“Close intellectual relations between man and woman cannot as yet be developed, owing to the generally low education of woman, to her subordination, and to her intellectual bondage. While still in the schools the boy is trained for political life. The average Italian woman participates in politics even less than the German woman; her influence is purely moral. If the Italian woman wishes to accept any office in a society, she must have the consent of her husband attested by a notary. Just as in ancient times, the non-professional interests of the husband are, in great part, elsewhere than at home. The opportunity daily to discuss political and other current questions with men companions is found by the German man in the smaller cities while taking his evening pint of beer. The Italian man finds this opportunity sometimes in the café, sometimes in the public places, where every evening the men congregate for hours. So the educated man in Italy (even more than in Germany) has no need of the intellectual qualities of his wife. Moreover, his need for an educated wife is the less because his misguided precocity prevents him from acquiring anything but an essentially general education. The restricted intellectual relationship between husband and wife is explained partly by the fact that the cicisbeo[90] still exists. This relation ought to be, and generally is, Platonic and publicly known. The wife permits her friend (the cicisbeo) to escort her to the theater and elsewhere in a carriage; the husband also escorts a woman friend. So husband and wife share the inwardly moral unsoundness of the medieval service of love (Minnedienst). At any rate this custom reveals the fact that after the honeymoon the husband and wife do not have overmuch to say to each other. In this way there takes place, to a certain extent, an open relinquishment of the postulate that, in accordance with the external indissolubility of married life, there ought to be permanent intellectual bonds between man and wife,—a postulate that is the source of the most serious conscience struggles, but which has caused the great moral development of the northern woman.”[91]
Naturally, under such circumstances, the woman’s rights movement has done practically nothing for the masses. In the circles of the nobility the movement, with the consent of the clergy, has until recently confined itself to philanthropy (the forming of associations and insurance societies, the founding of homes, asylums, etc.) and to the higher education of girls.[92] In a private audience the Pope has expressed himself in favor of women’s engaging in university studies (except theology), but he was opposed to woman’s suffrage. The daughters of the educated, liberal (but often poor) bourgeoisie are driven by want and conviction to acquire a higher education and to engage in academic callings. The material difficulties are not great. As in France, the government has during the past thirty-five years promoted all educational measures that would take from the clergy its power over youth.
Elementary education is public and obligatory. The laws are enforced rather strictly. Coeducation nowhere exists. The number of women teachers is 62,643.
The secondary school system is still largely in the hands of the Catholic religious orders. There are about 100,000 girls and nuns enrolled in these church schools; only 25,000 girls are in the secondary state and private schools (other than the Catholic schools), which cannot give instruction as cheaply as the religious schools. The efforts of the state in this field are not to be criticized: it has given women every educational opportunity. Girls wishing to study in the universities are admitted to the boys’ classical schools (ginnasii) and to the boys’ technical schools. This experiment in coeducation during the plastic age of youth has not even been undertaken by France. To be sure, at present the girls sit together on the front seats, and when entering and leaving class they have the school porter as bodyguard. In spite of all fears to the contrary, coeducation has been a success in northern Italy (Milan), as well as in southern Italy (Naples).
The universities have never been closed to women. In recent years 300 women have attended the universities and have graduated. During the Renaissance there were many women teachers in Italy. This tradition has been revived; at present there are 10 women university teachers. Dr. jur. Therese Labriola (whose mother is a German) is a lecturer in the philosophy of law at Rome. Dr. med. Rina Monti is a university lecturer in anatomy at Pavia.
There are many practicing women doctors in Italy. Dr. med. Maria Montessori (a delegate to the International Congress of Women in Berlin in 1896) is a physician in the Roman hospitals. The Minister of Public Instruction has authorized her to deliver a course of lectures on the treatment of imbecile children to a class of women teachers in the elementary schools. The legal profession still remains closed to women, although Dr. jur. Laidi Poët has succeeded in being admitted to the bar in Turin.
In government service (in 1901) there were 1000 women telephone employees, 183 women telegraph clerks, and 161 women office clerks. These positions are much sought after by men. The number of women employed in commerce is 18,000; the total number of persons employed in commerce being 57,087. Recently women have been appointed as factory inspectors.
The beginnings of the modern woman’s rights movement coincide with the political upheavals that occurred between 1859 and 1870. When the Kingdom of Italy had been established, Jessie White Mario demanded a reform of the legal, political, and economic status of woman. Whatever legal concessions have been made to women are due, as in France, to the Liberal parliamentary majority.
Since 1877, women have been able to act as witnesses in civil suits. Women (even married women) can be guardians. The property laws provide for separation of property. Even in cases of joint property holding, the wife controls her earnings and savings. The husband can give her a general authorization (allgemeinautorisation), thus giving her the full status of a legal person before the law. These laws are the most radical reforms to which the Code Napoleon has ever been subjected,—reforms which the French did not venture to enact.
The Liberal majority made an attempt in 1877 to emancipate the women politically. But the attempt failed. Bills providing for municipal woman’s suffrage were introduced and rejected in 1880, 1883, and 1888. However, since 1890, women have been eligible as poor-law guardians. The élite among the Italian men loyally supported the women in their struggle for emancipation. Since 1881 the women have organized clubs. At first these were unsuccessful. Free and courageous women were in the minority. In Rome the woman’s rights movement was at first exclusively benevolent. In Milan and Turin, on the other hand, there were woman’s rights advocates (under the leadership of Dr. med. Paoline Schiff and Emilia Mariani). The leadership of the national movement fell to the more active, more educated, and economically stronger northern Italy. Here also the movement of the workingwomen had progressed to the stage of organization, as, for example, in the case of the Lombard women workers in the rice fields.