Gender, Family and Sexuality The Private Sphere in Italy, 1860-1945 [Hardcover]

This lively collection of essays presents a range of innovative research on the history of the private sphere in Liberal and Fascist Italy, with a particular focus on sexuality, gender and race - all aspects which have received scarce attention in much of the existing historiography. It includes articles on foundlings and their mothers, the role of midwives, changing attitudes to sexuality, adultery trials, the Fascist persecution of homosexuals, debates about divorce and (going beyond Italy to its empire) the treatment of mixed race children and their mothers in Eritrea. Key themes of this collection include the contrasting attitudes of the Liberal and Fascist governments to the role of the state in the private sphere, the influence of the Church and the impact of new 'scientific' and medical approaches to maternity, sexuality and demography.Introduction: Gender and the Private Sphere in Liberal and Fascist Italy; P.Willson Marriage on Trial: Adultery in Nineteenth-Century Rome; D.Rizzo Till Death Do Them Part? The Church-State Struggle over Marriage and Divorce, 1860-1914; M.Seymour Motherhood Through the Wheel: The Care of Foundlings in Late Nineteenth-Century Naples; A.M.Tapaninen Family, Marriage and Inheritance Practices of a Jewish Elite in the Age of Emancipation; B.Armani Labelling Women Deviant: Heterosexual Women, Prostitutes and Lesbians in Early Criminological Discourse; M.Gibson Women and the Public/Private Divide: The Salotto , Home and Theatre in Late Nineteenth-Century Italy; A.H.Caesar Between Tradition and Profession. Italian Midwives during the 1930s; A.Gissi The Persecution of Homosexual Men under Fascism; M.R.Ebner Sex, Citizenship and the State: The Construction of the Public and Private Spheres in Colonial Eritrea; G.Barrera The History of Sexuality in Italy (1860-1945); B.P.F.WanrooijB. ARMANI Researcher and WriterG. BARRERA Archivist, Direzione Generale per gli Archivi di Stato, Rome, ItalyM. R. EBNER ResearcherM. GIBSON Professor of Historlsh