Closer to Divorce

In Rome's 432 churches, prayers were offered "to spare Italy the calamity of divorce." Before an audience of 250 Italian newlyweds, Pope Paul VI declared that legislators should "venerate, honor and defend" the indissolubility of marriage. Premier Mariano Rumor urged his colleagues to make "one last careful meditation." All to no avail. Amid prayer vigils, the Chamber of Deputies adopted, by a 325-to-283 vote, a bill that will permit divorce for the first time in modern Italian history.

Under the bill, divorce would be permitted for such specific reasons as insanity, long-term imprisonment, incest, or if a couple has been separated for five years. This last provision, known already as the "piccolo divorzio" or "little divorce," would aid as many as 1,600,000 Italians estimated to be living in marital sin. It would directly benefit the 500,000 "white widows," whose husbands left Italy to work, then got divorced and remarried abroad.

Introduced in 1965 by Socialist Deputy Loris Fortuna, the bill at first seemed likely to die in committee--as had ten previous divorce measures. By last July, however, the bill had won wide support. Then--time out for a government crisis. When the debate resumed this fall, 100 Christian Democratic Deputies filibustered against the bill. Replying to their protests, Sponsor Fortuna said: "Even now it is possible to break up a family by buying a fiscal stamp for 400 lire [66-c-]--the price of an application for a legal separation." Outside Parliament, demonstrators waved banners reading "Even Viet Nam has divorce" and "Divorce is for everyone."

Less Like Andorra. Finally, a coalition of Socialists, Communists and right-of-center Liberals passed the bill by defeating a combination of Christian Democrats, Monarchists and neoFascists. Perhaps now, said the weekly L'Espresso, "Italy will be a bit more like England and Sweden and a bit less like Paraguay and Andorra."

The fight is not quite over. The bill will probably be passed by the Senate, despite the bitter opposition of Senate President (and former Premier) Amintore Fanfani. Even then, the anti-divorce forces have one last stratagem. They will press for a referendum next year to give the Italian people a chance to repeal the law. Said L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican daily: "Divorce may have a parliamentary majority, but it is not approved by a majority of Italians." That remains to be seen. At any rate, if the bill is enacted and remains in effect even for only a very brief time before a referendum is held, several hundred thousand Italians will seize the opportunity to straighten out their tangled affairs.

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