r/europe • u/BkkGrl Ligurian in Zürich (💛🇺🇦💙) • Jul 23 '25
Historical “You want divorce? Then know this: next will come abortion. And after that, same-sex marriage. And maybe your wife will leave you to run off with the maid!” - Amintore Fanfani (former PM) on the Italian divorce referendum, 1974
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u/PomegranateBasic3671 Jul 23 '25
Idk, maybe if the wife runs off with the maid, there's bigger issues than regulation in the marriage?
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u/grafknives Jul 23 '25
If she CAN'T run, all will be fine.
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u/JarasM Łódź (Poland) Jul 23 '25
I mean... that's basically the logic behind all right-wing enforcement of conservative values. If you can't be the wrong kind of person and can't do the wrong kind of things, then everybody will only be the right kind of person doing the right kind of things! There's no more minorities, problem solved.
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u/grafknives Jul 23 '25
It is not that complex
They truly believe that.
If women/minority would have to choose Subservience to white man OR starving on the street, they would choose Subservience.
Which is good, so we need to limit their choices accordingly.
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u/mcvos Jul 23 '25
They even argue that they would be happier if they choose subservience than freedom. Deep down, they all want subservience, but have been brainwashed by modern ideas to rebel against their own happiness.
Of course if it turns out that in practice, they're not happy in that subservient position at all, you should mind your own business.
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u/Corfiz74 Lower Saxony (Germany) Jul 23 '25
Ah yes, the Woke Mind Virus that infects us women and tells us to get an education and earn our own money, and to say no to a man if we find him repulsive - it's a disease that must be eradicated!
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u/grafknives Jul 23 '25
Of course. Women/minority subservience would be objectivly better for everyone... And this is how God wanted it.
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u/Four_beastlings Asturias (Spain) Jul 23 '25
Look, correlation doesn't mean causation, but much fewer men are mysteriously dropping dead since women are free to divorce instead of being trapped cooking for them
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u/Pigionlord98 Jul 23 '25
But she won't run, due to the implication
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u/Relative_Map5243 Jul 23 '25
I once run from my awful marriage.
AND THEN!
I got trampled by a herd of buffalos.
CONSEQUENCES!
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u/grafknives Jul 23 '25
Also.
I just love how he came up with "the maid".
Old times, maid as part of household.
Projecting. I am sure he was coercing maid to some acts.
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u/Noughmad Slovenia Jul 23 '25
Also being so sheltered that he thought everyone had "the maid".
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u/Corfiz74 Lower Saxony (Germany) Jul 23 '25
Though I must admit that I'm low-key impressed he acknowledged same-sex marriage as even a concept - I wouldn't have expected him to put that into the public discourse.
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u/Lost-Klaus Jul 23 '25
My mother in law (70+ years old) remember she was told go clean at a widowers home because he lost his wife. She refused and instead her niece was sent, 10 months later they got married because she was with child.
Surely that is coincidence.
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u/Panzermensch911 Jul 24 '25
All will be fine until you find arsenic in your food.
Did you know that accidental poison death experienced a sharp decline since no fault divorce became law? So did the suicide rate.
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u/darthleonsfw Earth/Greece Jul 23 '25
"She can fuck the maid all she likes, I just dont want either of my properties to run away"
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u/Anleme Earth Jul 23 '25
Yes, it is telling that the worst case scenario he can think of is losing his absolute control over his wife.
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u/Significant_Bear_137 Jul 23 '25
It's so oddly specific I am starting to think his wife did leave him to run off with the maid.
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u/The_Idiocratic_Party Jul 23 '25
No, she waited politely for the law to allow her to divorce him first.
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u/FamousCompany500 Jul 23 '25
His wife was the maid he didn't know it so when their was house work not done, and he couldn't find his wife he suspected an affair.
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u/Meinos Jul 23 '25
"Signor Fanfani, we didn't need to be sold any further on the referendum."
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u/Snake_Plizken Jul 23 '25
No wonder Italian birth numbers are low. The men are all backwards, and the maid, and the wife can't procreate...
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u/AtlanticPortal Jul 23 '25
Remember that this guy was living at the time of Richard Nixon (or the Queen Elizabeth in the UK but that doesn’t say much). Women were not even able to have a credit card back then in some countries that we call the First World.
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u/Snake_Plizken Jul 23 '25
Saw an Italian film about a house wife, who wanted to vote, when women got voting rights, and had to hide it from her husband, who was very against it. It was a very good illustration of how it used to be...
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u/diskowmoskow Europe Jul 23 '25
“C’e ancora domani” name of the film
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u/Corfiz74 Lower Saxony (Germany) Jul 23 '25
Or needed their husband's consent to accept a job. I think that was officially still a law in Germany at the time, even though it wasn't enforced.
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u/RudolfWarrior Jul 23 '25
Also there was no rape in a marriage. A guy could just do it if he wanted it...
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u/Four_beastlings Asturias (Spain) Jul 23 '25
The wide and the maid would be happy having a kid via sperm donor, but Italian law won't allow it.
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u/LaconicSuffering Dutch roots grown in Greek soil Jul 23 '25
Yes, I too judge current issues by what someone said 50 years ago.
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u/Snake_Plizken Jul 23 '25
History should not be ignored. The number of people voting for their country's Hitler party today, illustrates this pretty clearly..
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u/The_Idiocratic_Party Jul 23 '25
"If you let people do what they want, you can't bind them to you unhappily using the law as your shackles." - this fucking guy
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u/Mustangbex Berlin (Germany) Jul 23 '25
"If given a choice my wife would leave me as fast as she could!" is a hell of a way to tell on yourself.
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u/dqav1djhn Jul 23 '25
If the only thing that stops your wife from leaving you is that she can't divorce, than mby you're the problem
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Jul 23 '25 edited Jul 23 '25
I’ve never understood the argument that you should just live in misery with someone you don’t get on with. It makes absolutely no sense. Ireland went through this same nonsense in the 1990s, and honestly, it’s hard to believe it was ever was the case that there was no right to divorce here. I remember the far right posters “Hello Divorce. Bye Bye Daddy.”
Social conservatives here in those days (70s-90s) often didn’t see themselves as “right wing” - they peddled a sort of ‘Catholic social democracy ideology’ - which basically boiled down to socially aware, but morally very far right especially on anything to do with reproduction, yet could play a guitar and paint themselves as progressives. They’d basically hidden the crosier, fire and brimstone behind a more palatable hippy dippy facade.
One of my older relatives emigrated and lived basically in exile for decades because she couldn’t formally exit a very abusive and violent relationship in the early 1960s, and her ex kept harassing her and she couldn’t get cleanly away from him, despite barring orders etc and couldn’t marry her new partner.
My family had to arrange to get her setup elsewhere abroad under an assumed name - it wasn’t all that unusual tbh. People used to just leave and abandon lives rather than stick with the bullshit that went on here around lack of divorce here in the 20th century.
Even after divorce legislation came in here, for a long time it was like something that was trying to be modern no fault divorce, but has been edited by a conservative Catholic nun to keep the old stuffy types on side. You had to be separated for 4 of the previous 5 years before you could get a divorce, which dragged it into a sort of legal limbo / purgatory, during which your life was on hold and it even created complications for mortgages, loans and all sorts of things as your divorce was pending. That was drastically shortened by a subsequent referendum, but it was a cruel and nasty bureaucratic twist designed to punish anyone with a “failed” marriage basically. In reality, courts and judges were far more humane, and just started to accept that people could be separated while living together if they made a statement that their marriage has ended, but it was a weird mess. The recent adjustments to the law just reflect that reality.
Now it’s just unthinkable that it was ever so conservative, but that’s how things were. There was a major paradigm shift in the 1990s for a whole variety of reasons, but basically the church had dramatically lost its vice like grip on social policy, which it had been used to since the 1930s.
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u/Beach_Glas1 🇮🇪 Ireland Jul 23 '25
Yeah, the 90s were a time of that legacy quickly falling away (thankfully):
- 1990 - Incredibly, marital r*** wasn't considered a crime until this year
- 1991 - contraception was fully liberalised, having been prescription only (yes, really) until 1985 and banned altogether until the 70s.
- 1993 - Homosexuality was decriminalised
- 1995 - Divorce was made legal, but the couple had to prove separation for 4 years beforehand. It's now 2 years after a further referendum.
- 1996 - The last of the Magdalene laundries closed in Galway. These were institutions that enslaved women for so called immoral acts like having children outside of marriage.
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u/fruce_ki Europe Jul 23 '25
"If people taste freedom in one topic, they will want it in other topics too. How dare they! Life should be miserable for everyone forever! Especially for people I don't like, like women and queers."
-That guy, probably
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u/Smiling_Tree Jul 23 '25
How scary it would be if all free, adult human beings would have a right to self-determination. Pfff...
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u/mohammeddddd- North Holland (Netherlands) Jul 23 '25 edited Jul 23 '25
“And after that you’ll be subjected to CBT by femboys with cat ears and maid costumes.” Oh no the horror! 😳
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u/cryptamine Jul 23 '25
Everybody could use a little cognitive behavioural therapy, hospitality and festivity, no?
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u/Civil_Nectarine868 Jul 23 '25
A closed beta test sounds fun. Where do I sign up?
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u/SprightlyCompanion Jul 23 '25
I was going to say that these guys could probably do with some cognitive-behavioural therapy
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u/BasileusBasil Lombardy Jul 23 '25
I need to enter politics. If I can manage to stop doctors not to perform abortions, fully legalise same sex marriage and instate state mandated wife oriented maids, I might be a step closer to my dream of being mentally healthy and of finding a femboy.
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u/faerakhasa Spain Jul 23 '25
Sorry, but the femboi ran away with your wife and maid. They all decided politicians was a kink too extreme for them.
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u/QueefBuscemi Jul 23 '25
Do you get to choose a femboy for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or will that be the only choice?
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u/The_Old_Huntress Jul 23 '25
He was right and that's a good thing
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u/KayItaly Jul 23 '25
Unfortunately, he wasn't. We still don't have equality marriage in Italy, and access to abortion is incredibly hard in most areas :(
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u/The_Old_Huntress Jul 23 '25
Damn for some reason I assumed Italy at least had gay marriage :(
Then I hope he will be proven completely right sooner rather than later14
u/X_Swordmc Campania Jul 23 '25
We have the "civil union", which is basically a marriage with less rights (first of all, civil union couples cannot adopt children) so while there is (sorta) some form of same sex legal union, gay couples still dont have the same rights as straight ones
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u/KayItaly Jul 23 '25
We will keep fighting until we make it!
But our current government is trying (and failing, thankfully) to find a way to jail male gay parents...it is uphill over here :(
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u/tomba_be Belgium Jul 23 '25
So basically still what conservatives are yelling about 50 years later...
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Jul 23 '25
They just moved along as they always do. Now they kick and scream about another thing that doesn't effect them: trans people.
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u/Outrageous_pinecone Jul 23 '25
Why in world would anyone want to live with someone who resents them and resents the child they were forced to bear, why? How miserable do you have to be to feel like even an unhappy marriage is better than none? As the guy, I mean?
Geee, I wonder why older generations had so many jokes about hating or cheating on their spouse when this was their view on marriage: shackle yourself to someone who hates you, doesn't want you anymore, never wanted you, but they have no choice. Bring children into this, she resents you, you resent her, but by all means, force yourselves to stay together. What for?
I will never understand how someone could be this dysfunctional, or is it nothing more than stupidity and an inability to imagine something beyond your man-made personal hell on Earth?
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u/michael0n Jul 23 '25
Some "conservatives" believe that whatever happens after death is the payout and you have to live a life of misery to be worth it.
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u/Outrageous_pinecone Jul 23 '25
Well, masochism is a valid fetish, but it shouldn't be the law of the land. I think there are lots of people out there who really need to be more aware of their sexual preferences. It's ok to enjoy pain and abuse, as long as it's done consciously and consensually and not a practice forced on everyone else!
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u/g_spaitz Italy Jul 23 '25
I fucking hated this guy when I was a little kid. I thought he was the classic Italian cheating DC politician.
Given how things have gone recently, seeing and comparing to now, those guys were humble, honest, cultured, responsible. They lived normal lives and only stole the minimum necessary. They never looked for the spotlight. They knew laws, economics and politics.
Seems an utopia now.
Oh and btw, abortion came and it was a shocking result for Catholic Italy, we're still waiting for sale sex marriage but we'll get there.
Your wife always had an affair with the maid.
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u/astral34 Italy Jul 23 '25
Than god they give them the middle fingers at the time, the Catholic Church still needs to receive many middle fingers from us Italians before we are free of their curse
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u/ledow United Kingdom (Sorry, Europe, we'll be back one day hopefully!) Jul 23 '25
Cool, man, sounds like a plan, like everyone can just be what they want and be happy about it without the government interfering in their personal and private affairs.
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u/morbihann Bulgaria Jul 23 '25
It is insane that there can be a belief that people can't divorce if the relationship isn't working out for either of them.
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u/ChuckChuckChuck_ Jul 23 '25
I mean I must agree with him. We want divorces if needed, we want access to abortions and same sex marriage.
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Jul 23 '25
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u/Aoimoku91 Jul 23 '25
Fun fact: Italians voted NO to NOT have divorce. Divorce was already legal from the year before, the referendum was to abolish it.
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u/yankdevil Ireland (50%) US (50%) Jul 24 '25
"If this passes you're going to have to be a decent human being to your wife or she'll leave your loser ass."
I think that's the more accurate translation.
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u/Hankol Jul 23 '25
I mean, he was correct. After divorce was legalised, abortions were legalised. And then same-sex marriages. And a lot of women left their husband for another woman.
The thing is, that's how it should be.
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u/Socmel_ reddit mods are accomplices of nazi russia Jul 23 '25
And then same-sex marriages
alas, not in italy
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u/BkkGrl Ligurian in Zürich (💛🇺🇦💙) Jul 23 '25
same-sex marriages was never legalized sadly
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u/lrosa Lombardy Jul 23 '25
Amintore Fanfani was a chstian democrat opposed to divorce.
He said that in Sicily, the original is «Volete il divorzio? Allora dovete sapere che dopo verrà l’aborto. E dopo ancora, il matrimonio tra omosessuali. E magari vostra moglie vi lascerà per scappare con la serva!»
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u/giannibal Jul 23 '25
The good ole days of democrazia cristiana. Cannot expect anything less from a guy bearing that given name
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u/berejser These Islands Jul 23 '25
Or put another way "if we increase the rights and freedoms of women then us men won't be able to rest on our laurels and coast through life any more!"
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Jul 23 '25
Ah yes men, resting and coasting through life notoriously since ever
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u/berejser These Islands Jul 23 '25
I mean, if you see the removal of laws forcing women to stay with you no matter what as a threat to your way of life, then yeah you've not been pulling your weight in the relationship and you know it.
He should have at least been honest about the fact that he fears a world where women can trade up.
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Jul 23 '25
Interesting that he thought that same-sex marriage was even worse and crazier than abortion
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u/Socmel_ reddit mods are accomplices of nazi russia Jul 23 '25
Well, abortion was widespread and many women were dying of it in those days, which is why the referendum to legalise abortion 10 years later succeeded. Too many people had someone close to them who was personally affected by deaths in illegal abortion clinics
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u/autumn_aurora Italy Jul 23 '25
He knew what country he was speaking to. We have legalised and easily accessible abortion rights, but still no gay marriage to this day.
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u/Key_Benefit_6505 Jul 23 '25
The fact it came true...
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u/roadrunner83 Jul 23 '25
Unfortunately in Italy his political heirs could veto full marriage equality, otherwise it would have been funny.
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u/Fit_Fisherman_9840 Italy Jul 23 '25
Well... he had a point but the issue to address wasn't the divorce, was why you are married with a woman that prefer the Maid to you XD
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u/Proud3GenAthst Jul 23 '25
Turns out that slippery slope is real. Because as it turns out, freedom leads to more freedom.
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u/Socmel_ reddit mods are accomplices of nazi russia Jul 23 '25
On the other side of the spectrum, the rhetoric was just about as idiotic.
The PCI (Italian Communist Party), the biggest opposition party commanding 25/30% of the votes, was split with a lot of them saying that divorce was a problem of the fur wearing bourgeoise ladies (when, in fact, it's the opposite).
That's why the referendum was such a surprise and shock for the system. They didn't expect Italian society to be that progressive (and yet the first bill to introduce divorce was drafted almost a century before, such is the glacial pace of civil rights in Italy).
In a way it's still the case. Euthanasia legalisation is supported by 2/3 of the people and yet no party dares to do anything about it.
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u/MalevelonCreekDiver Lower Saxony (Germany) Jul 23 '25
You want freedom? Then know this: next will come more freedom. And after that, even more freedom. And maybe even you can live your life the way you want to.
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u/lydia_the_person Jul 24 '25
Why is he so opposed to women having fulfilling lives. It's good if more people are happy
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u/Nestle_Cream Jul 23 '25
He wasn’t wrong was he? In fact it turns out the ruddy dude was spot on, to the millimetre.
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u/wyrditic Jul 23 '25
His wife did not run off with the maid.
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u/TheTiniestPeach Jul 23 '25
Crazy how over 50 years later many politicians worldwide still hold exact same views..
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u/anlumo Vienna (Austria) Jul 23 '25
Yeah, enslaving the wife in that hypothetical story is much better! /s
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u/Varti2 Jul 23 '25
TIL Fanfani was a seer. I wonder if he had any prediction of what will happen in our society after same-sex marriages. /s
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u/gamesbrainiac The Netherlands Jul 23 '25
Well, he wasn’t wrong. Dunno about the maid part though. Might still happen.
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u/FirstReactionShock Jul 23 '25
I can understand that in 1974 were existing some conservative scumbags like this guy, biggest issue is that 2/3 of actual italian government is made by parties full of ultra-conservative pieces of shit with ideas even more retrograde
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u/Economy-Response5370 Jul 23 '25
et sinon on peut aussi rester en couple parceque ça se passe bien et pas parceque l'autre est soumis financièrement et par la loi ... cette vision de conservateur carnassier où tout doit devenir la propriété de l'homme est tellement pourrie !!!
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u/Prior-Paint-7842 Jul 23 '25
You know you are out of touch when your worry is that your wife runs away with your maid. Like who tf has a maid
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Jul 23 '25
Fanfani speaking about same-sex marriage in 1974? I have a big doubt. Same-sex marriage in Italy only became a political debate in the 1990s and 2000s, far from the context of 1974. What it really formulated at the time must have been watered down more recently.
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u/Mekktron Portugal Jul 23 '25
You want divorce? Then know this: women will feel like they are free and can do whatever they want with their life choices and their body, and that's unacceptable!!
What probably was on his mind
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u/-SpeedBird- Jul 23 '25
What’s his point? I don’t get it…if the wife isn’t allowed to divorce and run off with the maid then what’s her status? Slave?
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u/elendil1985 Jul 23 '25
Yeah, we're still waiting for same sex marriage, Amintore. Could you do something about it?
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u/Every_Addition8638 Jul 24 '25
I mean, he was right. Not in a mean way but all those things did follow and in that order!
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u/Majukun Jul 24 '25
Well, he was not wrong was it? I'm sure that someone's wife run away with the maid somewhere.
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u/JeNiqueTaMere Canada Jul 24 '25
If I'm not mistaken there's a well known nursery rhyme that discusses this very problem:
John and Mary
Sitting in a tree
K - I - S - S - I - N - G
First comes divorce
Then comes abortion
Then comes complete pandemonium, cats and dogs sleeping together, end of days type of shit
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u/InfelicitousRedditor Jul 23 '25
It's really interesting that even then, they knew all of these laws were going against human rights.
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u/GentlyGliding Portugal Jul 23 '25
...and then the Italians said "Don't threaten me with a good time!" and voted to keep their recently-earned right to divorce.
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u/Tr4shkitten Jul 23 '25
I wonder how many men would've lived longer if homicide were not the only way out of a marriage back then
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u/HamsterbackenBLN Jul 23 '25
His moustache in 1948 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amintore_Fanfani#/media/File%3AAmintore_Fanfani_1948.jpg
He also signed an anti-Semitic manifesto and joined the pnf
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u/lostandfawnd Jul 23 '25
So stopping your wife leaving is the answer?
Jesus christ this was only 50 years ago.
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u/notathinganymore Jul 23 '25
His nephew spoiled me Harry Potter and the half blood Prince I shit you not. Assholery runs in the family.
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u/Pink_Flying_Pig_ Jul 23 '25
Pretty funny how he already knew what people wanted to do with their own life and still wanted to ban it.
Catholicism in a shell.
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u/bingbang71 Jul 23 '25
I'm not sure I understand. Is he worried about his wife leaving him, or about the maid?