Bebe Vio Granis – who competed with the “new surname” – is certainly the most famous in the last paralympics, but it is not the only one: in Italy people who decide to change their surname increase by adding the maternal one. Since then, in 2022, the Constitutional Court has declared the automatic assignment of patronymical illegitimatethat is, of the father’s surname, the percentage of the new births to which the surname of both parents is growing is also growing. Not an increase in dizzying, range from a few percentage points in most Italian cities to 17 percent of Milan, but something moves. And even on social networks there are not few users – mostly women – who update the profile with the maternal surname.
But why what do we call ourselves so important? “This is not a habit, the surname defines the individual,” immediately clear the field from misunderstandings Amalia diurniprofessor of comparative private law at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. «If the only paternal surname is attributed, in addition to discriminating women a cultural message is transmitted to childrena sexist stereotype, which then leads to invisibility Of the mothers within the company, “says Rosanna Oliva de Conciliis, president of the network for the APS equality, who in 1960 won the use of the Constitutional Court against the impossibility for women to access the most important public careers. “In our country too few know the sentence of 2022 Without forgetting that the 1975 family law reform replaced the homeland authority with parental authority ».
A civil question, therefore, even if many still wonder if it is enough to change the surname to erase the inequalities between the genres. Today in our country there is as established by the Constitutional Courtas Diurnal explains: «The surname of the children must compose with the surnames of the parents, in the order they agreed by them, without prejudice to the attribution, by the mutual agreement, only of the surname of one of the two. In the absence of agreement, we proceed with the double surname ». Farewell, therefore, to the only surname of dad assigned by default. “In modern societies, the choice of the surname fell on the individual socially and legally stronger individual, namely man, to greater protection of the minor. But in our country it has been since the eighties that the Constitutional Court urges a reflection. In 2006 he declared a patronymical a patriarchal heritage, in 2016 he introduced the option of the addition of the maternal surname to the paternal surname, to end in 2022, forced by the immobility of the legislator, with declaring the automatic assignment of patronymic illegitimate “, summarized as a day.
Living by the Senate Justice Commission are now there now four bills, which with different variants propose the liberal model: the choice of the choice. Dayturn explains, which was listened to by the same commission on the subject, as well as Rosa Oliva de Conciliis: «The question is: the attribution of the surname configures a parents’ right, as it would seem from the proposals under discussion, or constitutes the exercise of parental responsibility And therefore, must do the best interest of the minor? With the bilateral model, the priority of the protection of the minor would be preserved to see a double surname recognized, a sign of belonging to both family branches “.
The bilateral model, that is, provides for the double surname, It was born in Spain in the sixteenth centurywhile in the other Patronimic Vigevava countries in the other continental Europe. But it was an trick that did not change the patrilinear transmission of the surname to the following generations – questioned by the French Revolution, but then rehabilitated with the Restoration. Today in the world there are three attribution systems of the surname: unilateral (only one surname), bilateral – also widespread in Latin America – and liberally in force in the United States and England, which provides for total freedom in the assignment of the surname, which can also be invented.
Waiting for the law, In Italy several issues remain openfor example how to avoid multiplication of surnames from one generation to another, or how to proceed with children born before the law. Legislative and regulatory rules will be updated and, above all, custom. The road is long but, in the name of the father and mother, it is open.
(Image at the top: photo Istock)
