In the presence of their lawyers, the soon-to-be-separated couple agrees on the terms of the divorce. As civil servants, lawyers certify the “assisted negotiation agreement”. Free legal aid (Patrocinio dello Stato) is available if the net annual income is less than €11,493.82 (plus €1,032.00 per child and/or cohabitation alimony). A special place in the “Noi donne” birth control campaign, launched in 1958 under the title Quando li vogliamo, quanti ne vogliamo (“If we want them, we want numbers”), was reported in the 1960 article about a visit to Britain by two American scientists who had developed the pill. He stressed that in the modern world, it is fundamental to a civilized and conscientious view of the family to give parents the power to decide when and how much they want to have children, rather than leaving these things to chance or “fate.” The article denounced the Catholic Church`s rigid conception of contraception as a “contro natura,” and a subsection of the article presenting the views of the euphemistically named Italian Association for Demographic Education (AIED) was titled La scienza contro i tabù (“Science against taboos”). [39] “Noi donne” did throw down a glove with such a phrase, and the March 1960 article on the pill suggests a shift towards a more militant and urgent approach to family affairs in Italy, whose visible driving force was the concern to change social structures rather than ideology. [40] In 1960, the pages of “Noi donne” were overflowing with the results of this commitment. In May, a four-page article entitled Urgente per la donna (“Urgent for Women”) reported on a comprehensive opinion poll (men and women, “artists, professionals, workers, young and old”) conducted by Noi donne across Italy. Sprinkled with individual comments, the most pressing issue was the conflict between full-time work and family, but other issues, such as the lack of divorce law, were also raised. The many comments from across the country, complemented by photos of women in focus groups in classrooms and plazas, give the impression of a vibrant feminist effervescence prior to the second wave of feminism. [41] Reaffirming the extraordinarily avant-garde position of “Noi donne,” the magazine began in July 1960 to publish its analysis of responses to 600,000 questionnaires on women`s lives distributed to readers throughout Italy on the occasion of International Women`s Day on March 8. These gave insight into the changing reality of women`s working life, family, marriage and children in Italy.

[42] Between these two major investigations was a series of articles that sought to show readers how direct the relationship was between changing social structures and questions of the human heart. The author of Non è più lo stesso cuore (“No longer the same heart”) said that with the development of new attitudes among women in the labour market, “a cyclone has swept away the habits, customs and feelings of Italians. It invaded homes and hearts and changed the face of the family. [43] As a result, even the human heart was subject to the power of history to effect change, and the article argued that the gap resulting from a traditional patriarchal family structure had led to a “crisis” of the family. This early example of the idea that the family was entering a period of crisis heralded a view that would be widely disseminated later in the decade; Indeed, the call for a divorce law in the mid-1960s would be presented as both a symptom and a remedy for this crisis. But for “Noi donne” in 1960, the “crisis” could be seen positively, as an indicator of movement, as a precursor of transition, even of a “revolution” in the family structure. In short, the economic forces and social contradictions they created, especially the “double burden” of women, had begun to exert inevitable violence on the steel capsule of the Italian family in 1960. It was a changing institution that readers were encouraged to rejoice: “Noi donne” showed that the modern family was taking shape day by day “from the fragments of the ancient pyramid.” [44] In 1960, this statement was far-sighted and ultimately overly optimistic: it was not until 1975, through a thorough revision of the Civil Code, that the new requirements of family life at the end of the twentieth century in Italy were officially recognized.

The divorce law was ultimately a hard-won recognition of the changes in Italian habits, customs and feelings that “Noi donne” both demonstrated and tirelessly fomented. The two parliamentary divorce proposals initiated by Sansone had slipped unsuccessfully into the past until 1960, but in that important year, “Noi donne” announced that a public debate had finally been reopened on the issue of divorce, which for a century had unleashed “waves of fanaticism whenever it was raised”.

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