pp. 199 and 199–201. See also Cherubini, Arnaldo, Storia della Previdenza Sociale in Italia, Editori Riuniti, Rome, 1977, p. 394.Google Scholar

18. Saraceno, Chiara, ‘Women, Families and the Law, 1750–1942’, Journal of Family History , XV, 4 (1990), pp. 427–442, p. 438. See also Quine, Maria Sophia, Italy's Social Revolution. Charity and Welfare from Liberalism to Fascism, Palgrave, London, 2002, pp. 130–133.Google Scholar

19. Quoted in Celotto, Elisabetto, L'ONMI, 1925–1975: il caso fiorentino , unpublished degree thesis, University of Florence, 1995–56, p. 151.Google Scholar

20. For an analysis of the political role of ONMI in post-war Italy see Bernini, Stefania, ‘Family, Society and State in Comparative Perspective. Women and their Families in British and Italian Social Policy, 1945 to 1960’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 2002, pp. 131–147.Google Scholar

21. De Grazia, Victoria, How Fascism Ruled Women. Italy, 1922–1945 , University of California Press, Berkeley, 1992, p. 65.Google Scholar

22. Jemma had been a member of the first ONMI council and contributed to the regime's demographic battle in the early 1930s. See ‘Per una infanzia sana e serena’, Politica Sociale , March–April, 1932, pp. 201–202.Google Scholar

23. Jemma, Rocco, ‘Morbilità nell'infanzia del dopoguerra’, Maternità e Infanzia, (hereafter MI) xix, 1, September–October 1947, pp. 9–11.Google Scholar

24. Godano, Franco, ‘Sul criterio di funzionamento dei consultori’, MI , xxii, 6, November–December 1950, pp. 457–461.Google Scholar

25. Godano, Franco, ‘Per una migliore protezione dell'infanzia’, MI , xxi, 2, March–April 1949, pp. 83–84.Google Scholar

26. Veronese, Leopoldo Dino, ‘Per una maggiore tutela del lattante’, MI , xxiv, 4–5, July–October 1952, pp. 107–108; also Chiaraluce, Oscar, ‘L'ombra della superstizione sull'infanzia’, MI, xxiv, 5–6, May–June 1951, pp. 23–26, and Chiaraluce, Oscar, ‘Bimbi di Lucania’, MI, xxiii, 8, October 1951, pp. 19–21.Google Scholar

27. Di Francesco, Sebastiano, Armonia coniugale. Rilievi, considerazioni e consigli di un ginecologo , La Casa, Milan, 1956, p. 11.Google Scholar

28. Ibid , pp. 59–63.Google Scholar

29. Ibid. Google Scholar

30. Boschi, Alfredo, Nuove questioni matrimoniali , Marietti, Turin, 1952 (first published 1949), pp. 30–31.Google Scholar

31. Ibid , pp. 54–55.Google Scholar

32. Di Francesco, Sebastiano, Maternità senza dolore , La Casa, Milan, 1951, p. 32.Google Scholar

33. Ibid , pp. 54–58.Google Scholar

34. Read, Grantly Dick, Childbirth Without Fear , William Heinemann, London, 1968 (5th edn).Google Scholar

35. Ibid , p.33.Google Scholar

36. Read, , ‘The discomforts of childbirth’, British Medical Journal , 1, 16 April 1949, pp. 651–654.Google Scholar

37. Malcovati, Piero, ‘Il parto indolore’, in Rossi, D. G. (ed.), 100 problemi di coscienza , Pro-Civitate Cristiana, Assisi, 1958, pp. 159–160, p. 159.Google Scholar

38. Ravaglioli, Armando, ‘Maternità più umana’, Nostro Figlio , xxviii, 3, March 1956, p. 22.Google Scholar

39. Bocci, Adriano, ‘La preparazione psicofisica al parto nuova metodica di assistenza ostetrica’, in La madre e il bambino , 5, 4, 1956, pp. 5–9. On the activities of the maternity hospital operating in Turin under the direction of Giuseppe Delle Piane, see Bocci, Adriano, Chiudano, Giuseppe, Davitti, Luigi, Pinoli, Giuseppe and Terzi, Igino, La preparazione psicofisica al parto naturale, 2nd edn, Minerva Medica, Turin, 1958.Google Scholar

40. Read, , Childbirth Without Fear , London, 1942. Eleven reprints and two new editions of the book were published between 1942 and 1954. Translations included Swedish, Dutch, Italian, Danish, French, German and Afrikaans.Google Scholar

41. Ravaglioli, ‘Maternità più umana’, p. 22.Google Scholar

42. Gedda, Luigi, ‘Il dono più bello di Dio: la vita frutto della fatica materna’, Nostro Figlio , xxviii, 4, 1956, pp. 32–33.Google Scholar

43. Bocci, , ‘La preparazione psicofisica al parto’, p. 6. Robecchi, Emilio, ‘Il metodo psico-fisico per il parto indolore’, La madre e il bambino, 5, 3, May–June 1956, pp. 6–8.Google Scholar

44. Chiudano, Giuseppe, Davitti, Luigi and Pinoli, Giuseppe, ‘Sviluppo psicosomatico dei nati da parto naturale’, paper given at Convegno Lombardo Veneto sulla collaborazione ostetrico-pediatrica nel quadro della morbilità e della mortalità perinatale e neonatale, Milan, 31 May–June 1959, p. 3.Google Scholar

45. Pinoli, Giuseppe, ‘Risultati psicoclinici della preparazione psicosomatica al parto’, in Medicina Psicosomatica , 3, 2, 1958, pp. 121–129.Google Scholar

46. ‘Tu partorirai serenamente’, Nostro Figlio , xxviii, 3, 1956, pp. 26–28.Google Scholar

47. Signorelli, Amalia, ‘Il pragmatismo delle donne. La condizione femminile nella trasformazione delle campagne’, in Bevilacqua, Piero (ed.), Storia dell'agricoltura italiana in età contemporanea , 11, 1990, Marsilio, Venice, pp. 625–659.Google Scholar

48. Oakley, , ‘A Case of Maternity’, p. 609.Google Scholar

49. Trabucchi, Carlo, Parole chiare di un medico agli sposi , La Casa, Milan, 1955, p. 13.Google Scholar

50. Bianchi, , Matrimonio cristiano , pp. 84, 93, 157.Google Scholar

51. Moscucci, Ornella, The Science of Woman. Gynaecology and Gender in England, 1800–1929 , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990, p. 40.Google Scholar

52. De Grazia, , How Fascism Ruled , p. 73.Google Scholar